Used to be able to this in Texas. I do believe Richard “Racehorse” Haynes, one of the more flamboyant trial lawyers of his time became a lawyer by “reading the law.”
Chris Tittle doesn’t want to rack up a $100,000 debt to attend law school, so he is trying an alternative: He is “reading the law” as part of a four-year apprenticeship, a route to a law license that is allowed in his home state of California.
Only a few states allow students to skip law school and learn the law with the help of a lawyer, the New York Times reports. Besides California, the states that allow aspiring lawyers to take the bar exam after reading the law, without law school, are Virginia, Vermont and Washington. In three other states—New York, Maine and Wyoming—aspiring lawyers can study in a law office, combined with some period of time in law school.
Want to avoid the costs of law school? These students try ‘reading law’ path to law license