I want a good, fast, legal way to get a law license. I want the “My Cousin Vinny” degree. Don’t tell me what I should do to become a good lawyer, just the minimum legal requirement to take the bar exam and become an officer of the court.
Anyone?
What state are you in? Each state has different requirements. As far as I know none of them are fast & easy. You could call the Bar Association in your state & find out.
What do you want to do with said law license?
Oh, that’s easy. Sleep with ** Sua Sponte** 
You can’t. Attorneys aren’t “licensed” to practice. They become admitted to the practice of law within a given jurisdiction. This may sound like a hyper-technical distinction, but it isn’t (and even if it was, if you want to be an attorney, you’d best like that sort of distinction! 
). A “license” is a permission to engage in an activity (without getting into a truly technical discussion of the meaning of the term). But an attorney is a lawyer who is part of the court system to which he/she is admitted, an officer of that system, in fact. The attorney’s function in the system is to present the case of the client to the court for resolution. But make no mistake: the attorney is as much a part of the system as is the judge.
So, you can’t go to the court and say, “Please let me practice law in California.” You say, instead, “Please let me be admitted to the practice of law and represent clients in this jurisdiction, becoming one with you.”
No state I know of makes this possible in fewer than three years of study, followed by some form of examination or investigation into your fitness to join with the one. Of course, now someone will note that some state like Idaho or North Dakota has done away with such stuff, to which I would say, “Good for them!”
In California you do not have to have a law degree (or any degree at all) in order to take the California Bar Exam. You pass, you’re a lawyer. This is the background behind an inside joke in Justice Scalia’s dissent in PGA Tour, Inc. vs Martin, wherein he mentions that sometimes amateurs enter professional tryouts just to see how they stack up, and then segues into the Ca Bar Exam. I HIGHLY recommend reading his dissent to one and all. Mind you, I’m no fan of Scalia’s in general, but he certainly got this one right, and agree or not, his dissent should become a classic. Witty, thought provoking, and just an unbelievably high quality of writing throughout.
I can’t speak for every State in the Union, let alone the UK and Canada. In my State there is no provision for “reading the law,” a la Abraham Lincoln, taking the Bar Exam and then simply hanging out your shingle. That option was dropped here about twenty years ago or more. The present rule as promulgated by the State Supreme Court is that a candidate graduate from an accredited law school, be accepted for moral fitness and either take and pass the Bar exam, or be admitted to practice law in some other jurisdiction, practice for five years and apply to the State Supremes for direct admission. In at least one neighboring State (Wisconsin) a graduate of an in-state law school can be admitted to practice before that State’s courts without taking the examination. Some States have reciprocity, if you are admitted in one State you can be admitted in the other “on motion” without taking the second State’s bar exam. I think it may be South and North Dakota (or the State formerly known as North Dakota) and maybe Montana that have reciprocity. As a general proposition, most States require a formal legal education as a prerequisite to taking the bar exam or make it very hard to pass it without a law school education.
Law school is not necessarily a three-year grind (in the Dark Ages when your poster went through it was a seven semester grind); the time actually locked up in the library can be shortened. Some law schools allow incoming students to start in the summer, take summer classes and get out in two or two and one-half years. This is a real load. The physical and intellectual demands of law school are comparable to medical school. It takes nearly super-human endurance and dedication to shorten the program.
One other impediment to getting the thing done quickly is the time it takes to grade the Bar Exam. In States that use the “Interstate Exam” it takes at least six weeks to get results. In States with hoards of people taking the exam, e.g., Florida, New York, California, Colorado, it may take three or four months before you even know if you passed the damn thing. If you are after a job with the Federal Government and all you need to do is be admitted to practice in any State, you need to go find a State that grades its test quickly. Before the interstate exam, my State ran a two and one-half day written examination (three or five essays out of five or eight questions in each of five separate half day sessions) and got the results out on the evening of the third day. We had all sorts of guys who had a job with the FBI or the Armed Forces or some other Federal agency driving half way across the country to take our bar exam because they got a quick result and could go to work right away.
Please forgive a minor hijack, but I often see people state that you don’t have to have a degree to practice law in California. While you do not need a degree, you cannot simply walk up and take the exam, you are still required to fulfill other requirements.
Here is a link to the California Bar requirements:
http://www.calbar.org/admissions/doc/2admrule.htm#ii
(emphasis mine)
So, while you may not need a degree or law school, you must prove that you spent 4 years studying law (I guess that’s faster than 6 1/2-7). Not quite as simple as some would make it seem. I do wonder when the last time this route was used.
Of your three criteria – good, fast, and legal – which two are the most important?
Actually, I’m just kidding. As suggested by the other posters, there’s no fast way (in the United States) to get a law license. As far as I know, 47 states require a law degree, which will take you about 3 years, maybe a little less.
The remaining three – California, New York, and Vermont – have various alternative requirements that still will take some time, perhaps even longer, than law school.
Perhaps if you share your goal, there may be another approach. What I mean is, certain activities and kinds of representation do not require a law license even though they are generally performed by lawyers.
(Standard disclaimer about legal advice)
I believe Virginia still has the deliciously arcane apprenticeship provision, which nicely matches the general state of Virginia law. Unfortunately, an apprenticeship takes longer than simply going to law school, and there is a definite “ring knocker” mentality among lawyers that might make the apprentice approach nearly useless. No kidding, the first thing that is discussed in my office about any lawyer’s resume is the school to which that person matriculated.
Once you’ve been admitted to the bar in any state, however, it’s a relatively simple matter to take a case in another state and be allowed to represent your client pro hac vice (“for this turn”), so long as you appear competent to the judge.
Here’s a list of requirements:
http://www.abanet.org/legaled/publications/compguideonline/cgchart3.html
The quickest way I can see is to find the school which will give you your law degree in the shortest time. Then take the 26 hours of ABA accredited classes required by the District of Columbia.
It appears prior to 1997 you could have done this in Kentucky without the 26 hours of classes. You could still try it that way if you can meet their “education equivalency” requirement.
I didn’t see any state where the amount of time spent to qualify without a degree would be less than the time spent in school.
Make that 46 (or less). Washington also still allows you to clerk for 30 hours/week for 4 years instead of law school. But again, law school would be quicker.
(And “My Cousin Vinny” if I remember correctly, was 4+ years of night school followed by a bunch of years studying for the bar - not exactly a fast route to practicing.)
Since we’re talking about legal certifications… is it true that you do not have to be a lawyer to be a Supreme Court Justice of The United States.
It ain’t in the Constitution, is it?
OK, so I guess what I’m getting at is this. Are there law schools which will admit someone without a bachelor’s degree? Or is it strictly a grad-school kind of thing?
How much college do you have? 60 semester credits or 90 quarter credits is good enough for California.
Don’t have enough (or any) credits? Take CLEP tests as a substitute. The California Bar is A-OK with that.
Don’t live in California? California is the only state that allows you to attend a correspondence law school. You don’t have to be a resident and you’ll still be allowed to take the bar exam upon graduation.
Here’s the link to registered California correspondence law schools:
http://www.calbar.org/shared/2admsch.htm#l5
A couple of caveats:
- You have to take a test after your first year so the California Bar can be reassured that you’re up to snuff.
- California law requires that the correspondence courses take 4 years. So even if you complete the courses quickly, you can’t accelerate how long the whole process takes.
If you’re really in a hurry you might try the Thomas Jefferson School of Law (http://www.jeffersonlaw.edu/). They also allow you to CLEP out of the undergrad requirements. Plus, they offer a one year JD program. Although they state this JD is not valid for those who wish to take the bar exam, you might be able to couple that with the 26 credit hours required by D.C. and pass the bar there.
More or less, yes.
But if you’re willing to think slightly outside the box, you might be able to go to England or Australia or NZ (where I believe law degrees are undergrad degrees) get the degree there, and work for a while, and the apply to take the bar exam (or even perhaps get admitted without the exam in some jurisdictions.)
This provision is kept around because this is the way that Thomas Jefferson learned law. He apprenticed under George Wythe, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
VA figures if it’s good enough for TJ, it’s good enough for us.
I know of a good number of lawyers who received their law degrees in foreign countries and then could take a U.S. bar exam after getting an LLM - which takes about one year (9 months - no summers). Generally, LLMs are supposed to be more advanced degrees than JDs, but some of my foreign legal collegues received their law degrees in countries where a law degree is the equivalent of an undergraduate degree. Many entered LLM programs right out of their home country’s law school. LLM programs are generally thought to be hard, but I’m sure some programs are easier than others.
So - try this:
Find a country with an easy law degree - some place with nice beaches and low standards (in law practitioners). Actually get a law degree by studying surfing-law (or grease the right palms to get a law degree). Find the easiest LLM program you can find, take the bar - poof - your a lawyer one year after you finish in the foreign country.
(emphasis mine)
So, while you may not need a degree or law school, you must prove that you spent 4 years studying law (I guess that’s faster than 6 1/2-7). Not quite as simple as some would make it seem. I do wonder when the last time this route was used.
**
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OK, so I could work in a law office–what, as a paralegal?–& count that toward my “years of education”? So I could be paid to work for a lawyer–or at least not pay for law school, and get enough experience to be allowed to take the bar exam? Or am I completely misinterpreting this?
What is required is listed at the link provided by Xgemina. Look at Rule VII, Section 3.