We’re looking for someone interested in becoming a lawyer without going to law school! More specifically, we’re looking for someone who is interested in becoming not just any type of lawyer, but a radical real estate lawyer. That means you’ re someone who wants to rethink real estate, dismantle private property, and return land to the commons. Apply here by March 13th ..read more

Last month, I promised I’d be back with tips for the June First Year Law Students Exam. Here are some of the strategies I found useful when I was preparing back in 2014. Having just taken the July 2017 California bar exam, I can say most of these tips also apply to bar exam prep. Passing the First Year Law Students Exam, or “baby bar,” on schedule will allow you to continue accruing credit for the Law Office Study Program and save you a significant amount of time, money, and stress. It can be especially difficult for apprentices to gear up for the baby bar and the bar exam because we don’t hav ..read more

It’s been three years since my last blog post, but I have reemerged momentarily to share some good news…I passed the July 2017 California bar exam!!! Passing the CA bar was a milestone for me personally, but equally so for the legal apprenticeship experiment we’re running here at the Sustainable Economies Law Center. Of the four legal apprentices we have on staff, I was the first to complete the Law Office Studies Program and pass the bar exam. As you might imagine, we all breathed a sigh of relief to know that, yes, it really is possible for someone to self-study their way into the legal pro ..read more

By Steven DeCaprio, Association of Legal Apprentices // The National Lawyers Guild San Francisco Bay Area Chapter (NLGSF) has expanded their mentorship program to include opportunities for marginalized people to study law under the Law Office Study Program (LOSP), a tuition free alternative to law school. If you are located in the San Francisco Bay Area and are interested in studying law under the LOSP with an attorney affiliated with the NLGSF, you can sign up on their website. The mentorship program with the NLGSF is only available to members of the NLGSF so anyone participating in this prog ..read more

By Steven DeCaprio, Association of Legal Apprentices The Association of Legal Apprentices (ALA) has been working to create a Legal Apprentice Committee within the National Lawyers Guild San Francisco Bay Area Chapter (NLGSF). This year I was granted the Haywood Burns Memorial Fellowship by the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) in order to focus on this work. Since we first approached the NLGSF about the opportunity for their affiliated attorneys to become mentors we have received enthusiastic support from within the NLG. The NLG is the nation’s oldest and largest progressive bar association and was ..read more

It looks like the legal apprenticeship model is gaining momentum, even in places that don’t yet have their own law office study programs on the books! Benjamin Boyd, an Oregonian, reached out to the Oregon Board of Bar Examiners to provide comments on why creating a legal apprenticeship avenue to becoming an attorney would benefit individuals, the State, and existing attorneys. Read his submitted letter below! [google-drive-embed url=”https://drive.google.com/a/theselc.org/file/d/0B_rgt0QdXUbyUzZNRDk3OGhYcVp4dDhoc1YtVTRpWkhzVzNR/preview?usp=drivesdk” title=”Memo.Oregon.BBX.OCLEAB.9-14-201 ..read more

We’ve heard – and experienced – the need for more support for active and aspiring legal apprentices. So a handful of current and recently graduated apprentices are creating the Association of Legal Apprentices, an organization to advance access to the law through education, advocacy, and community-building for legal apprentices and alumni. We’re still in the forming stage, so stay tuned for more info and our own website in the near future. In the meanwhile, we’re seeking input and potential contributions from all you aspiring, active, and alumni legal apprentices out there! Take our survey and ..read more

The following is a guest post by Steven DeCaprio, CEO and Founder of Land Action, who recently passed the California Bar Exam after completing the Law Office Study Program. The views and opinions are his and do no necessarily reflect the opinions of other contributors to this site. I thought I would share some of my realizations as I studied for the bar. Since I failed the Baby Bar and the State Bar on my first try and only passed on my second attempt of each, I feel like I know what works and what doesn’t. The following are some of my realizations: Practical Experience is Not Helpful (for Pa ..read more

‘Tis the season to introduce legislation, so now is the time to plant a suggestion with California lawmakers to do a tune-up on the California Law Office Study Program (LOSP). A key goal of a tune-up is to enable a larger number of attorneys to mentor LOSP apprentices, to meet a growing demand for affordable and practice-based legal education. Business & Professions Code Section 6060(e)(2)(B) allows people to become lawyers if they study “[i]n a law office in this state and under the personal supervision of a member of the State Bar of California who is, and for at least the last five yea ..read more

One of the things I love about having apprentices is that it encourages us to cultivate a lively learning environment in everything we do. We’ve made short videos about a couple of the fun + educational things we do at the Sustainable Economies Law Center. One of those is our monthly Research Explosion Day (RED), when SELC staff and volunteers divvy up a list of bite-size research questions on a common topic. It’s more fun than it sounds, so I tried to sum it up in a four-minute video from our recent Securities Law RED: Also, our three-times-per-month Resilient Communities Legal Cafe provides ..read more