Law school and bar exam in different states?

Taking the bar exam without going to law school

• I want to know if there are any US states or territories that allows someone to take only the bar exam to become a lawyer in that jurisdiction without previously graduating from law school.

• Answer:

  shafdog2000 -- The following seven states allow admission to the bar to candidates who meet law office study requirements but have not graduated from a law school: California Maine New York Vermont Virginia Washington Wyoming Several of those states have special requirements that apply to the applicants for bar membership that choose law office study as their primary qualification. Here is a summary of those special requirements: California: "Applicants who obtain legal education by . . . law office study must have four years of law study and take an examination after their first year. Applicants who pass the examination within three consecutive administrations of first becoming eligible to take it will receive credit for all law study completed to the date of the examination passed." Maine "Applicants may have . . . completed 2/3 of graduation requirements from an ABA-accredited law school and within 12 months after successful completion pursued the study of law in the law office of an attorney in active practice of law in Maine on a full-time basis for at least one year . . . ." New York "Law office study permitted after successful completion of one year at an ABA-approved law school." Vermont "Four-year law office study program; must have completed three-fourths of work accepted for a bachelor's degree in a college approved by the Court before commencing the study of law" Wyoming "Law office study permitted as a structured course comparable to 2 years at an ABA-approved law school Prior approval of independent study required." No special conditions are noted for Virginia and Washington. All of the above information is from the "Comprehensive Guide to Bar Admission Requirements 2004," published by the National Conference of Bar Examiners and American Bar Association Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar. A complete copy of that document in PDF form can be accessed using this link: National Conference of Bar Examiners http://www.ncbex.org/pubs/pdf/2004CompGuide.pdf The tables and explanatory notes that specifically speak to your question are found at pages 10-13 of that document. They also provide a breakdown of states that require degrees from ABA-approved law schools, those that recognize non ABA-approved degrees under various circumstances, as well as correspondence study and foreign law school degrees. (You will need Adobe Reader to access this PDF document. If it is not installed on your computer, it can be conveniently downloaded at no cost from this linked page: Adobe Reader: Download http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html ) Search Strategy: In my initial Google searches, I found conflicting information -- some sites indicated that eight states allowed law firm study to qualify as a bar exam applicant, and some said seven. For example, this site indicated that there were eight such states: Community Legal Access BarAlt Proposal http://clubs.asua.arizona.edu/~clas/021219_Z%20Research%20Summary_Bar%20Admit%20Criteria%20Comparison_Elizabeth%20Alongi.htm While this site said seven: Christian Science Monitor: The Self-made Lawyer http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0603/p13s01-lecs.html The latter information is more recent and from a very reliable source, but I wanted to confirm the currency of the information from an even more authoritative source, so I tried various Google searches to accomplish that. The one was led me to the 2004 ABA report was the following: bar admission requirements "new york" ://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=%22bar+admission%22+requirements+%22New+York%22&spell=1 The previous searches that led to the contradictory information included, among others: "bar exam" "without graduating" "law school" ://www.google.com/search?q=%22bar+exam%22+%22without+graduating%22+%22law+school%22&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&start=10&sa=N "eight states" "law school" vermont ://www.google.com/search?q=+%22eight+states%22+%22law+school%22+vermont&hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1 I am confident that this is the information you are seeking. If anything is unclear, please ask for clarification before rating this answer. markj-ga