Did you know that Abraham Lincoln, U.S. Supreme Court Justices, and even Clarence Darrow became lawyers with no law degree? Many states outlawed this traditional method with the creation of expensive law schools like Harvard. California did not! In this article we will explore how one California attorney became a California personal injury lawyer prior to completing law school or college. Attorney Michael P. Ehline, worked for many years as a paralegal for large PI law firms focused on spinal cord injuries, dog bite cases, car accidents, truck accident and all types of motor vehicle accidents resulting in wrongful death claims.
Ehline states that he learned practical skills as a paralegal by doing the law in a law office. After dealing with first through fifth year associates at big defense law firms like Lewis Brisbois, and Best Best and Krieger, Ehline states that he realized these young lawyers who talked down to him, who were making $100,000 per year from top tiered law schools, knew very little about practical law. Ehline couldn’t believe that these greenhorns made so much money and got so much respect… and were “so arrogant, rude and abusive.”
Conversely, Ehline saw that he was making other lawyers he did law and motion work for, millions of U.S. dollars. But Ehline was in a quandary, he needed to keep making a living and simply did not have the time or desire to attend college, learn algebra and calculus, etc., just so he could go to law school. A friend told Ehline about an obscure program in California called the California State Bar Law Office Study Program. This is the true story and method Ehline used to become a California personal injury lawyer with no law school or college.
You too can be a personal injury lawyer, or general practitioner with no college or law school degree in California. As one of approximately 64 attorneys in the State of California who has passed both the Baby Bar Exam and General Bar Exam prior to obtaining any degree, Mike Ehline knows. Ehline took and passed the California State Bar General Bar Exam with no law degree or college degree.
What is the California State Bar Law Office Study Program?
Ehline states that the “the only formal education I had before I began the California State Bar Law Office Study Program, was some foreign language classes, a stent in the U.S. Marine Corps. typing lessons. (Source Ehline Law Personal Injury Web Site.) The California State Bar Law Office Study Program is a serious program of practical legal training offered by the California State Bar. In a nutshell, if you can pass the initial educational requirements discussed below, then study law in a judge’s chambers or law office after that, you can sit for the California State Bar Examination in four years and if you pass, you can become an attorney.
If you have no undergrad degree, the first step is to take the CLEP, or College Level Equivalence Program test. The next step is to take and pass the California First Year Law Student’s Examination, known as the Baby Bar “FYSLX. ” If you pass within the first three attempts, you may sit California Bar Examination 36 months later, assuming you continued on your in house study of law under a judge or supervising attorney(s).
Can I Really Become a Personal Injury Lawyer, or General Practitioner With No Law School?
Yes. You can become an attorney with no college and without setting a foot in any expensive and boring law school. Assuming you are a resident of California, and a few other enlightened North American states, set forth below, it is do-able. Many recent law school graduates and tenured professors feel threatened by the traditional methods. They will chuckle and tell you that you simply must attend law school and college to be a successful California , or other state attorney.
Why is the American Bar Association (“ABA”) so Fearful of the Law Office Study Program?
The ABA, an until recently, exclusively leftist organization, still discourages law students and bar candidates from becoming a lawyers without law school on law office study programs. Ehline and the State of California have a different opinion about this. One major factor to remember is that the only way to actually become an attorney until the creation of expensive law schools later on in U.S. history, was to read law in a law office.
But those once conservative Christian institutions are universally recognized as having been taken over by liberal educators who probably never even practiced, or were unable to be successful, which is why they became educators. (Those who can do, those who can’t teach) Back in the old days, reading for the law meant that you would not be subjected to the mind control of left wing college professors and leave the study of law supporting communistic organizations such as the ACLU. In fact, modernly many parents in middle America are still confused that their once patriotic children leave law schools supporting Marxist, Leninist and anti-American philosophies, even supporting extremist religions that teach the destruction of Israel and the west.
Many believe that the ACLU and ABA are one in the same and that the only way to force their minority views is with sympathetic judges who were also brainwashed by going to ABA approved schools. The ABA official position is that classroom education is the only way to become a practicing lawyer. Many U.S. states bought into this bogus assertion and wiped out their law office study programs. This is primary reason hardly anyone even knows about reading for the law anymore. Since 1980, only 436 individual have actually registered for the apprentice program known as law office study.
According to reliable sources, only 64 California attorneys have passed the bar exam on the Law Office Study Program in the past 15 or so years. California State Bar officials are said to estimate that fewer than 30 people are pursuing the Law Office Study Program at any given time. (Source LA Times) The ABA Code of Recommended Standards claims that: “neither private study, correspondence study or law office training, nor age or experience should be substituted for law school education.” (AB Standards)
But you can take and pass the California State Bar Exam with no law school in a few states besides California.
States Who Still Allow You To Become An Attorney By Reading for the Law:
The available data suggest that only seven U.S. states allow reading for the law as follows: (Source):
Virginia;
Washington;
Wyoming;
California;
Maine;
New York;
Although Ehline is a California personal injury lawyer, he researched other states to help those like single moms who want to become lawyers in other states. California’s Law Office Study Program is known as the California State Bar Law Office Study Program.
“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.”
“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 requirements are needed to become an attorney without law school in Virginia or Washington as far as I could determine. All of the above information came 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. (Source) Famous American Lawyers, Presidents and Supreme Court Justices who Became Attorneys Without School.
Law Office Study is how president Abraham Lincoln became a lawyer. In fact historically, lawyers read the law from Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England to learn the law and by clerking for judge’s and lawyers. After that, law candidates were orally examined by state supreme court judges. The Bar Exam was devised hundreds of years later to set a standard of legal education.
Famous individuals who became lawyers with no law school degree:
1. Patrick Henry (1736-1799), member of the Continental Congress, governor of Virginia
2. John Jay (1745-1829), first chief justice of the Supreme Court;
3. John Marshall (1755-1835), chief justice of the Supreme Court;
4. William Wirt (1772-1834), attorney general;
5. Roger B. Taney (1777-1864), secretary of the treasury, chief justice of the Supreme Court;
6. Daniel Webster (1782-1852), secretary of state;
7. Salmon P. Chase (1808-1873), senator, chief justice of the Supreme Court;
8. Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), president;
9. Stephen Douglas (1813-1861), representative, senator from Illinois;
10. Clarence Darrow (1857-1938), defense attorney in Scopes trial of 1925. [Clarence Darrow went to law school for one year, and preferred to study law on his own. He received most of his legal education in a law office in Youngstown, Ohio;
11. Robert Storey (b. 1893), president of the American Bar Association (1952-1953);
12. J. Strom Thurmond (b. 1902), senator, governor of South Carolina;
13. James O. Eastland (b. 1904), senator from Mississippi Wallechinsky, David; (Source, “The Book of Lists,” 1977 (Source)
Importance of the Bar Exam Itself
The Bar Exam is a helpful way to measure lawyer acceptability to Courts and public with a State Bar Exam. But the ABA view that people should not be allowed to take the Bar without law school is obviously flawed. People should be allowed to pass the Bar Exam without college or law school, who are qualified. People less fortunate can be excellent attorneys. If you want to become a California personal injury lawyer without law school or college and are lucky enough to live in a state that allows it, go for it. And you don’t have to be just a personal injury lawyer, you can practice any type of law you like. Ehline became a personal injury lawyer, but you can do anything from appellate law to criminal defense. It’s up to you!