Unaccredited Attorneys

DesElms,

Now don't get mushy on me. I do enjoy your posts and you are obviously a fountain of knowledge about this subject but we have differences of opinion about some of these subjects which are probably irreconcilable. Still, people can disagree and continue to have respect for one another which might be a good place to start. It was never my intention to be a rabble-rouser on this site...OK, well, maybe a little.

What you seem to be saying is that if some states do not have non-ABA approved law schools in the state, then the need for specifying that an accredited undergraduate degree is required to take the bar is redundant since no one in the state would have been admitted to law school without one. Maybe the difference is that California allows non-ABA law schools to exist and other states either don't have them or do not allow them to open in their state.

Do you know if other states allow unaccredited law schools or DL law schools other than California?

 

Bet they're not. Not if we really tried.

Agreed. But the next thing you write, below, helps to illustrate why that's not happened yet.

Uh, huh. Fine. So then don't be surprised when this place falls on you like an old building.

Well... or if the state has no non-ABA-approved schools itself, but is willing to accept degrees from the unaccredited schools of other states.

Yes, basically. The states know that the chance of someone with an unaccredited BA or BS getting into and ABA-approved law school is so slim that they don't even worry about it; and I presume that they presume that if someone did get into an ABA-approved law school without an accredited degree, s/he'd be so extraordinary and exceptional (since for someone like that is pretty much the only time you'll see an ABA-approved law school make an exception) that it won't matter that they didn't have an accredited undergraduate degree. It's so rare, though, that there's almost no point in discussing that possibility.

Um... well... that's an oversimplification, I think... but that's about right, I'd say. Yes.

Yes... there are several... and Nos either knows them off the top of his head or has 'em on a post-it note on his monitor or something because he's rattled them off in these fora a few times. I know Massachusetts does, and Georgia, and Tennessee... and I can't remember any more. But there are several. Nos will chime-in, I'm sure. That, too, is part of the research I've never finished, but will post here or on a web site or something when I finally get it done.

 

Well, okay, I guess I too have to accept russ' argument then. I had assumed that the CLEP tests amounted to 60 s.h. credit; obviously that's wrong.

If you impute the ABA's pre legal education standards to the states that require ABA degrees, then it does follow that California is significantly more liberal in this regard than most states.

However, the ABA requirement is technically 90 s.h., not a B.A. The difference between an A.S. or A.A. and 90 S.H., while significant is not enormous when you consider the overall length of post secondary legal training, IMHO.

But CLEP tests are inescapably less of an undertaking than 90 S.H., so there you are!