Kim Kardashian made a low-key shocking announcement today when she said (via a Vogue interview) that she was studying to become a lawyer. While this is maybe the most impressive/game-changing career pivot of all time, it raised one very important question: How can Kim become a lawyer and take the bar exam if she never finished college? Here’s the answer. There’s a loophole in California law. Okay, maybe it's not a loophole so much as just how the law is, but whatever, we’re not the lawyers here. According to Vogue, California is one of four states where you can still take the bar exam (the test that allows you to be a lawyer) without a college degree and without going to actual law school. You just have to do it through an apprenticeship with a lawyer or a law firm. That method is called "reading the law." So wait, is Kim doing that? Yes! She’s currently doing an apprenticeship with a San Francisco law firm. It’s four years long, and she’s hoping to take the bar exam in 2022. But she’s not jetting off to San Fran every week, right? Nope. Kim has two lawyer mentors who help her study for four hours at a time in a conference room of a law firm not far from Kim’s home. They study for 18 hours a week, which is...a lot. What’s the next step for Kim? Sometime this summer, she’ll take what’s known as the baby bar exam, which is administered by the state of California. If she passes that, she gets to continue with three more years of studying. In case you were wondering, that timeline would mean she started studying last summer. Kim!! Keepin’ all the secrets! ! What happens if she fails? Oh, she’s def not gonna fail. In this interview, she talked about how much she’s kicking ass at this. “First year of law school,” Kim said, “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.” Yeah. Kim’s out here getting 100s on tests, like a true boss. Can’t wait to see you kill it in the courtroom, Kim! Emma Baty Emma Baty is the Associate Entertainment Editor at Cosmopolitan who focuses on movies and TV. This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io<doc-sep>CLICK HERE if you are having a problem viewing the photos on a mobile device In between all her various endeavors — posting nude selfies, raising three young children, promoting “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” and sidestepping husband Kanye West’s outbursts — the enterprising Kim Kardashian is also working on a new project: becoming a lawyer. According to a cover profile published Wednesday by Vogue, the 38-year-old Kardashian has begun working on a four-year apprenticeship at a nonprofit prison reform organization in Oakland, with the aim of taking the state bar exam in 2022. She’s pursuing this professional course without having a college degree or going to law school. But California allows people to become practicing lawyers in the state without getting law degrees. The Vogue profile said Kardashian’s surprising and challenging new pursuit was inspired by securing clemency for Alice Marie Johnson this past summer. Johnson is a 63-year-old woman who was serving a life sentence after being sentenced in 1997 for a nonviolent drug charge. Kardashian met with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office in May to successfully advocate for Johnson. Great meeting with @KimKardashian today, talked about prison reform and sentencing. pic.twitter.com/uOy4UJ41JF — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 30, 2018 Kardashian has since been called upon by the White House to help with the administration’s clemency reform efforts. “I’m sitting in the Roosevelt Room with, like, a judge who had sentenced criminals and a lot of really powerful people and I just sat there, like, ‘Oh, s—,’ I need to know more,” Kardashian told Vogue “I just felt like I wanted to be able to fight for people who have paid their dues to society,” she continued. “I just felt like the system could be so different, and I wanted to fight to fix it, and if I knew more, I could do more.” It’s commendable that Kardashian wants to help improve America’s criminal justice system and to recognize she could gain more knowledge about how the system works. A legal career could be in her genes: Her father, Robert, was a lawyer who was one of the members of O.J. Simpson’s legal “Dream Team.” Still, studying to become a lawyer and to pass the bar exam is notoriously grueling and time-consuming. And while Kardashian has built a multimillion-dollar beauty and social media empire, she has never showed much interest in academic pursuits. Her last diploma came from Marymount High School, an elite Catholic all-girls prep school in Los Angeles. (Its famous alumni include Olivia Jade and Isabella Giannulli, the daughters of disgraced TV actress Lori Loughlin, who has been charged in the college admissions scandal.) Kardashian also isn’t going to law school. Her husband sparked headlines in September, when the rapper wrongly said Kardashian was in law school. West talked proudly to “Extra” about his wife’s involvement in prison reform, Harpers Bazaar reported. He also incorrectly said, “My wife is in law school now, and it’s extremely serious to us.” However, a representative for Kardashian clarified to “Extra” that she wasn’t actually in law school. Instead, the representative said, she “is so entrenched in the legal system with her activism that it is like going to law school.” With Vogue, Kardashian clarified things some more by saying she wasn’t studying to become a lawyer in a law school. Instead, she said she had begun a four-year apprenticeship this past summer. She is working with CNN commentator, activist and attorney Van Jones and human rights attorney Jessica Jackson, co-founders of an Oakland criminal justice reform group called #cut50, to complete her studies, the Washington Post added. Jackson also serves on the Mill Valley City Council. According to the State Bar of California, a four-year apprenticeship may suffice for someone seeking to take the bar exam in order to practice law in California. The bar association, citing educational requirements for attorneys listed in the state Business and Professions Code, said a person can take the bar exam after receiving a J.D. degree or LL.B degree from a law school approved by the American Bar Association. But a person also can take the bar exam after completing four years of law study at a law office or judge’s chambers. So it sounds as though Kardashian has found a way to become a lawyer without putting in the time to go to college. Still, it’s hard to imagine how she has time to fly to San Francisco from her mansion near Los Angeles to work on her apprenticeship. For example, Kardashian’s interview with Vogue took place over a two-day photo shoot at her mansion, and the business mogul no doubt has many other demands on her time. On top of that, Kardashian and West are preparing to welcome their fourth child via surrogate in May. Being a parent to four small children: It doesn’t get any more grueling or time-consuming than that. But Kardashian’s rise to wealth and international fame has been improbable in many other ways, so it wouldn’t be surprising to one day see her adding attorney-at-law to her long list of job titles. This story has been updated to reference Oakland location of nonprofit where Kim Kardashian is doing her law apprenticeship.<doc-sep>In a Vogue profile published on Wednesday, Kim Kardashian revealed she’s studying to become a lawyer and aims to take the California bar in 2022. She will not go to law school. This plan, the magazine notes, is not a unique Kardashian scheme but rather a perfectly legal alternative to the typical American lawyer’s career path in some states. But is skipping law school actually something that noncelebrities do? And, more important, is it a good idea? The short answer is that very few people forgo a JD on their path to the law—but, in my view, more should. California, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington allow aspiring lawyers to study under an apprentice for several years, then take the bar exam alongside law school graduates. If they pass, they can work as fully credentialed lawyers in the state. Individuals who choose this route in California must study in a law office for four years, at least 18 hours a week, and pass a “baby bar” after the first year. They must pay a $150 fee to start, followed by a biannual payment to the California bar of $30. The full cost rarely exceeds more than a few thousand dollars, compared with more than $150,000 for three years at many California law schools. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Why does this program exist? It’s actually a carryover from an earlier period in American history, when all aspiring lawyers “read law” rather than attend school, then took an exam to gain admission to the bar. Many celebrated attorneys of the 18th century, including John Adams, John Marshall, and Abraham Lincoln, followed this route. In fact, the first Supreme Court justice to hold a law degree was Benjamin Robbins Curtis, who joined in 1851 (and was not one of its leading lights). The practice of “reading law” began to fade in the 1870s when law schools emerged as a more standardized alternative. The last justice to join the Supreme Court without holding a JD, the widely respected Robert H. Jackson, was appointed in 1941. Advertisement Even though “reading law” remains a possibility in some states today, this route does have some major drawbacks. First, it can be difficult for would-be apprentices to find a mentor willing to work with them closely over several years. Second, the bar exam pass rate for apprentices is quite low—28 percent in 2013, compared with a 73 percent pass rate for graduates of an American Bar Association–accredited law school. Third, those apprentices who do pass the bar won’t be able to practice in most other states. If you graduate from law school, take the bar in one state, then move somewhere else, you can usually either transfer your exam scores or, at worst, take the bar in your new state of residence. But if you do not hold a JD, most states won’t let you practice, even if you take the bar. Put simply, if you “read law” in California, you’d better intend to practice in California exclusively. Advertisement Advertisement Despite these problems, I strongly support programs like California’s, and I wish more states would allow them. Law school is an exorbitant racket that condemns countless students to years, even decades, of crushing student debt. Many young lawyers fear they can only pay off this debt by entering big law, then wind up spending years in a corporate practice that is soulless at best and immoral at worst. Too many American attorneys are sucked into this vicious circle. Some burn out after toiling under abusive bosses who demand endless hours of draining, unfulfilling labor. Others adapt and rationalize their unsavory work by taking on the occasional pro bono case. No wonder American lawyers struggle with sky-high rates of substance abuse and depression. Kardashian is not going to fix this nightmare. But apprenticeships do offer a much cheaper path for law-curious Americans who don’t wish to spend a large chunk of their careers paying off a mountain of student debt. If Kardashian inspires more people to “read law” in the states that permit it, she’ll deserve credit for challenging the law school monopoly, even just a little.<doc-sep>Today’s Headlines The most important news stories of the day, curated by Post editors and delivered every morning. By signing up you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy<doc-sep>
In a new interview, Kim Kardashian West revealed that she decided last summer to begin a four-year apprenticeship with a law firm in San Francisco Kim Kardashian Is Studying for the Bar Exam: Can She Become a Lawyer Without a College Degree? Kim Kardashian West wants to be a lawyer — but can the reality star achieve her goal even though she doesn’t have a bachelor’s degree? In an interview with Vogue published on Wednesday, the Keeping Up with the Kardashians star, 38, revealed that she’s studying to become a lawyer and decided last summer to begin a four-year apprenticeship with a law firm in San Francisco, with the goal of taking the bar in 2022. Kardashian West did go to undergrad, briefly attending Pierce College in Los Angeles, according to The Hollywood Reporter. But she never graduated, meaning she does not hold a college degree. The Calabasas-based star is in luck, though: California, as well as three other U.S. states, offers another way to pass the bar by “reading the law” — interning or apprenticing with a practicing lawyer or judge. “Reading the law” is how every aspiring lawyer in the U.S. entered the profession before law schools existed — even Abraham Lincoln, as the magazine notes. Today, it’s more rare: A 2014 New York Times story reported that only 60 out of the 83,986 people who had passed the bar in the previous year used this method. According to Vogue, this summer Kardashian West will take a “baby bar” administered by the state. If she passes, she’ll be able to continue on with three more years of study. “First year of law school, you have to cover three subjects: criminal law, torts, and contracts,” she told the magazine. “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,” she admitted. “It’s so time-consuming. The concepts I grasp in two seconds.” kim-kardashian-1 Kim Kardashian West for Vogue | Credit: Vogue Kardashian West has been working with author and CNN commentator Van Jones and attorney Jessica Jackson, cofounders of #cut50 — a national bipartisan advocacy group on criminal-justice reform — for months, visiting prisons, petitioning governors, and attending meetings at the White House. Last year, she successfully petitioned President Donald Trump to commute the life sentence of Alice Marie Johnson, a nonviolent drug offender. After Johnson was released, a major bipartisan piece of criminal justice–reform legislation, the FIRST STEP Act, was passed by Congress and signed into law by Trump in December. “I had to think long and hard about this,” she told Vogue about her decision to begin studying law, explaining that she eventually decided to embark on the journey after “seeing a really good result” with Johnson. “I never in a million years thought we would get to the point of getting laws passed,” she said. “That was really a turning point for me.” Still, Kardashian West admitted she felt out of her depth, hence her desire to educate herself. “The White House called me to advise to help change the system of clemency,” she said. “And I’m sitting in the Roosevelt Room with, like, a judge who had sentenced criminals and a lot of really powerful people and I just sat there, like, ‘Oh s—.’ I need to know more.” “I would say what I had to say, about the human side and why this is so unfair. But I had attorneys with me who could back that up with all the facts of the case,” she continued. “It’s never one person who gets things done; it’s always a collective of people, and I’ve always known my role, but I just felt like I wanted to be able to fight for people who have paid their dues to society. I just felt like the system could be so different, and I wanted to fight to fix it, and if I knew more, I could do more.” kim-kardashian-donald-trump Kim Kardashian West with President Donald Trump | Credit: Donald Trump/Twitter The mother of three also revealed that she’s long had an interest in the subject; Her father, the late Robert Kardashian, was a businessman and attorney who became a household name when he helped defend friend O.J. Simpson during his infamous 1994 murder trial.