This comes up almost every time someone questions the need for full medical or law school. There is a middle ground. I personally would support multiple paths

This comes up almost every time someone questions the need for full medical or law school. There is a middle ground. I personally would support multiple paths to the bar (and to medical practice). I read (and kind of enjoyed) Milton Friedman's "abolish the AMA", but I wouldn't really go that far. I do, however, think that the AMA and ABA exercise far too much power to deny others there right to practice, and I think it's healthy to have more than one path. For instance, I recently read about a seismic engineer who attended an on-line law school (Kaplan - the article was in us news). He will take over as corporate council for his engineering firm, but he will have to take the bar in California. All other states (minor hand waving here) ban pure online law degrees. It sounds like a reasonably rigorous degree (4 years, many hours of study, interaction with students and professors), and he had to pass the bar. How could the public interest possibly be served by preventing this guy from practice? What 25 year old history major from a 4th tier law school is denied a job because a mid career seismic engineer was allowed to join the bar? I also think that law is particularly unique in that it regulates almost every element of society. People talk about "broad liberal arts educations", but I think most pre-law students are pretty narrowly educated (they tend to avoid math heavy majors, and go straight to law school, never really understanding how other fields work). I think that the ban on on-line learning, combined with an unnecessarily long degree may actually prevent the best people from becoming lawyers - in short, rather than ensuring quality, it may simply ensure a myopic profession that still goes out and regulates everybody else. Would someone with a grad degree from a strong program in engineering or CS and accelerated one year law degree who passed the bar be a threat to the public? Personally, I'd much rather hire someone who majored in a very rigorous undergrad field (with humanities coursework as well) and got a grad degree from a top school plus an accelerated law degree than a b- history major who partied his way through a mediocre 3 year jd and barely passed the bar. I also don't think that these two groups would compete for the same jobs. At the very least, I'd say people should have the option of pursing (and hiring people who pursued) other paths.