
How to Be a Lawyer Without Going to Law School - baazaar
http://priceonomics.com/how-to-be-a-lawyer-without-going-to-law-school/
======
grellas
U.S. law is primarily based on a combination of judicial, legislative, and
constitutional structures that effectively prescribe rules for ordering the
formal and prescriptive aspects of society. These structures are spread over
three layers: federal, state, local.

The federal constitution defines the broadest formal structure to which all
the rest must conform: it defines what powers and limitations apply to the
national government (consisting of three co-equal branches) and leaves scope
for state and local governments to function within their own realms of
sovereignty and to define the rules by which they do so. In theory, federal
sovereignty is strictly limited and any powers not expressly given to the
federal authority by the constitution are reserved to the states. Within the
scope of its express powers, the federal authority can but need not preempt
all state and local law. States in turn have their own constitutions and these
provide that state law can but need not preempt local laws. Where laws are not
preempted, they can peacefully co-exist in a way that, in the aggregate,
defines the broad scope of the American law as a whole.

Within this broad framework, you have the legislative, the judiciary, and the
executive functions (again, existing in separate forms at the federal, state,
and local levels). The legislature enacts statutes that set forth formal rules
governing this or that in society, taken as a class. Courts decide particular
cases and controversies and publish decisions that in turn can become binding
law as precedents commensurate with the scope of authority vested in the court
deciding the case (with decisions of the highest courts, e.g., the U.S.
Supreme Court, having potential binding effect on the entire nation and with
decisions of other appellate courts, both federal and state, having important
but more restricted binding effect) and also interpret the meaning of
legislative enactments as disputes arise as to their particular meaning in a
given case or controversy. Legislative enactments can also set up
administrative agencies that have full authority to administer a particular
statutory scheme (e.g., the Federal Communications Act sets up the F.C.C.,
which has plenary authority to determine how the statutory scheme is
implemented as defined by what Congress intended in enacting the statute).

To be a good U.S. lawyer, you need to be well educated and trained to function
within this system. This means having a good logical mind that is able to
understand and sort through the various formal systems and layers of law, to
understand what they each mean, to understand how they relate to each other,
and (most important) to discern how all of these apply to and affect any
particular case (either in structuring a transaction or fighting a dispute).
This, by the way, is why it is so difficult and even potentially treacherous
for those who have not been so trained to read a few "rules" and just assume
they know what they are doing in concluding that, because of this or that
rule, this or that must follow. That approach can work well for many
situations but can get you into big trouble if you are missing key pieces that
might also apply to the particular situation and that you simply do not see
(or do not appreciate the effect of). This is also why law has been so
stubbornly resistant to the idea of being reduced to algorithmic solutions
along engineering lines. Law certainly does have its patterns and can be
reduced to algorithmic solutions in discrete areas but trying to do so across
the spectrum of the different layers of sovereignty, the spectrum of
legislative enactments and judicial decisions, and byzantine areas of
administrative law (e.g., U.S. Tax Code regulations) is a difficult task of a
very tall order.

In my day at law school (late 1970s - and I believe it is broadly similar
today), American law schools primarily used the "case system" as the preferred
approach to teaching students to learn to "think like a lawyer." In other
words, you learned very little about the actual day-to-day practice of law but
you studied intensely to learn all the formal structures and to read through,
analyze, and master appellate level case law interpreting and applying that
law in the form of particular cases and controversies. As a given important
case would be decided, you would learn the legal principles it expounded,
whether it was about tort law, contract law, real property law, criminal law,
or whatever.

Back in that day, law schools would also offer limited offerings focusing on a
few important legislative schemes and also giving very limited opportunities
to do short internships giving some practical experience.

In general, what all this meant was that good law school graduates would
master the formal aspects of the law and would be let loose into the real
world knowing very little about how any of it actually worked.

Once you passed the bar exam and began actual real-world practice, it would
typically take a full year or two before you could anything that resembled
efficient practice, another couple of years before you learned to handle
relatively simple things both competently and efficiently, and another several
years before you could learn to do all of the above and, in addition, learn to
think strategically. When you can finally do all of this, you are functioning
at partner level.

In essence, then, all that I have described in the immediately preceding
paragraph, is effectively a true apprenticeship. And this is a _huge_ part of
becoming a good lawyer.

Can you skip the formal education and still become a good or even a great
lawyer? Absolutely. Is it easy to do? No, it is very difficult and that is the
advantage of the formal education via law school. In essence, what you are
buying through a good law education is (one hopes) expert guidance through a
complicated thicket. It helps you focus and also learn through lectures what
academics can teach about the fascination of legal logic. This does not always
work well but, in really good law school, it does and it helps a lot. Is it
indispensable? Not at all. There are many gifted people who have the right
aptitude and can bypass the formal education without any detriment whatever.
If they are properly apprenticed, they can learn all that is necessary in a
real-world environment and supplement this with independent study. Strong
auto-didactic skills are very much needed here. But with that, and a good
mentor, you can master the practice of law without problem. After all, the
vast bulk of what most formally educated lawyers learn is also through the
apprenticeship part of their training. So, in important ways, the different
paths do overlap.

Is it easy to market what you do having gone the pure apprenticeship route? I
would say that, here as well, there are significant difficulties. It can be
done but likely only if you are good enough to make a mark with clients while
serving as an apprentice and thereby building a reputation such that clients
will overlook the lack of a formal law school education. This works better in
specialty fields than in others.

Am I saying the law school approach is better? It probably is and it certainly
is a lot easier. But I am all for the apprenticeship approach for those who
have the skill and the aptitude. There is enough of the guild system built
into American legal systems and anything that gives people more choices is to
be welcomed.

~~~
kemitchell
Thank you very much for writing this post! If you could spare even a few more
keystrokes, I would be very grateful to read your view of the bar exam and its
effect on the overall picture.

~~~
grellas
The bar exam can be a useful screening mechanism for testing a candidate's
formal knowledge of any given state's laws and for measuring that candidate's
ability to apply such knowledge to hypothetical situations (thus testing
analytical and logical skills as well).

This obviously has an important bearing on whether someone is competent to
practice law and that is why such exams are universally used as a minimal
condition for entering the profession.

That said, the tests are in some respects arbitrary in that they fail to test
for a wide variety of other traits that qualify one for practicing law, they
fail miserably to screen many who do prove to be utterly incompetent
practitioners, they bar others from practicing who in fact would be very able
practitioners but who cannot pass the formal testing mechanism, and they limit
the supply of legal services available to those who are least able to afford
them, thus serving as an integral part of a guild system that may be seriously
outdated in a modern world in which technology might be better able to be used
to help people in legal matters if such barriers did not exist.

In other words, bar exams are all good in theory but in many ways serve to do
more harm than good in limiting the potential for how legal services might
ideally be provided now that the technical means are there for better
standardizing them and for more efficiently delivering them. I don't believe
this will change any time soon but who knows? Frustrations with the legal
profession abound and maybe someday some of these guild-related elements will
be re-examined. But I am not holding my breath.

------
geebee
I can see why this topic is interesting to people on Hacker News, because
"self-study" is not just an option in software development, it's really the
only way. Yeah, a lot of us have CS degrees or degrees in related fields, but
in the end, you have to read, absorb, prototype, evaluate, adopt, or reject
thousands of pages of dense material every year to stay current.

I really do think that software developers may be unusually well prepared to
study law this way, because developers really are accustomed to massive
amounts of self-directed learning.

~~~
nmrm2
_> Yeah, a lot of us have CS degrees or degrees in related fields, but in the
end, you have to read, absorb, prototype, evaluate, adopt, or reject thousands
of pages of dense material every year to stay current_

So do most practitioners in careers that are typically associated with or
require a university degree: actuaries, accountants, engineers, lawyers,
doctors, teachers, etc. all have to stay current with their respective fields
and do so primarily through self-study.

Of course there exist people in all of those careers who don't. But the same
is true in software.

~~~
HillaryBriss
A missing ingredient in Software Development and CS work is credentialism.
There's no software "Bar Exam" you must pass before you are legally allowed to
offer your services.

And there's no "Supreme Court of Coding" either.

But there absolutely should be both.

Programming is littered with people "just trying things" and "hacking" and
other crudities like "experimentation" and "exploration."

We need regulation, regimentation and a predictable level of service.

You should also be required to obtain a license (after a 90 day waiting
period) for each computer you own, even if it's not going to be used for
programming.

It's the only way we can reduce the number of data breaches and crashes.

~~~
snowwrestler
While the bar exam enforces a certain quality of knowledge, it also enforces
breadth. Every lawyer in a given jurisdiction takes the same bar exam, and it
covers all aspects of the law.

The programming equivalent would be like forcing coders to demonstrate
competency in everything from embedded systems programming to OS development
to packaged application to web back-end, to web front-end, mobile apps,
algorithms, networking, language design, compiler optimization, etc.

The way it works now, coders can specialize and that makes it easier to self-
study. Learning all about web front-end dev is a lot easier then learning
about every type of programming there is.

If you want credentialling, it would have to be more like medicine, where
people have to pass the boards in their specialty only.

~~~
unimpressive
I think you've fallen victim to poe's law. In fairness the parent comment gave
few enough hints at satire that I'll need to see the author confirm they did
or didn't mean it before I'm convinced either way.

~~~
HillaryBriss
Thank you for the feedback. I was attempting sarcasm.

My hope was that the line "It's the only way we can reduce the number of data
breaches and crashes" would seem immediately ridiculous to everyone.

Given the history of surprising security bugs in mature code being discovered
by a decentralized collection of users and hackers over long periods of time
-- a phenomenon we've all witnessed over the years -- I figured the notion
that a slow-moving, bureaucratic supreme panel of code judges effectively and
decisively removing security problems basically didn't make sense.

I don't know now. Maybe it makes more sense than I thought.

~~~
snowwrestler
I think most programmers today take it on faith that the lightly regulated,
free wheeling nature of programming is an inherent, unchangeable, and
desirable state.

But if you look back at the history of highly-regulated technology industries,
every single one started out lightly regulated and free wheeling. Early
railroad, automobile, oil drilling, aviation, and telecommunication companies
(to name a few) were all full of self-taught innovators who wanted to move
fast and disrupt things.

As software eats the world, the world will become less and less tolerant of
shitty software. I will not be surprised at all to see demand for
credentialling and oversight grow even in the next 10 years.

------
ddingus
I had a great experience with one of these types. He worked bagging groceries
while perusing his apprenticeship and passed the bar with high marks. I asked
him why, and he said he loves the law and did not want to be as financially
committed as so many were.

He also decided to laser focus on a couple of common aspects of law and
absolutely nail them.

Often, when I'm going to use a professional of some sort, I will ask them
about their journey to practice whatever it is they do. Many have a quick
statement you can tell they have prepped to dispense with it all efficiently.

No worries, I value my time too.

Of course, many ask because they feel they should. But, some ask out of a more
genuine interest, and that is me.

This guy told me all about his journey, and I could feel it. He is doing
something he feels something for and he wants to do it well. Love it. I know
exactly who I am dealing with and what to expect. I can trust the intent too,
which is important. Money is nice, but you can't buy well directed passion.

In my experience, professionals who can pick up on that interest and have a
real dialog are some of the best to work with. Not that the others aren't. It
is just easier to figure someone out and work well, trust and value them when
they can or will share on a more real, basic level.

To me, it seems there should be a path for people like this. They often know
what they want and they feel what they need to in order to honor whatever it
is.

Filtering that out is what organizations like the ABA, AMA, etc... do. And we
need them to do that for us too. No argument.

But, doing that does conflict with maximizing self directed people, and I get
it. They paid, and shouldn't everyone who is serious?

No, frankly. And there is the rub.

Software is one area where these people often and frequently do shine bright.
Arguably, we are better for that.

Not everyone can or will pay. To me, having some intrinsic drive is worth a
lot.

------
unimpressive
>While bar exam pass rates in other states range from 18% to 33%, Washington
state has a surprisingly high pass rate, at 56%. Washington’s state bar, more
than any other state’s, provides extensive support for students who choose to
apprentice, including a volunteer network who sets study standards and monitor
progress. Last year, these resources resulted in 67% of Washington apprentices
passing the bar exam, nearly as high as those who graduated from ABA-
accredited schools.

So where is the support network for people trying to learn our field in depth
through self study? As nice as HN/Reddit/etc all are, they're not really a
replacement for a study in the rigorous theory foundations that let you break
away from having your career defined by one transient technology after
another.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Most of those lawyers won't get jobs, and if they do get jobs they won't be
well paid. There's a glut of lawyers at the moment, and it's not at all the
easy money outsiders think it is.

Law has the usual power curve for income and prestige - a relatively small
number of partners, mostly from privileged and connected backgrounds, make
most of the money and get most of the opportunities. A few potential stars get
useful mentoring. But there's a huge army of law workers who only really only
do crappy clerical work (boilerplate wills, property sales, debt chasing, and
such) and handle petty criminal cases.

IME a lot of these lawyers aren't that good. They get results because the
public are intimidated by lawyers, not because they're brilliant at their
jobs. It's not hard to self-study procedure and case law if you're going up
against them, and give yourself a better than average chance of winning.

I think dev culture is more open. If you want to talk to the creator of <some
cool thing> you often can. If it's a FOSS project, you can get involved and
add it to your resume. There are IRC channels and blogs and mailing lists and
many other options.

This is not to be confused with startup culture, which is a different thing,
and does seem to suffer from social exclusion.

But if you're more interested in cranking out code than feeding money to your
pet unicorn, dev culture really does seem to be relatively open and
meritocratic.

------
ZanyProgrammer
Sure, the apprenticeship path has much less non dischargeable debt, but you
still need to find a job to make ends meat, or hope that the lawyer you're
apprenticing with pays you a living wage.

I've often thought that at least in CA, where the apprenticeship path could
pay off would be competing for jobs against the lower ranked schools like
Santa Clara, USF, Pacific, Davis, etc. It can be much harder (due to the glut
of law school grads) for graduates of programs like those to find jobs, unless
they graduated at the top of their class. The apprenticeship path might help
your resume stick out compared to the mass of middle of the road grads from
those schools.

------
pmorici
I looked into doing this a few years back after I disputed a bunch of abusive
tickets in federal court and won. Ultimately I didn't live in one of the 4
states that allows apprenticing and I wasn't serious enough about it to want
to move to one of them that did. It's too bad this isn't an option everywhere
because I would totally be a lawyer on a volunteer basis but there is no way I
would want to do it as a profession. Part of me also wonders if I could ever
be as interested and driven to solve another person's legal problems that
weren't my own.

~~~
tracker1
Depending on where you live, you could petition for a ballot initiative to
ammend your state's law. In Arizona it's relatively easy to do so... now, once
commercial interests are opposed to you and willing to throw money at
something, actually getting it to pass from voters is a different story.

I've considered doing the same... though also don't live in a state where it's
an option. Though I happen to live in a state where self-driven voter
referendum has a _lot_ of legal power.

------
wallstquant
For those interested in Washington states rules:
[http://www.wsba.org/~/media/Files/Licensing_Lawyer%20Conduct...](http://www.wsba.org/~/media/Files/Licensing_Lawyer%20Conduct/Admissions/Special%20Admissions/APR%206%20Rules%20and%20Regulations.ashx)

I like the fact the board of governors can terminate a law clerk from the
program for any other grounds deemed pertinent.

------
sandworm101
I laugh a little at those who think today's system of legal education is
corrupt, costly or protectionist. Law has a very long tradition of formal
education and requirements. Today's system is a vast improvement over previous
which often required prospective lawyers to complere ridiculous tasks such as
"sitting dinners" at dining clubs. That system formally allowed social clubs
to dictate who could and couldn't progress. Nearly anyone could blackball you.
And don't get me started about the stonecutter requirements at some schools.

The tradition is still
alive:[http://www.theguardian.com/law/2011/may/12/barristers-
dinner...](http://www.theguardian.com/law/2011/may/12/barristers-dinners-fun-
indulgence)

q: How to Be a Lawyer Without Going to Law School?

a: Read a few wikipedia articles about copyright law. Jump on hackernews to
give some advice to a startup founder to cheap to talk to a real lawyer. Feel
good about yourself for doing something for free that other charge $$$$. Then
disappear before finding out what happens.

~~~
tptacek
One reason your comment might be downvoted (and the reason I downvoted it,
too) is that the first 1/3rd of this article rebuts your argument about the
history of formal requirements for lawyers. By not engaging with the article's
argument, you give the impression of having replied to the title, not the
contents of the article.

~~~
sandworm101
Um, no. The article speaks of the current system, the current very difficult
system of which apprenticeships are a part.

If you really want to 'engage' the article, I'd rip it to shreds for lack of
depth. It makes no mention of cross-boarder accreditation, instead focusing
only on bar pass rates as if that is some judge of quality education (law
school /= bar prep). Take for example this:

"In many respects, the American Bar Association and other overseeing law
bodies don’t take apprenticeships seriously, and do everything they can to
corral students into three-year, accredited law schools."

Does the author know what the ABA is? It doesn't regulate lawyers in any way.
It has no authority and many lawyers (most?) are not affiliated with it. Nor
do you have to be a lawyer or law student to join the ABA. (PM me if you want
info on that one. I have a few free trial memberships kicking around
somewhere.) The advantage of an ABA-accredited law school is that it will be
recognized in every US state. Apprenticeships are not. Going that route might
bind you to practice in that particular state. A full and proper law degree
will allow you to become a lawyer in any US state at any time ... for life.

Engage the content? It clickbate junk not worth anyone's time.

------
rpgmaker
I thought this was going to be an actual howto with resources to help us learn
law or a summary of the subjects that you should read about. Oh well, I liked
the history lesson.

------
fnordprefect
Actually, the interesting thing is that the US is somewhat of an outlier. (I
am a practising non-US lawyer, with an emphasis on tech, and I program
extensively as a hobby.)

In the Australia, UK, and other common law jurisdictions, you generally do not
need to have a law degree, but you do have to do a short course that gives you
the academic basics behind law - this can be and usually is done part-time, as
an evening course and usually results in the award of a diploma. (see e.g.
[http://www.lawsociety.org.uk/law-careers/becoming-a-
solicito...](http://www.lawsociety.org.uk/law-careers/becoming-a-
solicitor/routes-to-qualifying/) or
[http://www.lpab.justice.nsw.gov.au/Pages/lpab/legalprofessio...](http://www.lpab.justice.nsw.gov.au/Pages/lpab/legalprofession_prospective_students/legalprofession_prospective_students.aspx))
While a good law degree helps get jobs, some of the best lawyers I have met
used this path to get admitted to practice.

Being able to think like a lawyer is important, but the life of the law is
common sense, experience and good judgment. That cannot be taught. Newly-
qualified lawyers invariably tend to be up to speed on the theoretical aspects
of law but cannot run a lawsuit, manage a deal or draft a contract to save
themselves. What law school teaches (the basics of the subjects and _thinking_
like a lawyer) is only about 1/10 to 1/20 of the role.

The real meat of the role is thinking strategically and pragmatically: yes, I
can oppose this request, but what is it going to prompt the other side to do,
and how will judge X take it when the matter is brought in front of him. In
other words, what will the client possibly gain or lose from taking that
course? Is it worth it? And what other courses are open? And what are they
likely to lead to? What do I need to get to win the case, and what is
optional, unnecessary or a distraction? How does this fit with what the client
wants and (often) what the client needs that they don't even realise they need
or (commonly) that they actively don't want to do? Good lawyers are thinking
multiple steps down the road, not just the immediate problems, and have a good
idea where they want to end up.

You can only get this by experience, and ideally by watching and learning from
people who are experienced at it while they do it. You could try to do it by
self-study, but you would likely be sued into oblivion by your clients for all
the mistakes you would make (which would usually be caught and avoided by the
more experienced person you should be learning under, and if not absorbed by
their insurance). Based on my experience, which includes international
experience, I estimate that you need 10 years of doing it full-time to be at a
point where you would be able to describe yourself as competent, and able to
do it alone, provided you have been working and learning during that time.

You need to learn human nature, how people think and are motivated, how they
react to incentives and disincentives, and how they react to normative or
moral issues. You need to appreciate that you never find black or white but
only shades of grey. You need to learn ruthless pragmatism. You need to learn
persuasion. You need to learn to recognise the gulf between what a contract or
statute might say in black and white, versus what a judge will do when
confronted with the practical justice of the contest. That difference is
magnified if a jury is involved (don't get me started on the stupidities of
the US jury system or the use of juries for anything other than criminal
cases).

Law is much more a social science than it is anything else, but there is a big
place for logic and logical thinking. Since you also need interpersonal
skills, it is a hard discipline because you need to bring both "left" and
"right" brain skills to bear.

------
cdbattags
Mike Ross?

------
lern_too_spel
It's a bit strange to compare costs against a T14 law school.

~~~
pdshrader
The breakdown between "Tuition" and "Professional Degree Tuition" is strange
(it's a Berkeley Law breakdown), but those costs together are pretty accurate
for any law school, T14 or not. Quite a few law schools have even higher
tuition.

