cheap JD

Hey thanks for the heads up on Novus and telling me about OakBrook any other recomendations for California Bar Elig. JD's I am only interested in practicing law in California and will work at one of the firms I am assiting now so just really need a bar card as painlessly as possible

 

Mike-

About the cheapest your going to get is Northwestern California University. Here is the link: http://www.nwculaw.edu/index.shtml

It's $1950.00/yr if you enroll before 1/1/05. After Jan'05 tuition increases to $2850.00/yr-still not a bad deal.

 

Lincoln School of Law in SJ. http://www.lincolnlawsj.edu/

Golden Gate University www.ggu.edu

JFK School of Law.

Or correspondance: Concord SoL
http://www.concord.kaplan.edu/info/custom/concord/index.asp?source=600019

All are not ABA (GGU should be - it is one o fthe best in Northern CA), but will work in CA.

 

I just enrolled at NWCU, and I'm glad I got there before the tuition increase. If you enroll prior to 1/1/05, you're locked in at the current rate.

 

In addition to cost (and that is certainly an important consideration), I would also look at bar pass rate. Even if you have experience in the field, you still need to get past that gate.



Tom Nixon

 

I stand corrected. It wasn't always this way.

Even though Concord is not a ABA LS -- it has a higher than average first time pass rate for the CBAR. If all you wish to do it IP Law (very very boring) or perhaps public interest law, it is a great choice. It probably won't get you in the door for a major law firm, but most lawyers don't go that route anyway.

 

Re: Re: cheap JD

Wow, $2000 a year for law school. What is the course load like? From the website it seems to follow the curriculum of a regular full-time school. Can this be done part-time?

 

All things being equal, which is the better on-line JD program, Northwestern California or Concord?

 

Stick with NWCULAW.

Northwestern California. Stay away from Concord. There is a raft of information out there -- postings and web pages from former students -- who got screwed in one way or another by Concord. Plus, it's expensive. Northwestern's been around a long time and gets the job done. With D/L JD programs, getting the job done is really all it's about. If you want virtually any typical law school experience other than simply "getting the job done," enroll in an ABA-accredited school.


As long as I have the floor for a sec: In addition to the many-times-here-discussed issue of whether a California D/L JD will have any usefulness in other states (and the list of two dozen or so states that actually will let one sit for their Bar exam after one has practiced in California for at least 3 to seven years, depending on the state), there is, in my view, one more thing to think about...

...and that is whether you'll be technically breaking the law in whatever non-California state you might happen to end-up in by putting an unaccredited JD on your business card and/or resume.

And don't use the "oh, I don't need to worry about that because I only plan on practicing in California" excuse. We all have plans, and at least a few of us know what it's like to see said plans obliterated in an instant. We never know where we'll end-up. A man can open a door and in so doing accidentally touch the hand of the woman whom he never knew prior to that moment would become his wife someday... and she might live in Illinois or something. Or you, as an attorney, could file a writ someday and get Scott Peterson off death row; and the next day you might be offered the Executive Directorship of The Innocense Project in New York. You never know.

So, it's valid, sound and rational to think about the utility of one's California D/L JD in the future in other states... even if only momentarily; and even if only peripherally so. But whether or not one's JD will make him/her eligible to sit for another state's Bar exam is just one consideration -- one that's been discussed here lots and so I won't even broach it. Instead, I proffer this:

Many states are looking long and hard at what Oregon is doing. I could be wrong -- and Dr. Bear recently recounted a bit of history that makes me think, now, that maybe I am -- but I think we're no more than a decade away from many (or maybe even most) states following Oregon's lead in one way or another and making it illegal to claim any degree/credential that is not from a school that is accredited by an agency approved by the USDoE/CHEA. If that's true, then one could find oneself living and working in another state with a California D/L JD, but technically unable to legally claim it.

Now I realize that I, myself, have argued elsewhere herein that one's law license in a given state would tend to trump said state's allegation that the license holder's use of an unaccredited JD is illegal. But it would only take one or two sentences in the original anti-diploma-mill legislation (that makes unaccredited degrees illegal) to deal with that defense. Most legislators are attorneys. Many attorneys buy-in to the ABA's way of looking at things and loathe California's D/L JDs. Even in a state that will permit a California D/L JD holder to sit for its Bar exam after said JD holder practices in California for at least 3 to 7 years, any legislator that doesn't agree with his own state Bar's policy regarding same could easily and effectively end-run said policy by merely including language in his state's anti-degree-mill legislation that specifically calls California D/L JDs illegal even if the holder of same passes that state's Bar.

If you think that that sort of thing can't (and doesn't routinely) happen, think again!

The solution, it seems to me, is to obtain one's California D/L JD from a school that's DETC accredited (since, after all, DETC is a USDoE/CHEA-approved agency). At least then a person would be able to claim his/her degree on business cards and letterhead in every single state -- even after most or all of them have adopted legislation similar to Oregon's.

If one buys-in to my logic, here, then that narrows the field of choices considerably... down to Concord and Taft... and that's pretty much it.

I was just fixin' to start another thread, here, on the issue of DETC accreditation of California D/L JD programs. Said thread will explain how at least one very important branch of the original intent of the California Committee of Bar Examiners (when it specified the various means by which a person may obtain requisite education in order to sit for the Bar) is effectively (and I believe unintentionally) denuded by DETC accreditation; and in said thread I am going to ask everyone to write to DETC and implore it to make an exception to its admissions policies just for California D/L JD schools so that said schools may honor the intentions of the California Committee of Bar Examiners without endangering their DETC accreditation status.

Watch for it soon in the "Accredited vs State-Approved vs Unaccredited" forum here.

 

Last time I checked Taft was about $3,000 a year less than Concord.

 

Through reciprocity rules, couldn't a person that passes the bar in California be allowed to take a bar exam in another state, the passing of which allows the person to take exams in other states?

So if one passed the California Bar, one could then take and pass the Wisconsin Bar (according to the Taft U website), and then be allowed to take bar exams for states that allow Wisconsin lawyers?

 

Oh, nevermind. I see most states ask for ABA approved JD AND reciprocity.

Is the California --> Wisconsin reciprocity new? Wisconsin isn't asking for ABA JD if you pass the California Bar.

Interesting. I wonder why that happened.

 

Many States allow what you are describing although most require 3-7 years practice in CA.

 

If you're responding to what agingBetter wrote (which we would all know, of course, if everyone around here would just use the "quote" button as it was intended), then look more closely at his second post. I think you miss an "and" in what he wrote.

 

Hi Greg

Sorry for not using the quote button. I was responding to his second post which seems to suggest only Wisconsin allows entry with a non-ABA degree. I know both Oregon AND Washington do (when the CA practice provision is met) also along with at least some others. Take care.

 

Ah... now I see. Sorry for my pickig of nits.

 

DesElms:

Sorry; I don't see how CalBar and DETC conflict? Unless you mean that CalBar allows "special" students, without the usual prelaw education to enrol?

I admit that I would probably go Taft myself instead of with my first love, NWCU exactly because Taft is DETC. But when I finish (?) my LL.M., I will probably apply to NWCU for my J.S.D., there being no American alternative and the J.S.D. being professionally irrelevant.

 

Please disregard my last post; I made it before I read the related thread.

 

Great post DesElms - thanks for taking the time to go over this.

I just had a funny email from my Business Law professor at CSU-DH. I asked her what her opinion was of online JD programs from various places such as Taft, Northwestern CA, and Concord. She responded by saying that she couldn't really provide an unbiased opinion because she was the Associate Dean of Admissions for Concord. Now that was funny!


Seriously
Do you know anyone that has attended one of these JD programs that has actually became an attorney? If so, any that are ADA's, PD's, or into Corporate IP law? Do the bigger law firms look down on these types of colleges?

Thanks for your input.
W.

 

Very funny and Concord has a great program. I wish they weren't so expensive though.