Online Education to become Attorney

BTW, are you allowed to wear a wig in the American courtroom if you earn your LLB/LLM in Law from British University?

 

I'm cool with that. I would totally rock the wig and a pornstache, a la Ron Jeremy. :laughing::scared1: I wonder what the judge will say, he or she will probably have a fit :aargh4:. Oh well. I'll be like, see ya, turn around and :moon:, then drop the wig and leave the courtroom.

 

No, we are not in agreement. You stated it would be "excellent preparation". My opinion is that the route is possible but not desirable even if, and it's a big if, one could be admitted to the USC LLM program. BTW, it's worth looking at the dreadful pass rate for foreign law graduates on the Cal Bar.

California Bar Exam for Foreign Attorneys | LLM Info

 

I have taken the Bar, you claim to have taken the Bar. I will take you at your word. I noticed, as surely everyone who has ever taken the Bar has noticed, that virtually everything on the Bar is covered in the first year and change of law school, excepting, perhaps, Article 2 of the UCC, which is not always covered on the state specific portion and can be learned by a reasonably bright person in days. I have also noticed that the coursework for those LLMs for foreign attorneys coincides precisely with those things that one takes in the first year to year and a half of law school that is covered on the Bar. So I am wondering what would be covered in law school that is not covered by a London LLB plus LLM for foreign attorneys. Do tell. Since you are an academic, have you considered the factor of ESL and the low passage rates? No, likely not, or you'd be whistling a different tune. How can you be a fellow academic and not see the obvious? In any event, unless you can come to the table with some reason why a U.S. native English speaker taking the exact same courses via LLM and LLB that a person taking a JD in the U.S. is taking would be at a disadvantage, then you need to take your arguments elsewhere, they make no sense.

I am beginning to wonder if you are simply contentious by nature, it's an occupational hazard, you know--at least among the more knavish of my previous occupation. Or perhaps you're the finest fellow I'd ever want to meet, but like to pick flame wars on the net for sport--fair enough if so. You are starting to remind me of my practicing days, namely of an attorney who once called my home number to berate me and another insurance company attorney who was so downright brutish on my client I felt like jumping across the deposition table and throttling him in front of the stenographer and my client.

Are you that intent on picking a fight?

 

I went ahead and applied to Northumbria, and was just informed I'm accepted. I plan to enroll shortly, at which point I may have more to report. Fees for the first year are: GBP775 registration fee plus 575 assessment fee, for the first year. For subsequent years, it's GBP450+550.

Reading NY Bar rules closely suggests that distance degrees are, unfortunately, explicitly excluded as per subsection 520.3(e), and LLM would not fix that. Shame. LLB plus ABA LLM would reportedly work in California and Washington.

 

Best of luck to you Stanislav. Keep us posted on your progress. Also when you are talking about Washington, are you talking about Washington state or D.C.?

 

Washington State. This is according to the guy who did this degree and now is doing a LLM online at Florida Coastal School of Law. I know I need to check, but it's not so crucial for me right now.

 

That was the gent on LawSchoolDiscussion DOT org right?

Stanislav, I am very interested to see how this all works out for you.

I know you will definitely keep us posted.

 

I think it's DC, not Washington State

(Disclaimer: I haven't looked this up recently, but for years this has been my understanding)

 

Good luck but as I said previously, I think a UK LLB is a very poor way to prepare for a US (presumably CA) bar exam. Almost every subject in UK law is substantially different than US law: Crime, criminal procedure, constitutional law, contracts, civil procedure, torts etc. I speak from first hand knowledge because I have a US JD and a UK LLM and have practiced law in both countries. A UK LLB may be cheaper than an online US law degree but you'll have to basically re-learn the law to pass a US bar exam. So have claimed that a bar review class or a US LLM would suffice to pass a US bar exam. I disagree profoundly.

 

Originally I agreed with warguns on this issue but after thinking about it further I've changed my mind. Like many other professions there are a number of different routes to becoming an attorney. The standard route, the California route, the British route and probably other routes that I don't know about. It varies from state to state what's allowed. I think in some places it's still allowed to simply study under the supervision of a judge. In the end you have to pass the bar exam. That's the one inviolable standard. It could be argued that anything that gets you through the bar exam is acceptable (even if it's not currently the case). It's similar to people who earn their degrees by CLEPing out of courses, picking up credits in all possible ways. They may never take an actual course and yet they still get a degree. But because they have passed the test (or a series of tests) they get the degree. So if passing the bar exam is the baseline requirement, does it really matter how someone gets there? If someone is willing to accept the odds and take some other-than-standard route to the bar do I really care? I am pretty sure that I do not.

 

names?

Perhaps you would provide a few names of those who have done it this way? Lawyers always like advertising.

 

If it's an LLM for foreign-trained lawyers from a legitimate U.S. program, it will cover virtually all those subjects that are on the bar, it should cover them at the same level as one would get in their 1L year in a US law school, and anyone who has been through a US law school and passed the Bar knows that virtually everything on the Bar is from that crucial first year--which, I repeat, is mirrored in the LLM for foreign attorneys.

Simple fact that is beyond rational contestation.

 

For example...

One could receive an LL.B at Northumbria, then an LL.M at Georgetown (provided they had the academic chops to get accepted). They could tailor their program to whatever they wanted (e.g., as it says on the website "The General Studies LL.M. offers the most flexibility, and students often combine a number of courses focused on U.S. law (for example, those required for the New York Bar) with either a focus on a particular area of interest, or a program that samples from the incredible variety of available classes..."

So, I suppose someone could take the following courses to fulfill an LL.M.: U.S. legal reasoning, constitutional law, contracts, property, torts, criminal law, civil and criminal procedure. There you go, eight classes, 24 credit hours, one year, all the pertinent Bar exam stuff teed right up in your brain rather than buried two years back. All of it underpinned by a three year Brit LL.B that covers the fundamental common law theory from whence our system came.

International Legal Studies LL.M. and General Studies LL.M. (for students educated outside the U.S.)

The GTown program I reference is a one year residential one, but I believe there are some DL ones out there, such as the one from Washington U, that could be similarly tailored.

Does anyone want to knock the Northumbria LL.B + Georgetown LL.M + Barbri/Barpassers review plan as a means to get through the Bar and become a U.S. attorney?

The only possible knock to this is the U.S. legal market is saturated and there are attorneys from downright good schools struggling to find jobs that can finance their student debt load. I come from a family with three attorneys, all of whom went to USN top tier universities, none of whom have exactly gotten rich by getting through the doors of white shoe law. But if the OP wants to do this, has connections, or is one of these enterprising sorts who can make his own way in the legal field without some prescribed big law route (as have some of the most successful attorneys I've ever known), then who can possibly knock the scheme proposed above for him?

 

Florida Costal

I don't know anything about Florida Coastal's LLM program but the school in general has a wretched reputation as a law school

Florida Coastal School of Law graduates finish second-to-last in passing the Bar | jacksonville.com

It's even been accused of paying-off it's graduates with low averages NOT to take the bar and so falsely imply a higher bar pass rate.

Which Law Schools Allegedly Paid Students Not To Take The Bar Exam? | Above the Law

 

It certainly is capable of rational contestation as evidenced by the dismal performance of foreign trained lawyers on the California Bar exam, ALL of which were required to take the ONE YEAR of US law school that you claim is sufficient to pass the bar. For foreign-trained would be lawyers WITH an US earned LLM the bar pass rate is below 20%

California Bar Exam for Foreign Attorneys | LLM Info

For the July 2014 bar exam, the relevant pass rate was 11% for first time takers.For repeaters it was 3.6%. Those are pretty dreadful odds.

http://admissions.calbar.ca.gov/Portals/4/documents/gbx/JULY2014STATS121814_R.pdf

I suggest that students considering this strategy examine the facts rather rely upon than poorly-informed opinion,

Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts. (Daniel Patrick Moynihan)