Becoming a Lawyer Without Going to Law School (2015)
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Becoming a Lawyer Without Going to Law School (2015)
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Re: Becoming a Lawyer Without Going to Law School (2015)
#2Apprenticeships seem to have been very common up until very recently. They offered an alternative path to college, which for many leads to insurmountable debt and poor job prospects. Who is the largest holder of student debt in the United States? The answer to that question explains why apprenticeships and trade schools are not promoted.
Re: Becoming a Lawyer Without Going to Law School (2015)
#3I've always felt if you can pass a notoriously hard Bar Examination, like the CA Bar; you should be allowed to practice law.
(Maybe require a few ethics's classes, after a passing grade?)
Re: Becoming a Lawyer Without Going to Law School (2015)
#4Apprenticeships seem to have been very common up until very recently. They offered an alternative path to college, which for many leads to insurmountable debt and poor job prospects. Who is the largest holder of student debt in the United States? The answer to that question explains why apprenticeships and trade schools are not promoted.
> Who is the largest holder of student debt in the United States? The answer to that question explains why apprenticeships and trade schools are not promoted.
Could you spell this out for us? Who hold the largest debt? And promoted by whom?
Re: Becoming a Lawyer Without Going to Law School (2015)
#5I've always felt if you can pass a notoriously hard Bar Examination, like the CA Bar; you should be allowed to practice law. (Maybe require a few ethics's classes, after a passing grade?)
I've just started reading Robert Caro's "Path to Power", and LBJ's father took exactly this route to become a teacher:
"He had to quit going to high school because of health problems, and his parents sent him to live on his uncle Lucius Bunton's ranch in Presidio County, Texas for several months.[3] When he returned home, Johnson had ambitions to become a teacher; however, the Texas hill country at that time had no state-accredited high schools and no colleges. He learned that he could get a state-issued teaching certificate without finishing high school by passing a state examination.[3] In 1896, with the thirteen textbooks he needed to study for the exam, he moved to his retired grandfather's nearby home to study in quiet.[4]"
Re: Becoming a Lawyer Without Going to Law School (2015)
#6I've always felt if you can pass a notoriously hard Bar Examination, like the CA Bar; you should be allowed to practice law. (Maybe require a few ethics's classes, after a passing grade?)
Same as in land surveying or any other discipline that requires state licensure. Some surveyors do have civil engineering or geomatics/geodesy degrees, but you certainly don't have to obtain one to practice surveying (state law varies). What's important is that you have field experience under the direct supervision of a PLS and can pass a very rigorous licensure exam that includes demonstrating a deep knowledge of property/boundary law, trigonometry, and calculus. There's no question about your competence if you can pass a PLS exam.
Re: Becoming a Lawyer Without Going to Law School (2015)
#7Lawyers currently have one of the most bi-modal salary distributions of any profession. It seems to me that for folks who want to enter the profession doing low pay work that this should be a more supported and common path as law school is a ridiculous choice for someone who is going to make less than a teacher for the rest of their life. I’ve known a handful of public defenders in my time and almost all of them had some form of alternative support (usually rich spouse or parents).
Additionally, the UK has a hybrid system that seems to work well, and they also have two types of lawyers: barristers and solicitors. From what I understand it’s easier to become a solicitor, but your mostly doing small cases and family law and can only argue before certain courts. Barristers have a more arduous path, take more serious cases, and can argue cases in the higher courts. Seems like we could adopt a similar system (though it’s probably too late at this point).
Re: Becoming a Lawyer Without Going to Law School (2015)
#8While becoming a lawyer without going to law school, I exonerated an innocent man who was serving life in prison for murder.
That man was put behind bars by an incompetent prosecutor... who had become a lawyer without going to law school.
(Seriously.)
Re: Becoming a Lawyer Without Going to Law School (2015)
#9That is something I've dream of but in California that is not possible from the research I've done. I live in Los Angeles county. If someone knows something otherwise please let me know. Thanks Rich
Re: Becoming a Lawyer Without Going to Law School (2015)
#10My cousin, who is a former K St lawyer, told me about how in the 80s(?), Texas passed a law that allowed people who fit very narrow requirements to take the bar exam without attending law school. One high profile businessman passed the bar exam this way.
So.. If you want to skip law school, have one of your legislator cronies slip in a law school loophole in a bill.
Non-lawyers are allowed to take the patent bar exam. It's the same exam IP attorneys take, except if you pass you cannot call yourself a patent attorney without a law degree. You get the designation of patent agent. That's what I plan to do- become one of the few licensed engineers that has also passed the patent bar.