DIY Law School

"What are you talking about?"

That's the most common reaction I get. Most lawyers seem to know it's possible. Some ask, "People still do that?" Pretty much everybody else has never heard of it, including a lot of people with graduate degrees. And most of them yell something like, "What are you talking about?"

People call it apprenticing or reading the law-the California State Bar calls it the Law Office Study Program-but my favorite term is DIY Law School. I can't take credit for coining the phrase. Somebody called it that playfully early on in my experience, and I've been smiling about it ever since. Unfortunately I can't credit that person because I don't remember who it was!

DIY Law School allows you to become a lawyer with almost none of the debt. You can hit the ground running because you'll likely have years of hands-on experience by the time you start practicing. And in many ways it won't be nearly as hard-or time-consuming-as law school.

This book a guide, a collection of ideas, some advice anyone considering an apprenticeship should at least consider, and personal reflections that might even be insightful. Once I got started with my apprenticeship, so many people told me they wanted to do it too. I made my program up as I went, learning from my mistakes, creating my own curricula based on a model I mostly invented myself. Of course I got advice from lawyers, particularly recent law school graduates, and from Gary Blasi, a former apprentice who then worked for decades as a public interest attorney and law professor. One of the things I frequently told people who seemed serious about doing this was that they can use what I created to guide their own program. This book is an outgrowth of that sentiment: you, curious stranger reading my book, can use what I created to make your own apprenticeship work well. Learn from my mistakes! Don't start from scratch! To that end I have included personal reflections on what the entire experience was like, a lot of advice about how to think about what you are doing, a few important warnings, and a fair amount of detailed framework you can use to guide your own apprenticeship.