Become American Lawyer Without JD or LSAT!!! Forum

[kwais]

OP here. First, I am personally satisfied with a 166, it is good enough to get me into schools from which American billionaires have graduated from.

Second, I never said the LSAT is stupid, I only implied that it is smart to end up in the same place as you otherwise would WITHOUT taking the LSAT, just like it would be sweet to get into Harvard College without taking the SAT.

Third, for all the people who don't know what they want after high school, the existence of the LLB would not stop them from pursuing law in graduate studies if they did not study law as a UG major, because it is likely that the JD would continue to exist as well (Hong Kong and Singapore serve as prime examples).

Fourth, why is law different from becoming a accountant or engineer, both of which have UG degrees? It is not, a profession is a profession is a profession, and there is no reason some should have UG degrees but other should not, medical doctor included.

Fifth, it is not fair to limit those who are sure out of high school that they want to be lawyers because other people have no idea.

That leads to Six, which is that in our free market economy, commodities should be allowed to compete, and law degrees are certainly commodities, but they are not allowed to compete, because the state (i.e., state bars) grant a monopoly to the JD, and that is unfair and non-competitive.

Seventh and finally, the introduction of the LLB would require no major changes to any institutions. Just let LLBs become qualified as lawyers, and the students, professors and educational institutions would adapt in no time. We are Americans, should we be scared of more freedom, more choice??I Come on, give me a break!

In our current state, law firms are able to discriminate against LLBs, even if they have LLMs, and that is because there is an abundance of JDs, and the reason for that the JD has a monopoly and people (including me in about a year) buy into it. That is not really rational to me, since an LLB has a longer duration of education than a JD, but hey, that is how it is. However, I believe the law firms would change their mentality tonight if (i) many American high school grads opted for foreign LLBs instead of American BAs/BSs + JD and/or state bars allowed LLBs to become qualified lawyers.

In the end, it all comes down to economics 101. The JD has a monopoly, and everything else is a cause thereof. Take away the JDs monopoly, and you will get a very different landscape in legal education and the legal profession.

May I add, go Ron Paul!!!

May I add a tl;dr version
"I read some Ayn Rand and listened to a Ron Paul speech so now I throw around words like "freedom" and "markets" without any nuance or complexity...oh and if a billionaire can do it, so can I"

[kazu]

So, I got two things out of that post. First and most apparent, your understanding of economics is practically non existent. And two, you judge schools by millionaires produced, which definitely seems like a good metric.

Yeah, this.

[vanwinkle]

We are Americans, should we be scared of more freedom, more choice??I Come on, give me a break!

May I add, go Ron Paul!!!

Now I understand OP perfectly.

[CaveatLector]

deleted post

[Patriot1208]

Ok, I back up my statements with reasoning. You people offer quick statements without anything to back them up. What is wrong with my economic analysis of this situation? If you let he LLB and JD compete, is it unreasonable to believe that certain of people will choose the LLB and law firms will thus be forced to recognize and accept it? If it is unreasonable, tell me why, otherwise, don't bother answering.

You mean, besides your usage of words you don't seem to understand. Seriously, do you know what a commodity is? Or that you say law firms (those in demand) discriminate against LLB's and therefore it isn't a free market? Honestly, law firms are the one who are in demand, meaning, that they can discriminate anyway they want to. They are the consumer. Clearly, the consumer in this case has decided the LLB's and LLM's are inferior products because they had open competition. Or that you say the JD has a monopoly because there is a lot of them? Which doesn't make any sense whatsoever in any economic sense. So, in essence, your whole post is a clusterfuck of ramblings that you try to pass off as economic analysis, when you don't seem to have any understanding of economics.

As for the billionaire (not millionaire) statement, I think considering how many graduates from the school went on to become billionaires is actually a decent metric, at least as good as criteria used in other metrics - # supreme court clerks, articles published, books in the library, teacher:student ratio. I don't want to be a supreme court clerk, read law articles all day, wither away in a massive library or hang out with a prof and 9 other students all the time. Let's be honest, we all want to make the big bucks, that is why we are going to law school. In that case, the metrics we SHOULD focus on are those related to the financial wealth of graduates.

Everything you listed is a terrible metric. Supreme court clerks, billionaires, articles published, wut? Supreme Court clerks and Billionaires are the extreme at ANY school. Taking .01% of all graduates and using them to compare schools is an AWFUL metric and statistical abhorrence. And articles published is supposed to be a reflection on the level of faculty, but since all faculty in law schools are highly qualified, it's pretty stupid. Student to teacher ratio and books in the library, at least on the surface, does seem to have some impact on learning. But again, they don't really matter to you. In reality, a schools full value to you is an expected value calculation. Excluding utility (which is stupid, but seems to be what you want), to understand what the suspected value of that school is you need to understand what jobs people are getting and how many. So, because of the bimodial distribution, biglaw hiring + article 3 clerks (because they generally have the option of getting biglaw) is the real financial value of that degree, at least as far as we can quantify with limited data. Lifetime earnings are much more opaque, but its fairly usual that those who start out higher make more, but even the VAST majority of those who start in biglaw will never make the type of money you are talking about.

And if you are going to law school to get rich, you are doing it wrong. Almost all graduates, and the vast majority of graduates from any school you are likely getting into, will be middle class their whole lives.

In the future i'd suggest staying away from economic analysis of, well, anything.

[kwais]

booya

[tdicks]

Ok, I back up my statements with reasoning. You people offer quick statements without anything to back them up. What is wrong with my economic analysis of this situation? If you let he LLB and JD compete, is it unreasonable to believe that certain of people will choose the LLB and law firms will thus be forced to recognize and accept it? If it is unreasonable, tell me why, otherwise, don't bother answering.

backing your statements up with reasoning doesn't really mean anything when you use blatantly faulty reasoning.

[vanwinkle]

Ok, I back up my statements with reasoning. You people offer quick statements without anything to back them up. What is wrong with my economic analysis of this situation? If you let he LLB and JD compete, is it unreasonable to believe that certain of people will choose the LLB and law firms will thus be forced to recognize and accept it? If it is unreasonable, tell me why, otherwise, don't bother answering.

If I started printing my own money and got people to start carrying it around and trying to spend it, would that force banks to recognize and accept it as valuable currency?

Banks care about what's useful and profitable to them, and if it's not, they won't do it regardless of how much "demand" there is. You could get a million people to carry around Van Rubles and try to deposit them, but the bank wouldn't treat them as equal to the dollar just because enough people wanted them to. Getting their hands on Van Rubles is more efficient and thus preferred to the bank customers--heck, I can print as much as I want and keep handing them out, so they're much easier to obtain--but unless they have value to the bank, they're nothing more than worthless sheets of paper at the teller window.

It's the same thing with degrees. You can't just create a new degree program, have a bunch of people choose to do it because it's more efficient for them, and then expect it to have value just based on that alone. You can have a million people go and get these new degrees and "demand" that law firms take them. But unless legal employers have a reason to value it, your diploma won't be worth more to them than the sheet of paper it's printed on.

[Kilpatrick]

Ok, I back up my statements with reasoning. You people offer quick statements without anything to back them up. What is wrong with my economic analysis of this situation? If you let he LLB and JD compete, is it unreasonable to believe that certain of people will choose the LLB and law firms will thus be forced to recognize and accept it? If it is unreasonable, tell me why, otherwise, don't bother answering.

As for the billionaire (not millionaire) statement, I think considering how many graduates from the school went on to become billionaires is actually a decent metric, at least as good as criteria used in other metrics - # supreme court clerks, articles published, books in the library, teacher:student ratio. I don't want to be a supreme court clerk, read law articles all day, wither away in a massive library or hang out with a prof and 9 other students all the time. Let's be honest, we all want to make the big bucks, that is why we are going to law school. In that case, the metrics we SHOULD focus on are those related to the financial wealth of graduates.

This is actually a terrible reason to go to law school. Not very many JDs are going to be making big bucks

[Verity]

Ok, I back up my statements with reasoning. You people offer quick statements without anything to back them up. What is wrong with my economic analysis of this situation? If you let he LLB and JD compete, is it unreasonable to believe that certain of people will choose the LLB and law firms will thus be forced to recognize and accept it? If it is unreasonable, tell me why, otherwise, don't bother answering.

If I started printing my own money and got people to start carrying it around and trying to spend it, would that force banks to recognize and accept it as valuable currency?

Banks care about what's useful and profitable to them, and if it's not, they won't do it regardless of how much "demand" there is. You could get a million people to carry around Van Rubles and try to deposit them, but the bank wouldn't treat them as equal to the dollar just because enough people wanted them to. Getting their hands on Van Rubles is more efficient and thus preferred to the bank customers--heck, I can print as much as I want and keep handing them out, so they're much easier to obtain--but unless they have value to the bank, they're nothing more than worthless sheets of paper at the teller window.

It's the same thing with degrees. You can't just create a new degree program, have a bunch of people choose to do it because it's more efficient for them, and then expect it to have value just based on that alone. You can have a million people go and get these new degrees and "demand" that law firms take them. But unless legal employers have a reason to value it, your diploma won't be worth more to them than the sheet of paper it's printed on.

This is actually not quite true. Look up Bitcoin.

I think if someone did an LLB at a prestigious foreign school and then came back to do an LLM at a prestigious American school, that person's career prospects would be different, but just as good. It would be faster, but not necessarily cheaper (in fact probably more expensive living abroad without scholarships).

[vanwinkle]

This is actually not quite true. Look up Bitcoin.

Okay, so, which bank currently accepts deposits of Bitcoin on parity with the dollar, then?

[Verity]

This is actually not quite true. Look up Bitcoin.

Okay, so, which bank currently accepts deposits of Bitcoin on parity with the dollar, then?

The Bitcoin platform is a type of bank. Plenty of people use it for ordinary transactions. I think you're being obtuse with regard to OP's sentiment. It's not exactly the same, but OP's point is that the more an alternative becomes widespread, the more valuable and useful it is.

[NYC Law]

This is actually not quite true. Look up Bitcoin.

Okay, so, which bank currently accepts deposits of Bitcoin on parity with the dollar, then?

The Bitcoin platform is a type of bank. Plenty of people use it for ordinary transactions. I think you're being obtuse with regard to OP's sentiment. It's not exactly the same, but OP's point is that the more an alternative becomes widespread, the more valuable and useful it is.

This makes no sense. That analogy is the equivalent of just starting your own law firm specifically for people who don't hold a JD.

[Verity]

This is actually not quite true. Look up Bitcoin.

Okay, so, which bank currently accepts deposits of Bitcoin on parity with the dollar, then?

The Bitcoin platform is a type of bank. Plenty of people use it for ordinary transactions. I think you're being obtuse with regard to OP's sentiment. It's not exactly the same, but OP's point is that the more an alternative becomes widespread, the more valuable and useful it is.

This makes no sense. That analogy is the equivalent of just starting your own law firm specifically for people who don't hold a JD.

You can be a lawyer in some states without a JD.

[vanwinkle]

This is actually not quite true. Look up Bitcoin.

Okay, so, which bank currently accepts deposits of Bitcoin on parity with the dollar, then?

The Bitcoin platform is a type of bank. Plenty of people use it for ordinary transactions. I think you're being obtuse with regard to OP's sentiment. It's not exactly the same, but OP's point is that the more an alternative becomes widespread, the more valuable and useful it is.

If you're thinking of Bitcoin as a bank, then great. But you're still taking money out in dollars to put in a real bank, right?

That's what OP wants. He wants a piece of paper that's valuable in the existing legal job market at current, real legal employers. The question wasn't, could he start his own business if he passed the bar. He wants a job with an existing employer and that means doing business in their currency.

[Patriot1208]

This is actually not quite true. Look up Bitcoin.

Okay, so, which bank currently accepts deposits of Bitcoin on parity with the dollar, then?

The Bitcoin platform is a type of bank. Plenty of people use it for ordinary transactions. I think you're being obtuse with regard to OP's sentiment. It's not exactly the same, but OP's point is that the more an alternative becomes widespread, the more valuable and useful it is.

Except, that often that is the exact opposite of what happens. See: BA's. As I pointed out earlier the OP doesn't actually make a logical economic argument. And while you're trying to save him from his own stupidity, the OP didn't actually seem to understand what he was saying.

[Verity]

This is actually not quite true. Look up Bitcoin.

Okay, so, which bank currently accepts deposits of Bitcoin on parity with the dollar, then?

The Bitcoin platform is a type of bank. Plenty of people use it for ordinary transactions. I think you're being obtuse with regard to OP's sentiment. It's not exactly the same, but OP's point is that the more an alternative becomes widespread, the more valuable and useful it is.

If you're thinking of Bitcoin as a bank, then great. But you're still taking money out in dollars to put in a real bank, right?

That's what OP wants. He wants a piece of paper that's valuable in the existing legal job market at current, real legal employers. The question wasn't, could he start his own business if he passed the bar. He wants a job with an existing employer and that means doing business in their currency.

That's why I said the job prospects would be different. If people started trending away from the JD, I really don't think it's impossible for the American legal education system to be revolutionized. Apparently that's unpopular in this thread.

[Verity]

This is actually not quite true. Look up Bitcoin.

Okay, so, which bank currently accepts deposits of Bitcoin on parity with the dollar, then?

The Bitcoin platform is a type of bank. Plenty of people use it for ordinary transactions. I think you're being obtuse with regard to OP's sentiment. It's not exactly the same, but OP's point is that the more an alternative becomes widespread, the more valuable and useful it is.

Except, that often that is the exact opposite of what happens. See: BA's. As I pointed out earlier the OP doesn't actually make a logical economic argument. And while you're trying to save him from his own stupidity, the OP didn't actually seem to understand what he was saying.

I was just responding to vanwinkle, OP's lucidity is in his own hands.

[bk1]

That's why I said the job prospects would be different. If people started trending away from the JD, I really don't think it's impossible for the American legal education system to be revolutionized. Apparently that's unpopular in this thread.

It's not unpopular, it's just that we think the OP is an idiot whose ideas stem from being butthurt about failing the LSAT after 3 tries.

[vanwinkle]

That's why I said the job prospects would be different. If people started trending away from the JD, I really don't think it's impossible for the American legal education system to be revolutionized. Apparently that's unpopular in this thread.

Revolutions (or, really, reforms) on that scale don't happen quickly, and change would be slowest at the top where the pay is biggest and the employers are most selective, and the people who get the best jobs do so because they go to the oldest schools with the oldest law degree programs. I could see discussing it for its effect on the legal market 50 years from now (and that would be an interesting conversation), but I don't think it would matter to anyone reading this thread today and wanting to get on track for a legal career in the next few years. That is, the idea doesn't help any current readers "become an American lawyer without a JD or LSAT".

[Patriot1208]

That's why I said the job prospects would be different. If people started trending away from the JD, I really don't think it's impossible for the American legal education system to be revolutionized. Apparently that's unpopular in this thread.

It's not unpopular, it's just that we think the OP is an idiot whose ideas stem from being butthurt about failing the LSAT after 3 tries.

And the point being, what incentive is there to do this? OP's whole argument seems to assume this premise and that the incentives are already in place, but I don't see how that is the case. Maybe it would be easier for some of the suppliers (students) but because of the power structure the way it is, we don't control the market, the firms do.

[Grizz]

I could see discussing it for its effect on the legal market 50 years from now (and that would be an interesting conversation),

Hundreds of these








In a place like this

[Verity]

That's why I said the job prospects would be different. If people started trending away from the JD, I really don't think it's impossible for the American legal education system to be revolutionized. Apparently that's unpopular in this thread.

Revolutions (or, really, reforms) on that scale don't happen quickly, and change would be slowest at the top where the pay is biggest and the employers are most selective, and the people who get the best jobs do so because they go to the oldest schools with the oldest law degree programs. I could see discussing it for its effect on the legal market 50 years from now (and that would be an interesting conversation), but I don't think it would matter to anyone reading this thread today and wanting to get on track for a legal career in the next few years. That is, the idea doesn't help any current readers "become an American lawyer without a JD or LSAT".

If everyone had that attitude then it would take 50 years, if ever.

I do agree though that aside from some lofty revolutionary ideals, there is little incentive. I side with OP on the score that something cheaper, quicker and earlier could be substituted for the BA + JD, and we could produce just as good attorneys. But the existing alternatives are hardly as lucrative and safe, and not exactly as cheap.

[vanwinkle]

OP's whole argument seems to assume this premise and that the incentives are already in place, but I don't see how that is the case. Maybe it would be easier for some of the suppliers (students) but because of the power structure the way it is, we don't control the market, the firms do.

This was basically my point. The "incentives" are all perks for the supplier but it's a buyer-side market and will be unless...

Oh, here's a crazy idea. Cut federal loans for JDs. Then you might have fewer people going to law school, which would reduce the number of students who could finance a JD, and thus reduce the number of JDs being produced. This reduction would probably be substantial enough to kill off lower-tier law schools, whose high tuitions and how employment placement make them impractical in a world where loan financing isn't automatic anymore. This would constrain the supply of students, and give employers an incentive to take folks with LLBs (which, as bachelor degrees, are eligible for standard federal loans). They take the LLBs because they have no choice, there aren't enough JDs on the market to fill the available jobs...

But in this situation, the LLBs are soaking up the low end jobs and the high-end, high-pay work continues to go to those with JDs from the surviving, prestigious graduate law programs. In that world you've bifurcated the entire legal industry; only those who can afford a privately-financed graduate program (mostly the children of high-middle/upper class families) can go get the prestigious JDs that earn the best jobs, while those who get LLBs will always be regarded as a lower class of lawyers. It'll be a segregated job market, one where it's cheaper to get a law degree than it used to be, but nearly impossible to get a job at the top unless you're already wealthy.

This is kind of the opposite of what OP was hoping for. No equality and meritocracy here.

[vanwinkle]

If everyone had that attitude then it would take 50 years, if ever.

I do agree though that aside from some lofty revolutionary ideals, there is little incentive.

The attitude comes from the fact that there is little current incentive. And unless a greater incentive for change comes, yes, it will take 50 years, or longer.