Texas and DL Law Study

Texas lawmakers are considering allowing attorneys from other states (read: California) who studied via DL to take the Texas Bar (if they're licensed in the other state first).

Distance-Learning Law Grads to Take Texas Bar Exam?

This is (potentially) a new development. Of course, traditionalists are opposing it.

 

Two observations:

1) As the article notes toward its end, licensing requirements belong to the Texas Supreme Court and not to the legislature. I am not cogniscent enough of Texas law to predict how this will play out.;

2) Texas, like about half of all states, will permit graduates of non ABA schools to take the Bar if they have three (I think) years of practice experience as a licensed attorney in another state or foreign country. Texas, almost ALONE among such states, excludes those who studied law by correspondence. Any rule change would probably take the form of allowing correspondence school graduates to take the Bar on an equal footing with graduates of other non ABA schools. Thus, the Oak Brook grads STILL couldn't get admitted in Texas right after graduation.

I suspect that these proposals come from a desire to see Oak Brook grads in particular be admitted in this reddest of Bible Belt states due to the very Christian orientation of that school.

Oh, one LAST point: A lawyer with five years of full time practice experience in any state and an ABA J.D. will be admitted without being required even to TAKE the Texas Bar exam. That's a pretty liberal policy!