New York Lawyer
April 9, 2002

In February, I answered a question about how a lawyer trained as a barrister in England would fare in the US legal market. In response to my answer, an American reader who studied the law in the UK wrote to confirm my impressions and share the gory details of his own employment history. With his permission, here is an edited version of his story:

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It wasn't all tea and crumpets, that's for sure.

As you correctly pointed out, law is a very conservative business in the US that summarily rejects anyone who hasn't followed the tried and true path: top 20 school, top of the class, law review, etc. English-trained lawyers won't succeed with US hiring partners absent the following factors: 1) family connections; 2) previous and substantial finance or corporate (no litigation, please) experience with a world-class top 10 firm; or 3) a first-honors degree (top 2-3 percent of your class) from Oxford or Cambridge, coupled with passing the New York bar on the first try. And the degree must be the three-year LLB program; the two-year LLB or Common Professional Examination ("CPE") course won't cut the mustard.

Moreover, as an American, I constantly had to explain why I turned my back on the "tried and true system" of American legal education to study in the UK. No response that indicts the system from which the hiring partners emerged will be successful, yet an "I love England" response was deemed to lack backbone:

Q: If you love England so much, why are you applying for work in the US?

A: Because I'm American.

Q: Then why did you go to law school in England?

A: Well, as I said, I've always loved England, it has some fine schools, and, after all, it is the root of Common Law . . . "

As for technical transferability, if you are an English-trained lawyer and do not have an LLM from a US law school, you may sit for only two bar exams in the US: New York and California. But you may sit for the New York bar only if you have completed a three-year LLB in the UK from a locally-accredited university. If, like about half the law students in the UK, you are studying law via the Common Professional Examination ("CPE"), you may not sit for the New York exam. And you can sit for the California exam only if you are already a qualified solicitor or barrister in England. But to get licensed in England, you have to complete their LLB, a one-year Bar Vocational Course ("BVC") and complete two years as an apprentice (called the Training Contract for solicitors and the Pupilage for barristers).

If you're unable to sit for the above bars or want to sit for other bars in the US, your only option is to take the one-year LLM from an accredited US law school, which may qualify you for as many as 17 bar exams. Each state has different rules, and they change all the time.

Overall, I don't regret going to England for my law education and training. I really do think it makes me more well-rounded than most American attorneys. But I really wouldn't recommend this approach to others unless they really were committed to working in London or Europe. All in all, I'm a little burned out on the legal profession here in the US. It may change eventually, but right now, I think we're missing out on some great lawyers.

Interesting, eh? Cheers.