Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: MillCreek on July 31, 2013, 11:29:29 AM
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http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/07/31/207247430/u-s-teenager-is-youngest-ever-to-pass-britains-bar-exams?ft=1&f=1001
Good for her. The trick will be passing the bar exam in a US state so she can practice here. New York, Massachusetts and California are the states with a bar admission process most suited to foreign lawyers. A good friend of mine back at the lawfirm was a British barrister who did medmal defense in the UK. Her husband was an OB in the UK. They both moved to California for his medical fellowship where he was admitted to practice medicine and she took the California Bar and was admitted to practice law. When they subsequently moved to Washington, it was easy for them to essentially transfer their California licensure and get Washington licenses.
To the chagrin of many American lawyers, in many foreign countries, your American JD does not qualify you to practice law or take the Bar admission tests there. You either have to associate with or be an employee of an admitted lawyer there, or you can take their legal education process and Bar exam from scratch. I once chatted with a guy who was admitted in both Washington and Japan; despite having about 10 years of legal experience, he had to go to law school in Japan and take the Bar there. The education and exam was in Japanese, so he had to learn that too. However, since he could handle legal matters in both Japan and Washington, he was able to charge an astonishing hourly rate and never lacked for business. He did corporate law.
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She passed the British Bar at 18.
She graduated college at 16.
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Some countries require an apprentice experience before an attorney can get a license. Assuming a competent and ethical mentor, that sounds like a good idea to me.
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Some countries require an apprentice experience before an attorney can get a license. Assuming a competent and ethical mentor, that sounds like a good idea to me.
Washington is one of the few states left where you can be admitted to the Bar by doing a clerkship rather than going to law school: http://www.wsba.org/Licensing-and-Lawyer-Conduct/Admissions/Limited-Licenses-and-Special-Programs/Non-Lawyers-and-Students/Law-Clerk-Program
I am told that at any one time, there are about 20 people per year in the program.
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Virginia did not even require a clerkship - reading the law was all thatyou needed to do. Sit in an admitted attorney's office for five years reading cases and getting quizzed as the attorney saw fit. At the end of the five years the admitted attorney submitted a written statement that they considered you knowlegable about the law. Judge read the statement and issued an order saying you could practice law in the Commonwealth. (Sometimes the judge specified a specialization area, but technically that is unconstitutional restraint of trade. An attorney has an ethical and fuduciary obligation to his client, but there is nothing that says the first case accepted after passing the bar cannot be a death penalty appeal. (attorney was later sabtioned for over-reaching).
stay safe.