Looks like the idea of accelerated degrees has caught on in the law world.

Strange how undergraduate programs remain four years while schools where you actually learn things get more and more abbreviated. In any case, law school, which I would hope teaches people things, is getting shorter. Northwestern Law will begin offering a 2 year-only law program beginning in 2009, joining just two other schools (and no top tier schools) in offering an accelerated program. As the WSJ Law Blog reports, it doesn’t appear that you save any money.

25-60 candidates will be in the accelerated program, and are expected to take the same number of credits are regular students. The target candidates of this type of program must have at least two years of work experience (80 percent of the school’s law students already have two or more years), according to the press release.

Students would begin interviewing for their all important summer associate jobs after one semester, according to Law.com. Commented Lee Miller, co-chief executive of DLA Piper, who told Law.com that the firm worked with Northwestern to develop it’s “Plan 2008″ (a larger strategy to modify the law school program):”It’s tricky … Sure, it would be better to have more grades, but law firms have got to roll with the punches.”

Northwestern’s b-school brudda, Kellogg, already offers a one-year MBA, and is really the only top-tier school in the US that offers a one-year program. Typically it accepts about 70-80 students per year. Of the other higher-rated business schools, there’s also the INSEAD program, the Judge Business School at Cambridge, the International MBA from the Instituto de Empresa, the Said Business School at the University of Oxford, and Cornell’s Johnson school.