New York Lawyer
February 12, 2002

Q:
If I were to study law and do the exams and become a barrister in England, would I still be able to work in America without taking additional exams? And would I be at a disadvantage in finding a job, compared to people who graduated from law school in America?

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A:
Let�s start with your second question. Generally speaking, the American job market, and particularly its legal marketplace, is quite conventional. It pigeonholes people in a variety of ways: by area of subject matter expertise, by level of experience, by where you went to law school, by how you did at law school, by who has licensed you to practice and by who has judged your bona fides and found you credible before.

Anyone whose training or career path presents the potential employer with an anomaly or pigeon-holing problem -- age, geography, prior career, prior convictions, etc. -- takes on the burden of persuasion to explain: 1) why that anomaly exists, and 2) exactly how their expertise and experience will translate into productivity in conventional American legal settings. Issues of equivalency and transferability create a nuisance quotient that a potential employer can avoid simply by weeding you out. In some industries, like filmmaking, advertising or PR, novel credentials can be an intriguing plus. By and large, that's not true in law.

On the other hand, if your foreign training and experience suggest a greater breadth of skills or some wisdom relevant abroad (international business development, the Civil Law system, or French business taxation), then you may actually have a leg up on the law grads who have gone through our rather parochial law schools. But you still have to explain how and why your differences will help your prospective employer.

Accordingly, people with offbeat credentials usually fare better in their job searches by relying on personal networking, because the conventional job market (ads, mass mailings and recruiters) finds it all too easy to screen them out.

By the way, I gather you know that barristers in England are trial lawyers exclusively and are quite distinct from solicitors, who handle all non-court legal matters in that country. The English rules of court have no applicability or transferability over here (neither do their wigs), so even if you've practiced as a barrister, the only "full faith and credit" you're likely to get from US employers is for having appeared in some court somewhere. Lawyers trained in Louisiana are likely to experience the same problem, since their system of laws, stemming from the French from whom we bought the place, are so different from those in every other state.

As for your first question, about whether you�ll have to take additional exams to practice in the US -- this provides me with the opportunity to editorialize a bit about the types of question I can appropriately address in this column. I've recently received a variety of queries from readers asking for specific technical information pertaining to such things as admission of foreign nationals into the bars of various states, how long it takes a disbarred lawyer to be readmitted in New Jersey and the interstate transportation of chickens (just kidding on that last one).

Not only do I not know the answers to such technical inquiries, but I think you are likely to get more complete and more official answers by going to the subject-matter experts and agencies involved.

Answers about admissions and standards of professional ethics, for example, will come most reliably from state licensing authorities and disciplinary boards. If you have any doubts about who to call, try calling your local or state bar association. If that fails, try contacting the career planning office of a heavyweight law school nearby. They are more likely to be charitable with their time than I am. I trust you understand.

Sincerely,
Douglas B. Richardson
President, The Richardson Group