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Comment by dredmorbius | Hacker News Reader

It has rather more to do with the degree bearing the string "Harvard".

There are low-cost law schools in the US. What you'll find, however, is that big-name law firms, Supreme Court clerkships, and other prestigious (and well-compensated) opportunities tend not to hire from them.

If you're looking to go into private practice or are targeting a less-ambitious role, or get lucky with a roll of the dice / spin of the wheel, they might work out fine.

Searching for "low cost law school" will come up with various listings. The top options on this list appear to run about 1/20th the cost of Harvard (I'm presuming that the tuition figure is for a full three-year programme, not on a per-year basis, the text makes this ... less than clear).

<https://affordableschools.net/the-10-most-affordable-law-sch...>

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> The top options on this list appear to run about 1/20th the cost of Harvard (I'm presuming that the tuition figure is for a full three-year programme, not on a per-year basis, the text makes this ... less than clear).

"1/20th the cost of Harvard" is in the ballpark of what a super affordable undergraduate program at a US public university goes for.

To be sure, your cite lists annual cost of tuition as clarified in Methodology section language.

Their "average program cost" metric is also pretty meaningless; you either pay in-state or out-of-state rates---not some arbitrary arithmetic mean---so ~3x for a rough lower bound of what tuition alone will run you, and that assumes the unlikely scenario of no tuition increases during subsequent years of study.

Thanks, I missed that on tuition reading a bit sloppily.

There's also the mention that law school is not necessarily required to join the bar, as addressed in the FAQ "Do You Have to go to Law School in Order to Become a Lawyer?":

To begin, 99 percent of lawyers who earn their license will have completed a law school program. This is for a very good reason: there are only four states in the United States that enable potential lawyers to sit for the bar exam without having completed law school. Those states are California, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington. In these states, less than one-quarter of the professionals without a law degree passed the bar exam and won the right to practice law. In fact, all four states are in the top 20 hardest bar exams, with California leading the pack at a pass rate of 54.3 percent.

Arguably three of those are nontrivial states for the practice of law.

Point remains however that $300k tuition is not strictly required to join the bar in the US, though it may offer a substantial selection advantage for prime opportunities.

Do all practising lawyers in the US "join the bar"?

Yes, otherwise you are not licensed to practice law and to do so without a license is a crime.

Fascinating, in the UK qualifying as a solicitor and being "called to the bar" are different:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_to_the_bar

Yeah, we don't have the barrister-solicitor distinction, just licensed attorneys who may specialize in different areas of law, or of handling a case. When you "pass the bar" or "are admitted to the bar" in American legal parlance, it means you have passed the state bar exam and obtained your license to practice law.

Yes

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