Welcome to the website for the online LL.M. Program in Estate Planning and Elder Law at Western New England College School of Law. I am pleased to introduce to you our innovative graduate program in estate planning.
We offer the only live, interactive online program in both Estate Planning and Elder Law in the country. Our online program removes the barriers of distance to make the program available to students throughout the United States. This approach to distance learning provides unprecedented interaction with classmates and faculty, bringing the immediacy of the classroom experience directly to your home, office, or wherever you may travel.
All courses are live and taught through the use of virtual classrooms over the Internet. In other words, the classes are in real-time. Since we are employing a live synchronous system, the professor and the students meet at the same time but not in the same place. With this synchronous system, the professor and students can engage in active classroom discussions. The classroom is equipped with a whiteboard on which the professor can write. The professor can also place Powerpoints and other visual aids on the screen for the students to review and discuss. Each student is supplied with a headset and microphone so that he/she can actively participate in classroom discussions. As an added feature, both the video and audio of all of our online classes are recorded. If a student has to miss a class, the student can listen to the recorded class.
Any attorney whose practice includes planning for the intergenerational transfer of wealth must have extensive knowledge of and training in a number of diverse areas of law, including wills and trusts, estate and fiduciary administration, income taxation, federal wealth transfer taxation, and the use of various entities and products (particularly trusts and insurance products) in wealth planning and management. An attorney who represents elderly clients must also develop expertise in social security law, Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal and state laws and regulations that directly affect these clients.
We have designed our LL.M. Program in Estate Planning and Elder Law to teach the practical aspects of drafting estate plans, administering the settlement of estates, and representing elderly clients and their families. As a final project, every student will design and draft a comprehensive estate plan under the supervision of an experienced estate planner. I invite you to review our skill-oriented curriculum. Please visit our LL.M. Course Descriptions page to learn more about each specific course.
I urge you to view the other pages of our LL.M website to find out more about our new and distinctive online program. I also invite you to contact me for more information. I would be pleased to discuss our program with you. My address is:
Professor Frederick D. Royal
Director of LL.M. Program in Estate Planning and Elder Law
Western New England College School of Law
1215 Wilbraham Road Springfield, MA 01119-2684
Telephone: (413) 782-1422
Fax: (413) 796-2067
Email: froyal@law.wnec.edu