Bar None
| Publication year | 2022 |
| Pages | 16 |
As I See It
by Julie Stermasi
Kim Kardashian is within a Hail Mary of becoming an attorney.
As you may have heard, Kardashian is participating in a legal apprenticeship program available in four states—California, Washington, Vermont, and Virginia—which will allow her to sit for the bar exam after four years of study under the mentorship of an experienced practicing attorney or judge. This process is called "reading the law," and it's not new—lawyers existed long before there were law schools. As part of the program, Kardashian was also required to sit for and pass California's "baby bar" before beginning her second year of study.[1]
What does this option mean for people who don't own billion-dollar enterprises? It means you can become a lawyer without mortgaging the rest of your life. It opens the profession to all.
I wish I had known about this when I started. As a first-generation American, it would have been easier to just do the work and not worry about school ranking, admission, and cost. Call it "zero barriers rare, hold the nepotism." If I had to do law school over again today, goodbye beaucoup plata: The total cost of attendance for the 2022-23 academic year at my alma mater, the George Washington University Law School, is $96,980[2] (I'll do the math for you—that's a grand total of $290,940). The four-year, part-time program is $78,850 per annum, for a final cost of $315,400. Kim K has the coin, but how many other working mothers can say the same?
Judging from all the shade she's received in the media, many, both in and out of this tradition-steeped profession, balk at the thought. Is earning the right to sit for the bar without suffering law school "unfair"? The expense of the degree makes it trickier to achieve for those of lower- or middle-class economic backgrounds, who are from immigrant or foreign families without established resources, or who wish to have children, among others.
Outsiders Make the Best Fighters
And for some, "getting in" still feels like being an outsider in the hallowed halls of jurisprudence. Ergo, the much-maligned Jimmy McGill of TV's Better Call Saul. Despite a law degree from the University of American Samoa (go Sand Crabs!), where he studied and trained outside the lines, the respect of his peers eluded him (but sometimes, outsiders can make the best fighters: "If you even dream of beating me you'd better wake up and apologize," said Mohammed Ali[3]). Perhaps the atypical learning of the law to state admission specifications just offends a legal profession that has historically...
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