Legal Question in Family Law in Massachusetts

Re: Schooling

college and law school

Re: Schooling

It depends on what state you want to practice in. All states allow persons who have a college degree and a law degree to take the bar exam. If you pass the bar exam, you can then practice in that state.

The college degree can be anything from an accredited school. A law degree has to be from a nationally accredited law school, or from a law school in the state you want to pactice in, accredited or not. There are some "evening schools" that allow people who want to get a law degree while earning an income from some other source to do so.

A few states may still allow people to become lawyers by apprenticeship. You will have to search the internet for these. They are mainly in the midwest and south, but there may be some on the east and west.

The first year of law school is spent learning the basics of contract law, liability/negligence, the legal process and legal writing. Most schools use the same methodology, using "casebooks", since the idea is to read an appellate case and discuss the case in class, why the court ruled the way it did, what might have made a difference in the outcome, what it says about the state or the situation that it had to be resolved by litigation and appeal.

Lawyers learn to argue; not so much what the law "is", because the law is always changing, and what a client usually wants is a result, which the lawyer has to argue for from prior cases and from statutes and regulations.

Even after 3 years of law school, most lawyers take a bar review course that prepares them to take a specific state's bar exam. Some states have harder exams than others.

Why do you "need to know" what schooling lawyers have? Do you want to be a lawyer, or why lawyers are the way they are? Or is there a specific issue that turns on a lawyer's education?

Re: Schooling

You must graduate from an accreditated law school or one that is approved by the State in which you are applying for licensing. You then must pass a bar examination for the state in which you wish to practice.

Most law schools require a college degree to attend

Re: Schooling

You need your bachelor's degree (4 years of sooner if you go full-time) or sometimes there are some expedited sources to get an equivalent of a bachelors, after obtaining your associate degree in college, and then law school; and, in some states like Massachusetts you have to take the ethic's exam and then the bar exam. You need to pass both before becoming a lawyer and now you have to pass the ethic's test prior to taking the bar exam. Good luck! Sincerely, Maria Murber