The concept of the paper came from several years teaching online and classroom community college classes to paralegal and business students, plus my personal experience. Now that several states offer online CLE to their attorneys, and companies reward managers or key employees for continuing education in business or legal topics, why not combine these two groups with traditional community college students in one online class? The typical upper division paralegal class is 15 weeks, so separate sections were added for attorneys and workshops for workforce employees using Blackboard 6.0.

The paper also includes some design tips to make the class function properly. Since the majority of the students will be undergraduates the model forces all students to form teams to be used during the course for debate or research, and has heavy emphasis on discussions as a large part of their graded activity. Students are also encouraged to create a "digital portfolio" of their work as they progress through the course which would contain research memos, pleadings, Internet sites of interest, and tips on using web resources in the future for that topic.

The first course was Native American Law, and it was initially offered in summer 2003. A revised version is now active for fall 2004, but only to the paralegal students.

Guest access to the NAL class can be arranged for comment by the participants.