[ksdale]

As a lawyer, there is so much more that falls under the umbrella of "practicing law" that is nowhere near as demanding as a trial or contract negotiations. I personally think the credentials that lawyers have are completely unnecessary for a large portion of the tasks that only lawyers are allowed to perform.

I think the bar exam is more like, sufficient but not necessary, anyone who can pass the bar is easily capable of being a lawyer, but I don't think the bar is necessary at all to prove that someone is capable.

[D13Fd]

What kind of law do you practice? In my view every litigator has to be ready to go to trial.

I guess if you are going to be a contract document review attorney or something then maybe the bar is overkill in some ways. But I would argue that the only value added by someone like a document review attorney is the fact that they passed the bar (demonstrating a broad base of knowledge).

[ksdale]

I was under the impression that most attorneys are not litigators. You can easily spend a career writing wills or creating trusts or doing business formations, or helping people through real estate transactions without ever setting foot in a courtroom.

One of the first things they taught us in law school is that most lawyers won't actually spend much time at all in a courtroom, and I've found that to be true. There's so much else that lawyers do, and a lot of it is done preliminarily by paralegals, and in my opinion, a lot of it could go out the door at that point, having been done by the paralegal. I actually think a lot of work does go out the door at that point and there's just a grand performance happening where we all pretend that the lawyer did more than a cursory review.

Maybe that's not how law should be practiced, but judging by the wills and LLC agreements that come across my desk, it's how it is practiced and the world goes on without noticing.

[HWR_14]

I am not a lawyer, but I would guess there is a position for "slightly more than Legal Zoom". I want to create a will (and don't need to worry about estate taxes.) I want to create an LLC. My counterparty and I agree on the terms and we need someone to draft or modify a contract that specifies what we say.

[ksdale]

This is exactly how I feel as well. There is a ton of stuff that lawyers do that is basically rote, there are a handful of questions you need to ask, and then you do the thing, and there's no reason someone with an associate's degree and a six week training course couldn't do it, with a strict rule to refer more complicated stuff to the attorneys.