Legal Question in Business Law in California

How does the California State Bar Law Office Study Program work? How often do you work with the lawyer, what do they teach you? How does the program itself work? Are you technically working for the attorney as an assistant with no pay? Once you pass the bar exam do you receive a certificate or some kind of degree that you passed the program and are now an attorney?


Asked on 8/12/09, 1:02 am

1 Answer from Attorneys

Bryan Whipple Bryan R. R. Whipple, Attorney at Law

If you are asking about California's bar-admission rules that permit study of law in preparation for the bar exam by such unusual methods as correspondence study or study while working for a lawyer or judge, I can tell you that the success (bar passing) rate is very, very low.

I studied law by correspondence with LaSalle Extension University in the 1950s and passed the "Baby Bar" for first-year law students outside accredited schools on my second try in about 1963. Then I got serious about my career in business and didn't think about law school again until 1996, when I enrolled in night law school (Empire College in Santa Rosa). I got an excellent education while keeping my day job, passed the bar on my first attempt, and have practiced as a solo ever since.

I have followed alternative means of preparing for the bar as a matter of curiosity. I find the bar-pass success rate, as well and the number of candidates attemptingthese alternative routes, to be very, very low. I think California is the las state to even allow someone to prepare for the bar by study in a law office or by correspondence. I hate to discourage anyone from trying, but my advice is to find a law school, even a state-accredited-only night school, that will (a) accept you, and (b) has a respectable bar-exam passing rate.

Good luck; studying law is fun and study in a school with others adds to the experience.

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Answered on 8/12/09, 1:42 am


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