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Comment by adityamwagh | Hacker News Reader

You can't become "smart" just like that and "learn to think". It takes years od dedicated effort to reach that stage. Getting into a competitive school takes just that - years of dedicated effort.

> "smart guy with access to AI tools" can perform as well as any other trained lawyer

You are seriously understating the ability of a trained lawyer and overstating the ability AI tools.

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No, I am not saying that a smart person will outperform a trained lawyer because of the AI tools.

What I am saying is that going to schools no longer is the only way for smart people to be able to do the job of a lawyer.

Going to school was never the only way for smart people to be able to do the job of a lawyer. Law is like consulting and finance in that the “school” part is mostly filtering and socialization and signaling. The actual education is maybe like 1 year of the three years people spend in law school.

AFAIK you can only practice law if you actually went to a school. So there is that...

But maybe I was too subtle in my previous comment. I absolutely agree with you. What I am trying to say is that these schools trying to come up with policies about tests and applications in the age of AI have nothing to do with education. They are all just grasping at whatever straws to try to keep the idea that their institutions are somehow special.

You’re generally correct, but you can become a lawyer without going to law school in 4 states. But this is a relatively modern requirement. ABA lobbying encouraged the policy in 1920 and most states adopted it by the 1940s and 1950s.

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