Cameron Stracher has written a number of excellent columns for the Wall Street Journal regarding legal education and the practice of law. In this piece, he questions the utility of law school, using the successful (if illegal) activities of a paralegal on behalf of clients in complex litigation as evidence that competence as a lawyer can be achieved in ways other than spending years in law school.

Stracher writes:

In the late 1990s, I litigated against another paralegal who later pleaded no contest to five criminal misdemeanor charges of unlicensed law practice. What struck me about him at the time was how good he was at his job. He blustered, bluffed, threatened and cajoled with the best of them. He knew the law and argued it capably. But then again, he learned his trade the old-fashioned way: He practiced it.

Bar organizations want to protect the monopoly of their members to “practice law” and often attack ferociously when an outsider engages in “unauthorized practice,” but the only party who has any moral grounds for complaint is the client, and then only if the person claiming legal expertise practiced fraud or performed negligently.

The cost of legal services would decline (especially for fairly simple matters) if the legal profession stopped insisting that the only way for someone to become a competent lawyer is by graduating from law school.