Kim Kardashian and the Bar Exam (with a note about SCOTUS Justice Benjamin Robbins Curtis)

According to Above the Law, Kim Kardashian West is currently an apprentice in a San Francisco law firm, with the intention of taking the California bar in 2022. California is one of the few states in which "reading law" remains an alternative to law school, although the requirements are fairly strict. Aspiring applicants have to work for four years with a law firm mentor, putting in a minimum of 18 hours per week, and must also pass the "baby bar" after the first year in order to be allowed to continue.

Kardashian evidently expects no difficulty passing the exam. In an interview with Vogue, she had this to say about the first year curriculum:

“First year of law school,” Kim says, “you have to cover three subjects: criminal law, torts, and contracts. To me, torts is the most confusing, contracts the most boring, and crim law I can do in my sleep. Took my first test, I 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.”

Writing in Slate, Mark Joseph Stern provides more details about reading law, which is still allowed in Vermont, Virginia, and Washington, as well as California. There are drawbacks, of course. For starters, as Stern explains, apprentices achieve only a 28% pass rate on the bar exam, as opposed to 73% of law school graduates. (It is not clear where the graduates of unaccredited law schools are counted for these statistics, given that they must also take the baby bar in California. If they are included with the readers, then the 28% figure is too high for actual apprentices; if they are included among the graduates, then the 73% figures is really too low.)

The biggest drawback for apprentices, however, is the non-portability of their education, which will be invalid for bar exam purposes in other states. As Stern put it, "if you 'read law' in California, you’d better intend to practice in California exclusively." Seems like that won't be a problem for Kardashian.

Although there were American law faculties beginning in colonial times, it was common for early American lawyers to go the law office route, and it remained so throughout the nineteenth century. Abraham Lincoln read law, as did Daniel Webster, Stephen Douglas, Henry Clay, Salmon P. Chase, and Myra Bradwell. So did Clarence Darrow, although he did attend one year of law school at the University of Michigan. The first SCOTUS justice with a law degree was Benjamin Robbins Curtis, who was appointed by Millard Fillmore in 1851 and was the only Whig ever to serve on the Court. The last justice without a law degree was Robert Jackson, who had also been solicitor general and attorney general, and was later chief prosecutor at Nuremberg, appointed by FDR in 1941.

Stern does get one thing wrong. He disparages Justice Curtis as "not one of [the Court's] leading lights." It is true that Curtis had supported the Fugitive Slave Act as a Boston lawyer, which in part prompted Daniel Webster to urge his nomination by Fillmore, but that stain should not diminish his greatest contribution to Supreme Court history. Curtis was one of only two dissenters in the Dred Scott case, and he soon afterward resigned in protest of Chief Justice Taney's pro-slavery leadership. It is often said that Curtis was the only SCOTUS justice to resign over principle, but that is not quite right. Justice John Archibald Campbell resigned to join the Confederacy -- a treasonous principle, but a principle nonetheless.

In any case, Curtis's admirable stand on African-American citizenship is sufficient by itself to qualify him as one of the court's leading lights. Post-resignation, he was chief counsel for the defense in the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson, in which he succeeded in persuading seven Republican senators to vote for acquittal, thus saving Johnson's presidency by a single vote. That may or may not have qualified as a "profile in courage," depending on your point of view, but it established Curtis as one of the most capable lawyers of his era.

UPDATE: I emailed Stern with a note about Curtis's dissent, and he tweeted a retraction here.

Comments

[Duncan McCloud]

I've always wondered what Taney was thinking when he wrote the Dred Scott decision. He believed that slavery was evil and had freed his slaves before this case. He also believed in federal power. Perhaps he really did think that slavery's legality should be left to state law. Any thoughts?

[Patrick S. O'Donnell]

It is both refreshing and encouraging to read Stern's response to what you wrote.

[[M][@][c][K]]

It may seem strange that I'm defending law schools - but....

Because I have practiced in so many places I have encountered a number of lawyers trained primarily through the apprenticeship system - and indeed, it is/was partially how many common law countries trained solicitors and barristers. I tend to do rather complex work and this may impact my outlook, but my concern with "law office training," i.e., training by doing, is that the apprentices largely only learn what the law office does, that their legal knowledge is narrow and that this can prove pretty dangerous when cases turn complex.

I would add though, that narrow training an experience is also a factor in BigLaw - that very large law firms have highly compartmentalised practices, which can mean that associates in those firms gain a very narrow legal experience.

I do not know about California, but in the UK, Ireland, etc. the concern about a broader foundation for non-law graduate apprentices has led to broader training requirements. This has been in some respects a positive development, because it makes it easier to find lawyers who have a broader background in say science and engineering than the typical BL.

[anon]

Steve writes, "As Stern put it, "if you 'read law' in California, you’d better intend to practice in California exclusively."

I formerly held that view, but things have changed a bit. Practice before federal agencies, practice within a corporation or organization, practices restricted to certain types of federal law, practice within teams that typically get pro hac vice admission into federal court litigation, and other modes of practice have changed the landscape considerably. There is a lot more freedom to operate than there once was.