[louisphilippe]

My school-appointed mentor, who graduated in 2004, paid $4,000 a year. I see this as unfair, not only in the sense that my generation has to take out extraordinary loans to access education, but also in the sense that I am forced to pay $100,000 just to participate in our justice system.

Abraham Lincoln could become a lawyer simply by studying books from the library and passing the bar exam. No tuition was needed. Virtually all professions should have entry based on passing tests and paid apprenticeship. There is zero reason why entry needs to be mediated through expensive academic institutions staffed by professors who are generally not practitioners. If people want to go to law school as a luxury, that is fine, but it should not be required to participate in the justice system.

[joshuaheard]

California does not require a JD to take the bar exam. Instead you can apprentice with an attorney or judge.

As an alternative to taking out massive student loans, you can enter a part-time program and work full time to pay your tuition. That is what I did. I worked full time as a paralegal and went to school at night, then studied on weekends. I only took out one small loan to take time off to study for the bar exam and pay the associated costs.

[mhays]

>There is zero reason why entry needs to be mediated through expensive academic institutions staffed by professors who are generally not practitioners. If people want to go to law school as a luxury, that is fine, but it should not be required to participate in the justice system.

I would have agreed with you before I came to law school, but now I see why having intense legal training before being able to practice is required.

Being an attorney requires a very specific type of thinking which is somewhat different from normal human reasoning. It is less about understanding what is wrong or right morally, and more about knowing who or what sources have power, what laws and rules are relevant, and which levers should be pulled to argue for your desired outcome. It is this "thinking like a lawyer" that law school purports to teach, maybe even more so than the actual law itself.

Being an attorney is a huge responsibility, and I think the American Bar Association is right to set the bar high for prospective attorneys. My only gripe is that this bar seems to be not only ability and knowledge based, but also intensely financial as well.

[jalonso510]

Are you still in law school? I've been practicing for about five years and still haven't come across a time where something I learned in law school was useful/necessary. Especially for transactional lawyers, it really already is basically an apprenticeship system where you learn everything you need to know on the job while supervised by more senior lawyers.

[aswanson]

And yet, programmers, with far less forgiving requirements, manage to accomplish as much against far more objective requirements. Your comment seems to convey your field is riddled with political bullshit.

[mhays]

>And yet, programmers, with far less forgiving requirements, manage to accomplish as much against far more objective requirements.

I am unsure what you mean by "far less forgiving requirements." My client may go to jail, or have something else taken from them with the force of law. The stakes are very serious.

I'm also unsure how one can calculate who accomplishes more, since the two professions accomplish very different things. Does your sentiment stem from a distaste for lawyers, or for our legal system more broadly?

>Your comment seems to convey your field is riddled with political bullshit.

I'm sorry that I gave that impression, and I'm sorry you feel that way. Participating in a system that imprisons people and forcefully takes away assets by court order is inherently political. I suppose if you took to studying law and our legal system, you would soon see that as much is it is "riddled with political bullshit," it is also riddled with people trying to make the right decisions.

[aswanson]

Good comment, unlike mine. Sorry for that stupid post, too late to delete it. I was drinking when I wrote that...drunk people make incoherent, illogical statements at times...

[enraged_camel]

>>Abraham Lincoln could become a lawyer simply by studying books from the library and passing the bar exam. No tuition was needed.

Yes, but I have a feeling that the legal field was several orders of magnitude less complex during Lincoln's time.