Yes.
Fully online LLM programs exist as a format — remote delivery of the LLM, the graduate law degree taken after a first degree in law.
What changes with the format is delivery and pace, and, for one use, bar eligibility: for internationally educated lawyers using the LLM toward the bar, eligibility is subject to each jurisdiction's rules, and New York's rule for foreign-educated lawyers leaves fully online LLMs outside the qualifying route.
Which LLMs are online?
An LLM — Master of Laws — is a graduate law degree, and per LSAC, the Law School Admission Council, its entry routes are set at the degree level: U.S. and Canadian students need a JD first, while international students need a first professional law degree, such as an LLB.
These are the routes for the LLM as a degree — programs can add application requirements of their own, so confirm the specifics with each program you are considering.
The format words carry different expectations, and the differences are program-level choices.
Fully online means no required campus attendance.
Hybrid mixes online study with on-site work.
Part-time spreads the coursework over more semesters than the full-time calendar — the pace to price if you would be studying alongside practice.
Treat concentration as a program-level choice too, rather than an online-versus-campus one — compare curricula school by school, whatever the delivery.
If you are still settling the degree itself — what it covers, what it builds on, what it costs to check — start with what an LLM is, which covers the credential from the beginning.
The rest of this page assumes the basics and works the format question.
The format fits a specific situation: you already hold the entry degree, you are working, and you want the credential without stepping off the job.
One use of the degree can still rule a program out, and it is not about convenience.
Bar eligibility — an internationally educated lawyer using the LLM toward admission — is where delivery format carries legal consequences in the rules we reviewed.
That case is the last section below.
Cost and length of online LLM programs
There is no one number to cite: our research holds no verified tuition figure for online LLM programs.
The numbers worth planning around are the ones in each program's own cost materials, compared line by line.
Length has the same shape.
The credit total and the time to completion are per-program numbers, and the timeline that matters to you is the one at the pace you would actually study — ask each program for its part-time timeline specifically, not just the full-time calendar on the brochure.
Structure can also be dictated from outside the school.
Bar-admission rules can set credit minimums, term lengths and completion windows for an LLM that is meant to count toward eligibility — New York's rule, covered next, is the clearest example.
If bar eligibility is anywhere in your plan, the jurisdiction's rule, not the brochure, sets the spec.
- Total tuition and fees, and anything that sits on top of tuition
- Price per credit if that is the model, and the total credits to graduate
- The part-time timeline at the pace you would actually study
- Whether any on-campus attendance is required, and how much
- Whether classes meet live at set times, and in which time zone
Ask your firm before you enroll
Do online LLMs count for foreign-lawyer bar eligibility?
Here the format stops being a preference.
LSAC notes that in some U.S. states, internationally educated lawyers who earn an LLM may become eligible to take the bar exam, subject to each jurisdiction's rules — and a jurisdiction's rule can reach down to how the coursework is delivered.
Two states whose rules are on record show the range.
New York is explicit.
Its rule for foreign-educated applicants, 22 NYCRR 520.6, qualifies applicants through a law degree from a common-law country substantially equivalent in duration to an ABA JD — and the rule states that “no credit shall be allowed for correspondence courses, on-line courses, courses offered on DVD or other media, or distance education courses.”
Where the foreign degree falls short, a qualifying LLM from an ABA-approved school can cure one gap: a durational one or a substantive one, but not both.
That qualifying LLM is defined tightly, and the definition is what rules the online format out: at least 24 credit hours over at least two semesters of 13 weeks, completed within 24 months, and — with limited exceptions — all coursework completed on the campus of an ABA-approved U.S. law school.
A fully online LLM therefore does not qualify a foreign lawyer for the New York bar.
The rule also fixes content: at least 2 credits in professional responsibility, 2 in legal research and writing, 2 in American legal studies, and 6 in New York bar-tested subjects.
California sets its own terms.
A non-admitted applicant with a foreign first degree in law must prove equivalence through a State Bar-approved credential evaluator and then complete a year of law study at an ABA-approved or California-accredited law school.
The State Bar of California's foreign-education materials in our research do not address how online coursework is treated for that year — so before an online LLM goes into your plan, get the answer from the State Bar of California itself.
California also has a route that skips the education step: anyone already fully admitted to practice in any U.S. or foreign jurisdiction qualifies to take the California Bar Exam without additional legal education.
If you hold a U.S. JD, the foreign-education rules above are not your admission step, so the format choice is a scheduling and cost decision, not an eligibility one.
The full walkthroughs live on their own pages: the New York bar exam for foreign lawyers covers 22 NYCRR 520.6's complete requirement set, the California bar exam for foreign lawyers covers both of California's eligibility routes, and LLM for foreign-trained lawyers covers choosing the program itself.
Confirm with the admitting authority before you enroll