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The Lawyer’s Apprentice: How to Learn the Law Without Law School

82 points by e15ctr0n 12y ago

bmr 12y ago
Even kids who go to law school don't learn how to practice until they arrive at a firm, so this is not an obviously inferior method of training. If you aspire to BigLaw this will never get you there, but if you want to be a consumer-facing plaintiffs' lawyer (where the reality is that well-executed advertising probably beats a stellar education anyway) this might be a wise move.
SamReidHughes 12y ago
One time on "What's my Line?", a "federal prosecuting attorney" came on the show (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXjD7cMVJKg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXjD7cMVJKg) and was asked if you needed to be a college graduate to have the job she has. She answered "not necessarily". This is why, but after a conference with the host, the answer got changed to yes.
_delirium 12y ago
It's interesting how rare it is. Apparently an average of two people a year pass the bar via this route in California.
s_q_b 12y ago
I looked into doing this a few years back. Apprenticeship, or "reading the law," used to be a very common method of becoming an attorney.[0] However, state bar regulations standardization have removed this option in all but a few states. Which, quite frankly, is a shame. There are paralegals, clerks, etc. that could easily pass the bar. The states' that did away with such programs should reconsider, and the states that allow reading the law should loosen their "in-office" training requirements, primarily by allowing remote work. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_law EDIT: @Zany: Right, so test them using the bar.
- watwut 12y ago
  I checked this out and in-office trained would be layers tend to fail a lot: "61 percent of the 39,313 examinees from California- and ABA-approved law schools passed the bar. In contrast, just 26 percent of the 39 law readers who took the bar exam made the grade. (Of the 10 who passed, only 2 were first-time takers.)" It does not seem to be easy method at all. [1] https://www.callawyer.com/Clstory.cfm?eid=916106 https://www.callawyer.com/Clstory.cfm?eid=916106
  - jessaustin 12y ago
    I'm sure those who spent three years and $100k are encouraged that law school makes one twice as likely to pass the exam. The 39% who apparently can't pass the exam after all that are probably even more discouraged.
- asdfologist 12y ago
  It's quite ironic considering Abraham Lincoln was one such autodidact.
  - afarrell 12y ago
    More importantly, John Marshall was too.
- ZanyProgrammer 12y ago
  Though paralegals might only be experts in the area of law that the attorneys they work for specialize in. Very deep knowledge is possible by paralegals, but not for all parts of the law.
  - dllthomas 12y ago
    I'm not sure that's less true of attorneys. There's likely a statistical difference in typical depth and breadth, but you said "possible".
    - 12y ago
e15ctr0n 12y ago
A friend of mine just appeared for his New York Bar exam. He studied law full time at Columbia and was a top student there. He still spent 12-14 hours a day for 2 months preparing for bar exam because they don't teach you enough in law college to pass the bar exam. [Edit: Changed Princeton to Columbia.]
- s_q_b 12y ago
  Princeton doesn't have a law school. Maybe you're thinking of Columbia or Harvard?
  - e15ctr0n 12y ago
    Yes, you're right - it was Columbia. Sorry.
    - s_q_b 12y ago
      No worries, mate :) My sister does have a fake "Princeton Law" shirt though. You're also right about the bar. Everyone I know from top-tier law schools down to those at the lowest rung schools spent an extra several months at least in week-long marathon bar study sessions. Craziness, you would think passing the bar is something that ought to be taught in law school, not self-(re)learned prior to the test.
      - watwut 12y ago
        It is not self learned prior test. If you or I wanted to pass the bar, no way we could do it with just a few months of self study. It is years before that made them able to pass the bar with just a two months of learning. Theoretically, school could organize two months of sychronized revising and cramming, but I think that self revising is more effective at that age and skills level.
    - alkimie2 12y ago
      The same thing applies to studying for the patent bar. I don't know anyone who didn't take the patent bar review class (giant thing in giant halls with non-stop lectures with no questions please). Taught me what I needed to pass the damn thing when the passing rate was below 50% http://www.uspto.gov/ip/boards/oed/exam/past/results/ http://www.uspto.gov/ip/boards/oed/exam/past/results/
crazy1van 12y ago
It is disconcerting how difficult we've made it in America to practice law. The law is the cornerstone of our nation. It protects our rights. It compels behavior. It is how we as a nation formally decide allowed and prohibited behavior. And yet, you cannot professionally participate in the core of this system without years of school (or perhaps a long apprenticeship). This strikes me as a classic case of using licensing to keep out competition and keep wages high. Imagine how much worse off we'd be as a society if we required a similar system for professionally developing software.
- watwut 12y ago
  There is no shortage of lawyers in usa. America produce so many lawyers, that they have trouble to find work. Plus, there is no country in a world where law practice does not require years of study.
  - nandemo 12y ago
    In many countries (e.g. my home countries Brazil and Japan) you can get in law school like in any other major; no need to have a tertiary degree beforehand. The bar exams are still very hard, so it's not like lawyers aren't qualified.
  - gambiting 12y ago
    >>Plus, there is no country in a world where law practice does not require years of study. No, but there are many countries where getting a law degree(or any degree for that matter) doesn't cost you a dime, where you get out of uni with zero debt, not crippling few hundred thousand dollars to pay off.
    - watwut 12y ago
      No arguing with that, really. You are right.
- dinkumthinkum 12y ago
  Imagine how much worse we would be if we have unqualified lawyers and medical doctors. Hidden in every libertarian geek's logic when it comes to this is stuff is the implicit assumption that the world is is just teaming with autodidact geniuses that have no use schooling. It's fun to think but I don't think reality is cashed out in this way
clamprecht 12y ago
I think there may be a large pool of ex-prisoners who know the law very well. Many have worked as jailhouse lawyers, either on their own case, or fighting cases for others, for years, and have a very good real-world understanding of criminal law and sentencing. Many of them are good enough to write legal pleadings. The problem is, having a conviction, it's extremely hard, if not impossible, to become a lawyer in the US. The best they can hope for is to become a paralegal or research assistant.
rayiner 12y ago
I think people don't really understand the dynamics of the situation: > Without loans to pay back, she argues, lawyers won’t have to chase big paychecks or prestige with corporate clients and could instead work in nonprofit, environmental and community law. It's easier to get a job with a big paycheck at firm representing corporate clients than it is to get work at a nonprofit, environmental organization, or community organization with a small paycheck. The idea that graduates are shunning this sort of work in order to pursue big paychecks to pay off their law school debt is totally detached from reality. Public service jobs paying $40-60k/year are insanely competitive, and attract the top candidates that could easily get a job at a large firm if they wanted one. The basic problem is that these clients couldn't even afford a paralegal without donor funding, and that's a limited resource. There's a fundamental barrier at issue. For something to be affordable to the masses, it must be mass-produced. But legal services are by their nature individualized. Some inner city kid gets thrown in jail, some old lady gets kicked out of her apartment, some worker loses a hand because his employer cheaped out on safety equipment: what can you mass-produce to help these people?
- 616c 12y ago
  This is also compounded by the fact that, IIRC in some states and munis, the ultimate NGO job, public prosecutor, obsolves you of law school debt after a 5-10 year stint. I have heard these are super difficult to get, and it is considered more prestigious in some circles than the high paycheck jobs.
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  - e15ctr0n 12y ago
    Public prosecutors who become District / State Attorneys and acquire a high-profile can also go on to become Governor of the state [0]. Governors then get a chance to run for President. After retirement as President, you can pretty much write your own paycheck. The man to keep an eye on at the moment is Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York [1], who has taken on New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in a dogfight just 3 months before Cuomo seeks re-election [2]. Cuomo himself was a assistant district attorney in New York City before running for Governor [4]. [0] http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/ljs2010042201/ http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/ljs201... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preet_Bharara https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preet_Bharara [2] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/01/nyregion/cuomo-responding-to-us-attorney-seeks-to-justify-recent-contacts-with-corruption-panel.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/01/nyregion/cuomo-responding-... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Cuomo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Cuomo
igurari 12y ago
There are people in the tech community doing this. One of the co-founders of LegalZoom apprenticed under their GC, and our CTO (at Judicata) is apprenticing under a member of our legal team.
- e15ctr0n 12y ago
  Interesting. Did either clear their bar exam?
  - igurari 12y ago
    Eddie Hartman at LegalZoom did. Adam Hahn (my co-founder and CTO) is nearing the end of his first year and should. We have a tradition of doing Bar Exam questions at lunch and so he's got a lot of practice!
endzone 12y ago
it takes a minimum of seven years post secondary education to qualify as a lawyer in the us, and then you need to take the bar exam. contrast this with the uk system, where you either take an llb (perfect equivalent of a jd) as an undergraduate or a one year conversion course if you have an unrelated degree, and then a further year for the legal practice course. there is afaik no real preference for students with an llb - there is no pretence that a further two years of case reading (and drinking) has much professional value
- hacknat 12y ago
  American lawyers, once they are barred, can immediately go to the any court they are barred in. In England, it seems like it is quite the process before you are allowed to court. I assume that overall both Americans and Brits end up being similarly qualified. Americans just get more up front education before they get paid. Brits have to "pupil" with a barrister for a while before they can go to court; repeating myself, Americans have no such requirement.
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- rahimnathwani 12y ago
  IIRC it takes 6-7 years to become a lawyer in the UK. - 3 years undergrad law degree (or 3 year unrelated undergrad plus 1 year law conversion) - 1 year legal practice course - 2 years traineeship (working at a law firm) before the final exam to be a solicitor The process for a barrister is similar but not the same. I don't know what the restrictions are on what barristers can do that solicitors can't, and vice versa.
  - arethuza 12y ago
    Worth pointing at that there isn't a single legal system in the UK - Scotland's system is quite different at all levels from England & Wales (I have no idea about NI). In Scotland it is 4 years for an LLB (or 2 if you already have another degree), 1 year legal practice and 2 years traineeship - but there is no "final exam". Trainees can start appearing in court at a low level after 1 year. Fully qualified solicitors can appear in Sheriff Court. More serious stuff is dealt with in the Court of Session (civil) and High Court (criminal) - where you need to be an Advocate to appear - the Scots equivalent of barristers. You can be dual qualified as a solicitor and an advocate, although this is fairly rare. Advocates can't represent clients directly, only act on the instructions of solicitors, and solicitors can't appear in the higher courts. Qualifying as an advocate requires passing exams and then doing a period of devilling to qualified advocates (usually senior non-QCs) - during this time you are an "Advocates Devil" ;-)
soudan 12y ago
No reason it can't be done. Many self represented litigants are very capable and only learn what they need by reading case law online. It's much easier now than it was a hundred years ago because there's so much free legal commentary online.
- soudan 12y ago
  I also had a friend who learned the law this way in Winnipeg Canada for two years before "dropping out" to go into entertainment. The information he acquired during the two years ( during which time he was also paid) helped him during his subsequent and very successful career and there was no shame in dropping out,nor risk.
afarrell 12y ago
For people interested in learning more about the law without going to law school, The Illustrated Guide to the Law (http://lawcomic.net/ http://lawcomic.net/) is a great resource. It is drawn by a former NYC prosecutor and current defense attorney. He's gone through the intro to criminal law and is on criminal procedure, specifically the 5th amendment implications for custodial interrogation. He seems to be having server issues right now though :/ http://thecriminallawyer.tumblr.com/page/5 http://thecriminallawyer.tumblr.com/page/5 has some of his sketches though.
digita88 12y ago
Glad I decided not to go to law school!

82 points by e15ctr0n 12y ago

bmr 12y ago

Even kids who go to law school don't learn how to practice until they arrive at a firm, so this is not an obviously inferior method of training. If you aspire to BigLaw this will never get you there, but if you want to be a consumer-facing plaintiffs' lawyer (where the reality is that well-executed advertising probably beats a stellar education anyway) this might be a wise move.

SamReidHughes 12y ago

One time on "What's my Line?", a "federal prosecuting attorney" came on the show (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXjD7cMVJKg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXjD7cMVJKg) and was asked if you needed to be a college graduate to have the job she has. She answered "not necessarily". This is why, but after a conference with the host, the answer got changed to yes.

_delirium 12y ago

It's interesting how rare it is. Apparently an average of two people a year pass the bar via this route in California.

s_q_b 12y ago

I looked into doing this a few years back. Apprenticeship, or "reading the law," used to be a very common method of becoming an attorney.[0] However, state bar regulations standardization have removed this option in all but a few states. Which, quite frankly, is a shame. There are paralegals, clerks, etc. that could easily pass the bar. The states' that did away with such programs should reconsider, and the states that allow reading the law should loosen their "in-office" training requirements, primarily by allowing remote work. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_law EDIT: @Zany: Right, so test them using the bar.

watwut 12y ago
I checked this out and in-office trained would be layers tend to fail a lot: "61 percent of the 39,313 examinees from California- and ABA-approved law schools passed the bar. In contrast, just 26 percent of the 39 law readers who took the bar exam made the grade. (Of the 10 who passed, only 2 were first-time takers.)" It does not seem to be easy method at all. [1] https://www.callawyer.com/Clstory.cfm?eid=916106 https://www.callawyer.com/Clstory.cfm?eid=916106
- jessaustin 12y ago
  I'm sure those who spent three years and $100k are encouraged that law school makes one twice as likely to pass the exam. The 39% who apparently can't pass the exam after all that are probably even more discouraged.
asdfologist 12y ago
It's quite ironic considering Abraham Lincoln was one such autodidact.
- afarrell 12y ago
  More importantly, John Marshall was too.
ZanyProgrammer 12y ago
Though paralegals might only be experts in the area of law that the attorneys they work for specialize in. Very deep knowledge is possible by paralegals, but not for all parts of the law.
- dllthomas 12y ago
  I'm not sure that's less true of attorneys. There's likely a statistical difference in typical depth and breadth, but you said "possible".
  - 12y ago

e15ctr0n 12y ago

A friend of mine just appeared for his New York Bar exam. He studied law full time at Columbia and was a top student there. He still spent 12-14 hours a day for 2 months preparing for bar exam because they don't teach you enough in law college to pass the bar exam. [Edit: Changed Princeton to Columbia.]

s_q_b 12y ago
Princeton doesn't have a law school. Maybe you're thinking of Columbia or Harvard?
- e15ctr0n 12y ago
  Yes, you're right - it was Columbia. Sorry.
  - s_q_b 12y ago
    No worries, mate :) My sister does have a fake "Princeton Law" shirt though. You're also right about the bar. Everyone I know from top-tier law schools down to those at the lowest rung schools spent an extra several months at least in week-long marathon bar study sessions. Craziness, you would think passing the bar is something that ought to be taught in law school, not self-(re)learned prior to the test.
    - watwut 12y ago
      It is not self learned prior test. If you or I wanted to pass the bar, no way we could do it with just a few months of self study. It is years before that made them able to pass the bar with just a two months of learning. Theoretically, school could organize two months of sychronized revising and cramming, but I think that self revising is more effective at that age and skills level.
  - alkimie2 12y ago
    The same thing applies to studying for the patent bar. I don't know anyone who didn't take the patent bar review class (giant thing in giant halls with non-stop lectures with no questions please). Taught me what I needed to pass the damn thing when the passing rate was below 50% http://www.uspto.gov/ip/boards/oed/exam/past/results/ http://www.uspto.gov/ip/boards/oed/exam/past/results/

crazy1van 12y ago

It is disconcerting how difficult we've made it in America to practice law. The law is the cornerstone of our nation. It protects our rights. It compels behavior. It is how we as a nation formally decide allowed and prohibited behavior. And yet, you cannot professionally participate in the core of this system without years of school (or perhaps a long apprenticeship). This strikes me as a classic case of using licensing to keep out competition and keep wages high. Imagine how much worse off we'd be as a society if we required a similar system for professionally developing software.

watwut 12y ago
There is no shortage of lawyers in usa. America produce so many lawyers, that they have trouble to find work. Plus, there is no country in a world where law practice does not require years of study.
- nandemo 12y ago
  In many countries (e.g. my home countries Brazil and Japan) you can get in law school like in any other major; no need to have a tertiary degree beforehand. The bar exams are still very hard, so it's not like lawyers aren't qualified.
- gambiting 12y ago
  >>Plus, there is no country in a world where law practice does not require years of study. No, but there are many countries where getting a law degree(or any degree for that matter) doesn't cost you a dime, where you get out of uni with zero debt, not crippling few hundred thousand dollars to pay off.
  - watwut 12y ago
    No arguing with that, really. You are right.
dinkumthinkum 12y ago
Imagine how much worse we would be if we have unqualified lawyers and medical doctors. Hidden in every libertarian geek's logic when it comes to this is stuff is the implicit assumption that the world is is just teaming with autodidact geniuses that have no use schooling. It's fun to think but I don't think reality is cashed out in this way

clamprecht 12y ago

I think there may be a large pool of ex-prisoners who know the law very well. Many have worked as jailhouse lawyers, either on their own case, or fighting cases for others, for years, and have a very good real-world understanding of criminal law and sentencing. Many of them are good enough to write legal pleadings. The problem is, having a conviction, it's extremely hard, if not impossible, to become a lawyer in the US. The best they can hope for is to become a paralegal or research assistant.

rayiner 12y ago

I think people don't really understand the dynamics of the situation: > Without loans to pay back, she argues, lawyers won’t have to chase big paychecks or prestige with corporate clients and could instead work in nonprofit, environmental and community law. It's easier to get a job with a big paycheck at firm representing corporate clients than it is to get work at a nonprofit, environmental organization, or community organization with a small paycheck. The idea that graduates are shunning this sort of work in order to pursue big paychecks to pay off their law school debt is totally detached from reality. Public service jobs paying $40-60k/year are insanely competitive, and attract the top candidates that could easily get a job at a large firm if they wanted one. The basic problem is that these clients couldn't even afford a paralegal without donor funding, and that's a limited resource. There's a fundamental barrier at issue. For something to be affordable to the masses, it must be mass-produced. But legal services are by their nature individualized. Some inner city kid gets thrown in jail, some old lady gets kicked out of her apartment, some worker loses a hand because his employer cheaped out on safety equipment: what can you mass-produce to help these people?

616c 12y ago
This is also compounded by the fact that, IIRC in some states and munis, the ultimate NGO job, public prosecutor, obsolves you of law school debt after a 5-10 year stint. I have heard these are super difficult to get, and it is considered more prestigious in some circles than the high paycheck jobs.
- deleted 12y ago
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- deleted 12y ago
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- e15ctr0n 12y ago
  Public prosecutors who become District / State Attorneys and acquire a high-profile can also go on to become Governor of the state [0]. Governors then get a chance to run for President. After retirement as President, you can pretty much write your own paycheck. The man to keep an eye on at the moment is Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York [1], who has taken on New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in a dogfight just 3 months before Cuomo seeks re-election [2]. Cuomo himself was a assistant district attorney in New York City before running for Governor [4]. [0] http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/ljs2010042201/ http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/ljs201... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preet_Bharara https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preet_Bharara [2] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/01/nyregion/cuomo-responding-to-us-attorney-seeks-to-justify-recent-contacts-with-corruption-panel.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/01/nyregion/cuomo-responding-... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Cuomo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Cuomo

igurari 12y ago

There are people in the tech community doing this. One of the co-founders of LegalZoom apprenticed under their GC, and our CTO (at Judicata) is apprenticing under a member of our legal team.

e15ctr0n 12y ago
Interesting. Did either clear their bar exam?
- igurari 12y ago
  Eddie Hartman at LegalZoom did. Adam Hahn (my co-founder and CTO) is nearing the end of his first year and should. We have a tradition of doing Bar Exam questions at lunch and so he's got a lot of practice!

endzone 12y ago

it takes a minimum of seven years post secondary education to qualify as a lawyer in the us, and then you need to take the bar exam. contrast this with the uk system, where you either take an llb (perfect equivalent of a jd) as an undergraduate or a one year conversion course if you have an unrelated degree, and then a further year for the legal practice course. there is afaik no real preference for students with an llb - there is no pretence that a further two years of case reading (and drinking) has much professional value

hacknat 12y ago
American lawyers, once they are barred, can immediately go to the any court they are barred in. In England, it seems like it is quite the process before you are allowed to court. I assume that overall both Americans and Brits end up being similarly qualified. Americans just get more up front education before they get paid. Brits have to "pupil" with a barrister for a while before they can go to court; repeating myself, Americans have no such requirement.
- deleted 12y ago
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deleted 12y ago
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rahimnathwani 12y ago
IIRC it takes 6-7 years to become a lawyer in the UK. - 3 years undergrad law degree (or 3 year unrelated undergrad plus 1 year law conversion) - 1 year legal practice course - 2 years traineeship (working at a law firm) before the final exam to be a solicitor The process for a barrister is similar but not the same. I don't know what the restrictions are on what barristers can do that solicitors can't, and vice versa.
- arethuza 12y ago
  Worth pointing at that there isn't a single legal system in the UK - Scotland's system is quite different at all levels from England & Wales (I have no idea about NI). In Scotland it is 4 years for an LLB (or 2 if you already have another degree), 1 year legal practice and 2 years traineeship - but there is no "final exam". Trainees can start appearing in court at a low level after 1 year. Fully qualified solicitors can appear in Sheriff Court. More serious stuff is dealt with in the Court of Session (civil) and High Court (criminal) - where you need to be an Advocate to appear - the Scots equivalent of barristers. You can be dual qualified as a solicitor and an advocate, although this is fairly rare. Advocates can't represent clients directly, only act on the instructions of solicitors, and solicitors can't appear in the higher courts. Qualifying as an advocate requires passing exams and then doing a period of devilling to qualified advocates (usually senior non-QCs) - during this time you are an "Advocates Devil" ;-)

soudan 12y ago

No reason it can't be done. Many self represented litigants are very capable and only learn what they need by reading case law online. It's much easier now than it was a hundred years ago because there's so much free legal commentary online.

soudan 12y ago
I also had a friend who learned the law this way in Winnipeg Canada for two years before "dropping out" to go into entertainment. The information he acquired during the two years ( during which time he was also paid) helped him during his subsequent and very successful career and there was no shame in dropping out,nor risk.

afarrell 12y ago

For people interested in learning more about the law without going to law school, The Illustrated Guide to the Law (http://lawcomic.net/ http://lawcomic.net/) is a great resource. It is drawn by a former NYC prosecutor and current defense attorney. He's gone through the intro to criminal law and is on criminal procedure, specifically the 5th amendment implications for custodial interrogation. He seems to be having server issues right now though :/ http://thecriminallawyer.tumblr.com/page/5 http://thecriminallawyer.tumblr.com/page/5 has some of his sketches though.

digita88 12y ago

Glad I decided not to go to law school!