
The Lawyer’s Apprentice: How to Learn the Law Without Law School - e15ctr0n
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/03/education/edlife/how-to-learn-the-law-without-law-school.html
======
rayiner
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
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.

~~~
e15ctr0n
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/ljs201...](http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/ljs2010042201/)

[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-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/01/nyregion/cuomo-responding-
to-us-attorney-seeks-to-justify-recent-contacts-with-corruption-panel.html)

[4]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Cuomo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Cuomo)

~~~
frandroid
Ipso facto, public prosecution is a good career choice, since you can become
President. _headdesk_

~~~
e15ctr0n
My point is that for an ambitious and talented person, public prosecution can
become the first step on a long ladder to success in public service, which
compensates for the lack of an immediate big paycheck at a private law firm.
You could stop banging your head, look around you and count how many
Presidents were Governors earlier and public prosecutors even earlier than
that.

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s_q_b
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.

~~~
ZanyProgrammer
I don't disagree with you, but a paralegal working in criminal law for the
past 20 years may not be up to snuff on probate or tax law.

I think the solution is to drastically scale back the number of newly minted
JDs (there's a vast oversupply of lawyers) as well at the same time reduce law
school to 2 years.

~~~
rahimnathwani
How do you scale back the number of newly minted JDs? Do you prevent some
capable people who want to be lawyers, from becoming lawyers?

Do you support the taxi medallion system, on the basis that it prevents there
from being too many taxis?

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crazy1van
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
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.

~~~
gambiting
>>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
No arguing with that, really. You are right.

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SamReidHughes
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.

------
clamprecht
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.

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

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e15ctr0n
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
Princeton doesn't have a law school. Maybe you're thinking of Columbia or
Harvard?

~~~
e15ctr0n
Yes, you're right - it was Columbia. Sorry.

~~~
s_q_b
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
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.

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afarrell
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.

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igurari
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
Interesting. Did either clear their bar exam?

~~~
igurari
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!

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bmr
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.

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soudan
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
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.

------
endzone
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

~~~
rahimnathwani
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
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" ;-)

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digita88
Glad I decided not to go to law school!

