Can I Become a Lawyer in Two Years?
- A lawyer is licensed to practice law in one or more of the 50 states. To become licensed, you must pass the bar examination in the state. People can take the bar examinations in more than one state but will only be licensed to practice law in the states in which they pass the exam. Applicants who fail the bar examination may take it again; some states have limits on how many times you can take the bar.
- Most law schools offer three-year programs, and people apply to law schools after completing a bachelor's degree. Upon graduating from law school, the graduate receives the degree of juris doctorate (JD). A JD is not a license to practice law, and holders of a JD are not lawyers unless and until they have passed a bar exam.
- The Law School Admission Test (LSAT) is required by most law schools to gain entrance. Law schools look at both an applicant's grade point average (GPA) as an undergraduate and his LSAT scores when considering admission. Theoretically, a student could take the LSAT and score well before graduating from college. If the scores were impressive enough, it is possible that he could get into law school before graduating from college, which would save time. It would still, however, take this person longer than two years because law school is usually a three-year program.
- Seven of the 50 states allow candidates to "read for the law," or take the bar examination without any higher education. They are: California, Vermont, New York, Wyoming, Washington, Virginia and Maine. You can become a lawyer in two years or less if you can study for and pass this examination without going to law school.
- Isabelle Wong Flores writes for Employment Crossing that she had an apprentice job at a law firm. She studied for two years at an alternative law school program in California and took the bar five times before she passed. In the end, it took her more than two years to become a lawyer.
