Law School Legislation

I've been studying for my LL.B. for quite some time but as I have no interest in practicing law in the UK, I've never extensively researched licensure in the UK. Does anyone know if these attorneys in training obtain compensation or do they pay for the privellege of the experience?

 

I suppose another reason to consider them equivalent is the fact that New York will allow the holder of a British LL.B. from select schools (earned in residence), to sit for the bar.

 

Dude,

I posted most of my reasons for saying that the degrees are not equivalent above. Let me add this one:

If you compare the actual curricula you will see that it is possible to earn a "graduate entry" LL.B. by passing nine subject examinations. An American J.D. requires roughly 84 semester hours comprising approximately six semesters of four to five subjects EACH or a minimum of TWENTY FOUR examinations. The full three year LL.B. requires only twelve subjects.

Now, it is quite true that the English LL.B. covers a great deal of substantive law that is generally similar to that covered in the first, say, year and a half of a J.D. program. But the English program does not offer things like Civil or Criminal Procedure, Evidence, trial practice, legal reaserch and writing, legal ethics, and the like. All of these things are contained in the J.D.

The reason for this difference is, these are practice related subjects which the fledgling barristor or solicitor learns in the Bar Vocational Course or Law Practice Course (respectively) and pupillage or articals after completing his LL.B. Believe me, they GET this stuff but they DON'T get it as part of their LL.B. program.

One other thing: I was almost SURE that you are right; an LL.B. from Oxford is qualified to that the New York Bar exam. But when I went to the NY Bar site, all I could find is a rule that says that an English Barristor or Solicitor with a resident English LL.B. is qualified. I found no rule (which again, I thought was there) allowing a non-lawyer LL.B. to take the exam. Could you tell me where that rule is?

 

You make some good points here. Clearly, in the case of the graduate entry LL.B. there is no question about its shortcomings. I guess it could sometimes come down to how strictly we define the word "equivalent" as well, however.

Obviously this is not citing any specific rule, but I am certain it would not be published in ABA materials unless it was accurate. Please look on page 34 of this publication and you will see that graduates of three year programs from Oxford, Cambridge, and University of London (earned internally) are eligible for the bar examination in New York.

http://www.abanet.org/legaled/publications/compguide2006/chart10.pdf

Also, FWIW, I have also heard word that New York has permitted graduates of other British LL.B. programs to sit for the bar examination, but have been unable to verify the accuracy of this information.

It appears, at least in limited circumstances, New York considers the two degrees to be substantially equivalent enough to be eligible to practice law.

Why do you suppose this is?

 

I don't know what the NY rule ends up being in practice. I am sure that an English (but not Scottish) LL.B. who completed his degree in residence AND completed either the BVC or LPC AND completed pupillage or articles IS qualified to take the NY Bar, whether or not he is a barristor or solicitor.

The key is "completed" the requirements.

I cannot tell whether a bare Oxford BA (hons.) in Laws would suffice because, as I said above, such a degree ISN'T the equivalent of an American J.D because the holder has not necessarily fulfilled all educational requirements for admission to the Bar (or membership in the Law Society) in England.

But I must admit that I have HEARD that the LL.B. alone is sufficient but I wish I could be certain of the legal authority.

I also do not doubt that an Oxford BA Laws who takes an American LL.M. with 20 s.h. of American law in the enumerated subjects would also qualify.

I remember when the Law Society successfully petitioned the New York Court of Appeal to allow qualified solicitors to take the NY Bar. I do NOT remember any such petition on behalf of bare LL.B. grads nor would such a provision make political sense. An Aerican lawyer with an ABA J.D. can become an English solicitor by passing three written exam papers. An unlicensed J.D. is not sufficient.

 

I might fire off an email to New York and see if I can clear some of this up. I am fairly certain that the LL.B. alone is sufficient as I have in the past, personally communicated with people who have done it (no mention of a completed pupillage was made, but I have to admit that I never posed the question).

I agree that such a provision does not political sense. I don't really believe that an LL.B. WITH a completed pupillage does either though. There are certain important subjects that are not covered even with such educations (U.S. Constitutional Law, and U.S. Civil Procedure).

I really like the way Alaska approaches the matter, requiring a year of education in an American law school with these specific courses for graduates of programs in which the principles of English law are taught.

Interestingly enough, I contacted the Alaska bar a few years back to find out exactly how they determined how the association determines how the graduate's foreign education is evaluated to "meet the ABA's Council of Legal Education standards for approval." The answer I was given was that they have no formal procedure for this and routinely accept a simple letter from someone at the student's American law school as verification of this. I then asked if this how often this happens and was given information about a graduate of the University of Edinburgh who had recently sat for the bar after going this route. This kind of shocked me since Edinburgh is in Scotland (a civil law jurisdiction)... but I just left it at that.

It seems, at least in this case, the bar association wasn't that concerned with evaluating the education that closely.

 

Contrast Alaska with, say, Nevada, whose Bar maintains a standing committee on educational equivalence or Kansas which requires an R/A/ bachelor's degree followed by an ABA J.D. degree and NO EXCEPTIONS.

There is a LOT of variety. Even California won't accept a D/L LL.B. from the University of London all by itself. There are a couple of contributors to www.malet.com who went the UofL external LL.B. route and DID qualify to take the California Bar exam but only after earning an LL.M. from an ABA school.

This approach would also work with New York so long as the LL.B. was earned in residence and the post grad program includes 20 s.h. of substantive courses in American law.

The bottom line is, anyone who wants to be an American lawyer is well advised to earn an American J.D. Almost as important would be earning an R/A bachelor's first and attending an ABA aproved school.

I also believe that the would-be American lawyer who wants to go the D/L route would be better off with a California Bar qualifying degree than with virtually ANY foreign law degree regardless of the prestige of the foreign school.

 

At one time, British-American U (my now defunct alma mater) was promoting itself to foreign-trained lawyers seeking CA admission. It was claimed that they could receive advance standing, and get a CA bar qualifying JD for a fraction of the cost of an LL.M. from an ABA school.

I don't know if any of the other CA DL schools offer or promote such an approach, or how much advanced standing was awarded.

 

Advanced standing

Foreign LAWYERS, as opposed to foreign law school graduates, are eligible to take the California Bar without further qualification. They are also exempt from the FYLSX. suppose that BAU was offering a course that would familiarize the foreign lawyer with U.S. law and legal process and give him an American degree. That could indeed be valuable but it isn't really a question of whether the resulting J.D. is Bar qualifying or not.

 

Yes. This is an important distinction.

The CA rules are different for foreign attorneys admitted to practice than lfor aw students receiving their education outside the United States.

See: http://calbar.ca.gov/calbar/pdfs/admissions/sf_legal-edu-outside-us.pdf

and

http://calbar.ca.gov/calbar/pdfs/admissions/77sf.pdf

 

If the Cal Bar takes over the oversight of unaccredited and correspondence law schools, doesn't that indirectly mean the Cal Bar will be approving these schools?


SB 1568
http://www.assembly.ca.gov/acs/acsframeset2text.htm

 

what it means is more law school regulation, the elimination
of law schools operated by one single individual and mostly
certainly the elimination of non-bar J.D. law degrees.

Read the analysis, the state bar will take over control away from the BPPVE and they already control the rules for admission to the bar.

Ultimately I think all but 3 or 4 correspondence law schools
will be able to survive after the State Bar changes the rules.

It may ultimately lead to bar approval of correspondence law
schools but only a few will be able to meet the new regulations,
which is a good thing.

 

Hi JDLLM2,

If Cal Bar ultimately approves the correspondence law schools, doesn't that mean the students of these correspondence law schools will be exempted from the Baby Bar?

 

I honestly do not think the State Bar will eliminate the FYLSX.

They will leave it in place but will change the rules to make
the operation, "real law schools" that is a real faculty, strong
financial assets to run a school, required succession plans, etc.

And probably ultimately down the road make a minimum bar pass rate as a requirement to keep bar approval to operate.

That is why Golden Gate University is on ABA probation with its
accreditation; they have poor bar pass rates, the State Bar
may begin such a program too, if the school doesnt have
minimum bar pass rates the bar wont allow it to operate.

 

The first law degree, by itself? Absolutely.

A foreign degree combined with an ABA LLM (distance) opens too many doors for me to agree though. This is especially true in the cases where the degree seeker has no plans on ever living in California.

 

JDLLM2 Returns??? Been a while...

What's the status of the bill? Is this likely to pass? It looks like it has a lot of steps to go through before it has any chance of becoming law.

 

It has passed the Senate and is scheduled to be heard in the Assembly Judiciary Committee on 6/20/06. I think it is very likely this will pass, especially since the legislature is full of lawyers! However, this is only my opinion.

 

It will pass and will significantly forever change the landscape of
correspondence law school regulations.

It will elminate the non bar J.D. degree since the Committee of
Bar Examiners will be regulating all unaccredited law schools and
a non bar J.D. degree is useless for the bar so they will eliminate
that degree all together.

It will be tougher for law students since the remaining schools
will he highly focused on BAR PASSAGE RATES.

This is a good thing because many unaccredited residential law schools will have to change or go out of business as well as about
85% of correspondence schools.

Just look at the pass rates for Larry Layton Law School,
People's College of Law, and dozens more, this schools
dont make lawyers very often.

Never heard of a gradutate of University of Honolulu or practicing
lawyer, from Newport, or St. Francis eUniversity or from any of the
others, only 5 correspondence law schools currently in business
ever had anyone really practice law

 

Maybe...

Any chance of you sharing your credentials this time?
(Here come's the "I won't take the bait" comment.)

 

"come's" WHOOPS! I meant comes!