Vermont is one of just four states to allow legal apprenticeships as an alternative to law school, so Hashim can become a lawyer without earning a law degree.
The other states include Washington, Virginia and California — where the program has gotten new publicity from celebrity and aspiring lawyer Kim Kardashian West.
Vermont’s law office study program allows Vermonters to study 25 hours a week for four years alongside a lawyer instead of going to law school. And right now, 47 people are enrolled in the program.
“There is something to be said for doing it that way,” said Andy Strauss, a lawyer at the Vermont Office of Attorney Licensing. “People who get out of (a law office study) program are better prepared right after passing the bar to do lawyerly tasks, because they’ve generally already been doing them.”
Another pro, Strauss pointed out, is not having to pay three years of law school tuition.
For Hashim, the option to work towards becoming a lawyer without a tuition bill was a draw.
“I’ve always thought about going to law school and becoming an attorney,” Hashim said. “But it turns out this is a great way to save money and learn the ins and outs of how the job actually works.”
Aspiring lawyers who read the law tend to have lower rates of passing the bar than their law school-enrolled peers. Since 2017, 54% of law office study program candidates have passed the bar in Vermont, while 64% of law school graduates did the same.
“That part does make me a little nervous,” Hashim said. “But from what I hear, passing the bar is about diligence in studying and preparing, and I’m confident in my ability to study.”
In 2016, Vermont adopted the Uniform Bar Examination, written by the National Conference of Bar Examiners. Prior to that, Vermont used the multiple choice section from the uniform exam, but wrote its own essay questions to touch on Vermont-specific laws.
Strauss said after the switch, law office study program graduates started doing a lot better on the test, but he’s not sure exactly why. Studying for the exam can be tough outside of a school environment, he said.
“It’s just a lot more difficult to be self-motivated and take time to study for the exam subjects in your non-working hours than if you’re in law school,” Strauss said.
Another drawback: even once someone passes the bar, without a law degree, it’s nearly impossible to practice law anywhere else. Even in other states without a law school requirement, their apprenticeship alternatives don’t take the same shape as those in Vermont.
In Washington, for example, Strauss said the lawyers overseeing law office students are required to administer and grade monthly exams. He said Vermont, on the other hand, isn’t interested in doing anything that would make it more of a burden for lawyers to take on students.
Mark Oettinger, a Burlington lawyer who is currently overseeing two law office study program students at the firm Montroll, Backus & Oettinger, P.C., said it should be at least a little bit of burden. He said he thinks it’s important that advisers are really putting in the work to teach their students.
“It’s not for everyone,” Oettinger said. “But it’s a great program if you find the right people, and they’re motivated. There’s a lot to be said for incubating your future lawyers.”
Oettinger said he’s in the fourth quarter of his career, and he’s looking for his successors. To him, he said, the most important quality when hiring is raw intelligence — something he believes he’s found with the two students he’s training.
“Quite frankly, I think I have a tremendous responsibility for the people studying under my tutelage,” he said.
When interesting things come up in their day-to-day work, Oettinger does what he calls “teachable moments” or “mini-clinics” to talk to his students about whatever it was in the law that he thinks they ought to know. But he was careful to note that most firms specialize in a few specific kinds of law — and there’s a lot that students still have to study on their own time.
“But I’m basically shoulder-to-shoulder with them all week long,” he said. “As they get exposed to my areas of practice, they get to learn those things by osmosis.”
She had to go to night school for two years to get enough college credit to even be eligible for the program, which requires three years of undergraduate coursework, and then study the law for four years, all while raising her children.
“I was in my late 40s before I took the bar exam,” Flory said. “But I had two kids in college at the time — paying for law school for mom wasn’t an option.”
When she took the test, she passed the ethics and rules section, the Vermont bar section, and then failed the multistate section, though she passed that on her second try after taking a bar review course.
“It’s still a strange question when people ask me, ‘What law school did you go to?’ ‘Oh I didn’t go to law school.’ ‘Well then how about undergrad?’ “Eh, I haven’t quite done that either,” Flory said.
A longtime state senator, she used her law experience in her legislative duties, where she read every bill she voted on in its entirety, “It just made me more aware and more ready and able to pick apart a bill,” she said.
Strauss said despite the fact that 46 other states have opted not to let their law students read the law in this way, he thinks it’s quintessential to who Vermonters are.
“Vermont needs young people, it needs workers,” Hashim said. “Lots of folks are interested in becoming attorneys these days. I think it’s something that should be advertised a little more to attract people here.”
Some of the biggest names in Vermont law made their way to the top without a law degree. Even Supreme Court Justice Marilyn Skoglund, who is stepping down in September after more than two decades on the high court, went through the law office study program.
“I think it’s part of Vermont culture,” Strauss said. “People think it’s something special about Vermont.”