Interesting Leglislation to Let Online Law School Grads to Take Arizona Bar Exam

In most States, like Arizona, it is unlawful for a someone to become a licensed lawyer without first receiving a Juris Doctor at a law school approved by the American Bar Association.  This creates a very serious barrier to access for individuals wishing to practice law. The barrier is that one must first get admitted to one of the 201 ABA accredited law schools.  This is sometimes a near impossibility for those with family or economic responsibilities, not to mention those with existing work obligations.   

Arizona Representative John Allen (R-Scottsdale) has proposed legislation to allow individuals who complete an online law school program to take the state bar exam and become a lawyer (assuming they satisfy all the other requirements.)  I have read the legislation. It is straightforward, and I support it.

An article in the Cronkite News illustrates how online education is the only reasonably accessible opportunity for some lawyer aspirants to enter the profession. It tells the story of one woman who had always dreamed of going to law school but couldn't due to career and family obligations. She did then locate and complete an online law school program based on California (the only state to currently allow graduates of online schools to sit for the bar exam), but since moving to California is not an option for her family, she is effectively prohibited from practicing her chosen profession.

Opponents of online legal education rightly complain that an online school cannot provide the same interactive spirit that facilitates learning law. Furthermore, law is not solely a technical trade, but is a civic art, and thus is most relevant in the context of a community where it can be discussed and evaluated in contemplative discourse.

There are two problems with this argument against on-line legal education. First, in-person law schools these days don't seem very directed at contemplative discourse anyway. For the most part, law school students are graded on their ability to mechanically manipulate the informative provided.  They are not judged on their creativity. Even though law professors often love to offer fascinating courses that encourage creative thinking, from what I observed, law students are either self driven or outright encouraged by their law school advisers to focus in on classes relevant to bar examination and career options.

 The second problem, often stemming from the first, is that from the student's perspective, law schools often function as if they were trade schools, not ivory towers where students consider the legal theory, history, and alternative approaches to legal and community issues. 

This may be because there are very few other options for individuals to learn about the legal system other than going to law school, and no mechanisms to become a lawyer than to successfully attend law school. 

I believe if there were educational alternatives and alternate means for individuals to secure the mechanical education needed for becoming a lawyer, law schools might have the leisure to engage in and encourage the contemplative aspect of the law.  I for one believe that I spent a certain portion of my law school career learning information that should be made available to all citizens, not just law students. 

There is also another factor to be considered.  There are no States in the country that permit one to sit for the bar exam without first attending a law school.  There are only 201 law schools in the country.  These 201 law schools train 143,000 students, meaning each law school houses, on average, over 700 students.  These ratios make it impossible for class sizes to be small enough to encourage deep conversation.  And in a country of a population of 314 million, a smaller number of law students is not practical.

Thus, the solution is more schools designed to meet the needs of those desiring to learn about the law.  Online schooling is an excellent opportunity to expand the educational opportunities for those looking to learn about the law and the professional skills needed therein.  If and when online law schools grow, individuals looking to study law will have more choices.  And as I have indicated in prior posts, more diverse study opportunities means more diverse legal perspectives, meaning more opportunity for the creative spirit to think through solutions to legal problems we face. 

Legal Literacy Is An American Value With Roots in Early Colonial America

Literacy is commonly defined as the ability to read and write in a manner sufficient to function in society. Similarly, legal literacy is having the knowledge and familiarity with the laws and one’s rights and responsibilities sufficient to function in society.  The purpose of this piece is to reflect on the extent to which the values of legal literacy is important to the Book of the General Laws and Liberties Concerning the Inhabitants of the Massachusetts, the first American legal code, published in 1648, and what we should draw from this precedent.   

It is important to recognize that legal literacy plays a role in all societies. In tyrannical regimes, legal literacy means having the knowledge and familiarity with the likes and dislikes of the person or persons with control over the military and police forces. In many voluntary non-governmental associations like religious and cultural societies, it means a commitment to a myriad of rules and regulations governing numerous aspects of daily living.  In a democratic-republic such as ours, it means a general familiarity with rights and responsibilities of one’s enterprise, a general familiarity with one’s obligations to one’s neighbors and others with whom one interacts, one’s rights to secure a legal remedy when faced with a legal cognizable harm, and one’s rights to petition and influence the government.

My view that legal literacy is an essential American value is not original to me or merely an aspect of the age in which we live, although that impression is understandable given the newness of various legal literacy organizations.  The Book of the General Laws and Liberties Concerning the Inhabitants of Massachusetts is first legal code in the Colonies, instituted in 1648.  Its introduction specifies that legal principles incumbent on members of society should be “drawn out into so many of their deductions as the time and condition of that people may have use of” [them].  I interpret that language as meaning that the writers contend that laws should be promulgated in a manner that is understandable and usable to the average citizen. The introduction also indicates that a primary purpose of publishing the 1648 legal code, and specifically using the mechanism of organizing materials alphabetically by topic, is designed to make sure the statutes are “more readily…found” and “more easily…apprehended.”

In "Codification of the Law in Colonial Massachusetts: A Study in Comparative Law,” published in the Indiana Law Journal in 1954, George L. Haskins asserts that “when [the code was] completed,  it was  believed  by  the  colonists  to  be  a  complete  and  comprehensive statement of the laws,  privileges,  duties, and rights in force  within the  jurisdiction.

Various writing on the Code have at least implicitly focused on why the Code can’t be seen as having the weight of precedent to our set of statues.  For instance, various articles on the Code have focused on the express references to Christianity in the Code. The Code specifically references its “Lord Jesus Christ” and identifies the political government established by God to “his people Israel” to be a legal system that was “more righteous than the other nations.” The Code provides the death penalty for certain religious crimes like blaspheme and the worship of entities other than the deities of Christianity. Additionally, many clauses in the Code specifically cite to Biblical clauses.  In fact, a cursory look at the titles and themes of the many sections within the code, namely laws prohibiting certain sects of Christianity, blasphemy, fornication, gaming, and heresy all seem completely inapplicable to our visions of what governments are authorized to legislate and enforce.  

In History of American Law(2005), Lawrence M. Friedman writes that this code became dead and forgotten quickly in part because “the legal needs of a small settlement run by clergymen …were fundamentally different from the needs of a bustling commercial state.”

However, notwithstanding any and all ways in which the Code may seem inapplicable to today or foreign to our current situation, we who care about legal literacy among the population in general can and should look to this Code as important precedent for the notion that a good code is written with the design to inform all citizens about their rights and responsibilities—and should not be formulated in a manner so confusing that the average citizen must preserve their life savings for the purchase of hourly attorneys to explain to them the rules of societal engagement.

I do not disagree with Friedman’s assertion that the legal needs of a small settlement is fundamentally different from the legal needs of a bustling commercial state, but I believe that the need for legal literacy in the bustling commercial state is fundamentally similar to the needs of a small settlement run by clergymen.

Unmet Legal Need an Issue in Australia As Well; Is Lack of Access a Worldwide Problem?

The Law and Justice Foundation of New South Wales this year issued a report of unmet legal needs of Australians.  That report, Legal Australia-Wide Survey Legal Needs in Australia, issued in August of this year, 2012, boasts that it is "largest legal needs survey to date conducted anywhere in the world" with 20,716 survey participants.

The survey discovered that while 50 percent of respondents experienced one or more legal problems in the past year.  The most prevent legal problems were consumer issues, crime, housing, and access to government services, and almost half of the 50% experienced three or more legal problems within the year.

Although Australia is such a distance from our shores, the similarity of findings between this survey and those covering our nation, not to mention in nations in between, seem to indicate a world wide issue to address.

The survey found that even when recognizing legal problems at issue, many refrained from taking action because of the length of time between complaint to resolution, the cost required to engage counsel, and stress involved. Although I am not presently concentrating on American surveys, I am completely sure that surveys conducted in America would come to similar conclusions.  

Assuming I am right that the findings of this survey in comparison with similar surveys in America and England reflect worldwide problems, perhaps it is necessary for international lawyer groups to collaborate on unmet legal needs throughout the planet, and what international standards might be necessary to assure that citizens of the world have relatively equal access to courts to address legal needs.