Not quite every state; Virginia (Section 54.1-3926 of the Code of Virginia, 1950) still sanctions reading law in pretty much the mentoring fashion utilized by Thomas Jefferson. Having testified against the effort to impose graduation from ABA certified JD programs as a requirement to practice law, and practiced for over 30 years (including as a partner in one of the leading firms in the US) after successfully completing it, I can tell you that it is still alive and well in Virginia.

Fair enough. I agree that much of law school is pointless, and that reforms are badly needed.

But is it really a good idea to be reducing barriers to entry to a profession that is already way, way, way, way, way, way, way oversupplied with people?

The bottom line is, it is at once way too easy, and way too expensive, to become a licensed attorney. We need to make the barriers higher and more cost-efficient and more tightly bound to actual competence to practice law, all at the same time.

My dream proposal would be the following:

1) State bars shall no longer give any weight to ABA accreditation of law schools.

2) Nor shall they, nor anyone else, give any consideration to US News rankings. Anyone who knows anything has known for a long time now that the whole business is fraudulent. Kill the rankings now...kill them with fire!

3) The one-year law school model--which maverick schools were already pioneering, before the dead hand of the ABA started weighing down innovation and diversity in methods and approaches--shall be revived, even by some well-established institutions.

4) State bars shall admit individuals to the bar exam upon the presentation of:

a) A diploma from any law school anywhere that the bar, in its sole discretion, considers acceptable. I would suggest they maintain a list of schools that are automatically acceptable in all cases; a list of schools that are automatically unacceptable in all cases (and be bold about it! if a school's bar passage rates have stunk for years, put them on this list!); and then allow a graduate of absolutely any other institution anywhere to petition individually to have his or her degree accepted.

b) A certificate of completion from a reputable bar-preparation company. As with a) above, I would suggest keeping a continually-updated list of acceptable and unacceptable firms.

c) Proof of a certain amount of time spent as an apprentice, clerk, intern, or paralegal, accompanied by the endorsement of one of a select number of longtime members of the bar, to whom will be appointed the task of evaluating lawyers-in-training and their readiness to take the bar exam and enter practice.

5) The bar exam shall be made considerably longer and vastly harder; and the greatest share of time (and largest portion of the grade) shall be devoted to applied tests of practical lawyerly skills. (For instance: "Good morning and welcome to day five of the bar exam. Each of you is being handed a packet which contains details of a fictional married couple with children. Your task is to provide the family with appropriate wills, along with any other estate planning and advance directive documents as may be appropriate. These documents will be due at three o'clock.")

I don't think the problem is that there are way, way too many people in the legal field. Far more people attempt to get in than there are jobs for, but then they go and do other things. (I'm one of them.) The problem is two-fold.

First, there is economic waste in that we keep a lot more people in the business of legal education than is necessary. There are way, way too many law professors, most of whom don't teach many courses and occupy themselves cranking out the obligatory scholarship -- law review articles and books.

Second, because the cost of getting into the legal profession is so artificially high, there are few lawyers who can afford to take low-fee cases. Even the ABA admits that large numbers of poor people are priced out of legal assistance, but its solution is to have the government subsidize legal services for the poor. The Legal Services Corporation was the result and to a large extent it has gotten involved in leftist activism. Many poor people still can't get help when they need it.

The root of the trouble is licensing. We should not demand such costly prerequisites before one can try to get the license, but we should also stop protecting the turf of those who have it through unauthorized practice of law prohibitions. It is quite possible for individuals who are not bar members to do competent legal work. We ought to permit voluntary exchanges for legal work just as we do for tax preparation or book-keeping.