- This episode of Legal Eagle was made possible by Skillshare. Learn to think like a lawyer for free for two months by clicking the link in the description. Last week, Kim Kardashian announced her intention to take
the California bar exam without going to law school. Like all things Kardashian,
this made huge headlines. Is this simply a new plot
for the reality show? Or is Kim Kardashian expanding her home, video, and makeup empire
to include a law practice? Discover the truth in this
week's Real Law Review. (horn music) Kim Kardashian made news last week by announcing her intention to take the California bar exam without graduating from law school. This practice is called reading the law. And it actually used to be the dominant way that Americans become lawyers. Like most lawyers, Kim
made her announcement with a splashy article and
a photo spread in Vogue. The Vogue article describes Kim's house as having a master bedroom the size of, quote, an airplane hangar, a pile of books on tort law, a bathroom big enough
for a basketball team, and of course, Kanye West. - I am the number one most impactful artist of our generation. I am Shakespeare in
the flesh, Walt Disney. - Hashtag relatable. But on a more serious note, Kim explains that she decided to become a lawyer after helping secure the
release of Alice Marie Johnson, a prisoner who spent a decade in prison for being a nonviolent drug offender. Although Kim was mostly an intermediary bringing up the case with
Kanye's friend Donald Trump, the experience made her
feel out of her depth. She state, quote, that "I
want to be able to fight "for people who have paid
their dues to society. "I just felt like the
system could be so different "and I wanted to fight to fix it. "And if I knew more,
then I could do more." Admirably, Kim has
continued to be involved in prison reform efforts. So apparently she started the process of becoming a lawyer last summer with an apprenticeship
with a California law firm. Her goal, apparently, is to take the California bar in 2020. Of course, Kim is also the daughter of a famous lawyer, Robert Kardashian who is problem best known
as being O.J. Simpson's friend and attorney during
the 1995 murder trial. Mr. Kardashian passed away in 2003 of esophageal cancer. Now like all things Kardashian, Kim's announcement was of course met with a cycle of praise and backlash. Her personal lawyer Marty Sing, who I've actually worked
with on a few occasions, at the firm of Lavely and Singer said that quote, "I believe
that she will be a terrific "lawyer and will be an asset to any firm "that hires her, including our own." That's probably true. You can imagine that hiring a billionaire reality TV star would probably be a boon to any law firm that she
decided to work with. Now, of course, detractors
rolled their eyes at Kim's depiction of her studies, especially the comment
where she said, quote, "Took my first test. "Got a 100! "Super easy for me. "The reading is what really gets me. "It's so time-consuming. "The concepts I grasp in two seconds." But I think for the time being, at least, she deserves the benefit of the doubt. It is difficult to do the process of reading for the law and passing the California bar exam. The California bar exam,
which is notoriously the hardest bar exam
in the entire country. But let's talk a little
bit about this process. Law school is usually three years long and involves grueling years of studying, writing, taking exams, and learning to think and argue like a lawyer. And of course, after
attaining your law degree, the recent law graduate has
to take a state bar exam. Once that person passes the exam, they are good to go, at
least in terms of being able to practice in that one particular state. Every state has its own bar exam, so passing one test
doesn't really give you the right to practice in another state. And if you pass the bar in California, no other state lets you just wave in because California doesn't
let any other lawyers wave in to the state of California. But it hasn't always been that way. In colonial America,
people were suspicious of lawyers, even though the 28 of the signers of the
Declaration of Independence actually had legal training. That's because back in England, the profession was only open to elites. And, of course, Americans were revolting against a society with a
very strong class system. Eventually Americans realized
that they needed lawyers, and they decided to make the training markedly different than what their forefathers had practiced. The first American-trained lawyers on US soil had to complete
a seven-year clerkship with a lawyer or a judge. New York, not surprisingly,
led the way here, insisting on the completion of a four-year degree followed
by a five-year clerkship. This model for legal training wasn't all that different
from apprenticing in masonry, millwright, or plumbing. The training was overseen
by a mentor-lawyer who would make sure that the potential law graduate absorbed all the knowledge necessary for the profession. Of course, there were some problems with this model as it applied to lawyers. Apprenticeship training was all practical, so students did not receive
much theoretical knowledge. Today some would argue that you get way too much theoretical
knowledge at law school and not enough practical knowledge. The practice of law, of
course, requires both. It requires intellectual rigor, oral skills, writing
skills, research skills. This can be hard to
pick up in a fast-paced legal environment and in fact, many apprentices found
themselves overworked and stuck doing menial tasks rather than actually
studying the law itself. Over the years, a formal system of legal education started to develop with law schools opening and eventually, every state starting its own bar. However, in most states people can still become lawyers without
actually attending law school. Some of America's most famous lawyers did exactly that, for example, Abe Lincoln grew up on the frontier and
couldn't afford law school. He did just fine. In fact, Lincoln didn't
even apprentice with anyone. He just read some books
and passed the test. And started a law firm and ended up as one of the most revered American presidents of all time. The process of reading the law which Kim Kardashian, blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah. The process of reading the law which Kim Kardashian is
actually going through also worked for Clarence Darrow, John Adams, Thomas
Jefferson, Daniel Webster, and chief judge of the
Supreme Court, John Marshall. In the late 19th century, fewer than 20% of lawyers actually went to law school which is where the American Bar Association
enters the picture. In 1878, a group of lawyers started the American Bar Association to promote for greater uniformity in the legal profession. The ABA wanted to restrict entrance into the profession and spent years lobbying states to restrict
the practice of law to only people who actually
went to law school. And they were pretty successful. Although most states now require a person to graduate from law school to be eligible to take the bar exam, a few outlier states still allow non-graduates to take the test. Today, only California,
Virginia, Washington, and Vermont will allow you to take the bar exam without actually going to law school. Meanwhile, New York,
Wyoming, and New Jersey let students take the bar exam if they complete some sort of
mini-version of law school. For people living in those states, taking the bar exam through a combination of apprenticeship and
schooling could make sense. As I covered in another video, the cost, debt, and time involved can make law school a difficult
proposition for many people. But, let's go back to Kim Kardashian. What does she have to do to be able to take and pass
the California bar exam? Well, she's going to need to spend 18 hours a week for four years with a lawyer or a judge
to get the go-ahead to sit for the California bar exam. She's also going to need to take what we usually refer
to as the baby bar exam later this summer. The baby bar is a threshold test for people who want to go to an unaccredited law school or intend to read the law without
actually going to law school. It's a gatekeeper to make sure that you're not going to sit for the main bar exam if
you can't at least pass a smaller version of it ahead of time. Kim's supervising lawyer must devote at least five hours a week
to direct supervision. And must administer tests to demonstrate that she is actually learning something. - Kim would you stop taking
pictures of yourself? Your sister's going to jail. - Kim has already been reading law books, working at a law office, and taking tests, so I would say this is not
exactly a publicity stunt, at least for the time being. She will have to work in three more years of weekly legal work and study to get her shot at the
California bar exam in 2020. If she passes, she will
join a very rare club. In 2014, 84,000 people took a bar exam. But just 60 were apprentices. And of those 60 people, only 17 actually passed the bar exam. Now, if you want to read for the law like Kim Kardashian, you'll
need a productivity system to manage your time and
learn to study efficiently. I highly recommend my
friend Thomas Frank's Skillshare Productivity Masterclass, How to Create a Custom System that Works. Even if you're not trying to pivot from being a Kardashian to a lawyer, it'll help you transform your personal and professional life by creating a simple customized productivity system. - Oh, it's on. - Or, if you already a lawyer and want to pivot to being a
Kardashian-style reality star, you can lean all the beauty tips the Thomas Frank uses in Chelsea Baker's Skillshare class on applying makeup using professional techniques. Skillshare is an online learning community that has over 20,000
classes on everything, like lifestyle, design, and technology. The first 500 Legal Eagles
will get two free months of Skillshare when you
click on the link below. The free premium membership gives you unlimited access to must-know topics so you can improve your
skills and learn new things. So click on the link. Get two free months. And start learning to
think like a lawyer today. It could even help you
become a reality star lawyer. - Oh my gosh, Alice, you're out. - [Alice] Yes. (screams) (cries) - Do you think Kim will stick with it? Do you think that people should be able to practice the law without
going to law school? Leave your objections in the comments. And check out my other
Real Law Reviews over here where I will see you in court.
