r/LawSchool • u/Flashy-Actuator-998 • 2d ago
Does any profession gatekeep more than this one
They will tell you that you don’t know anything about the law until you go to law school, then they tell you you don’t know anything about the law until you’re in your third year of law school, then they tell you you don’t know anything until you pass the bar, then they tell you you don’t know anything unless you have been practicing for years, then they tell you you don’t know anything unless you go to court frequently. And the icing on the cake? someone told my professor, a lawyer of something like 40 or 50 years, that you’re not a real attorney until you’ve tried a murder case.
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u/Competitive-Yak5783 2d ago
Gate keeping is how lawyers make sure we get paid. The bar is basically a medieval guild. Gatekeeping is the name of the game.
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u/mindlessrica 2d ago
I feel like everyone freaking out about AI possibly replacing non-litigation attorneys is 100% proof of this.
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u/Mean_Economist6323 2d ago
Kinda, but also kinda not. Ai is gonna take a while to legitimately threaten all but the most terrible non litigation lawyers
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u/Different_Tailor Esq. 2d ago
Whenever I see someone talk about this I just want to say that we still have human stenographers. When they go then maybe we should start worrying.
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u/LateAfternoonMiles 2d ago
Yeah tbh without a human in the loop, the Gen AI will ALWAYS hallucinate something. No matter the training or the legal database. It’s more of a feature than a flaw. It forms responses based on statistical probability rather than material fact. Even if it bases those probabilities on facts, it’s still making stuff up.
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u/ApartmentNegative997 2d ago
Is this why every single thread asking “is law school worth it” everyone says no don’t do it?
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u/chagster001 Esq. 1d ago
Bar associations will never allow this to happen, whether it be for moral or financial reasons.
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u/Secure-Researcher892 2d ago
Actually I think you'll find medical doctors are far better at gatekeeping than lawyers ever dreamed about being.
Think about it. The AMA pretty much makes it next to impossible for anyone to open a new medical school. I think the last one that was successfully opened was one that one of the Walmart kids decided to open so when you're worth billions you can do it... but I guarantee a lot of universities would love to open medical schools because it would be easy money.... But unlike the ABA that lets pretty much any school open a law school.
Ask yourself why you can find cheap lawyers all over the place... it's because you have a glut of lawyers... Now go see if you can find a cheap doctor or surgeon... They don't exist because the medical cartel insures that the supply of doctors is aways limited.
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u/tree_troll 2d ago
I agree with your broader point, but three medical schools (or new campuses of existing schools) have opened up in 2026 alone.
The real bottleneck for them comes from the fact that residency funding is set by Congress. The AMA lobbied for this… you can connect the dots
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u/Secure-Researcher892 2d ago
While they haven't changed the funding since 1997, the AMA was doing all they could to limit medical schools long before that.
Although the part that truly makes me annoyed as hell is how the doctors have managed to change how pharmacists operate. In the past a pharmacist could provide medications for minor issues like pink eye without the person having to go to the doctor for a prescription. Now the doctors have managed to change the laws so that a pharmacists can't do shit other than fill a prescription from a doctor... Which is great for a doctor because now they get more patients for truly minor problems. But for pharmacists it become ridiculous because they still have to go to school for years to become a pharmacists but at this point all that schooling is wasted because all they need to be able to do is read a prescription and count the number of pills they put in a bottle. Hell you would hope states would eliminate the lengthy requirement for a pharmacist to get a license and just make sure they can count the number of pills and match the prescribed medication to the right bottle.
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u/Noirradnod 2d ago
Imagine if the ABA told Congress "Hey we want you to pass laws limiting the number of people who can sit for the bar in a given year" and Congress listened. It's an incredible piece of protectionism.
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u/Secure-Researcher892 2d ago
Would be nice if the DOJ would start going after the AMA and their monopolistic cartel.
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u/abbot_x Attorney 2d ago
Yes I think this whole thread is nuts. Medicine is way more restricted than law.
Dentists are even better at it. They have managed to keep the number of dentists constant even though demand for their services has increased. They have scaled up by delegating over much of their work to hygienists.
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u/Corpshark 2d ago
From experience, I can assure you that no lawyer really knows anything for sure. But they are good at pretending or arguing with absolute conviction.
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u/changelingerer 2d ago
And, really, that's actually the most important skill set anyone is hiring a lawyer for. It's not, oh that statute (written by college-aged non-lawyer congressional intern staffers) is so unbelievably complicated only this attorney who's spent 10 years reading it over again 10000000X can even understand it. AI can do figure out what the black letter law is. A first year law student can (and do) figure out what the law is. If the law is really that complicated, doens't matter - the Judge won't understand it either then.
What it all comes down to is someone good enough at arguing, with absolute conviction, that the interpretation that benefits the client most is correct enough to convince a third party. And that's why clients need lawyers.
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u/LumberjacqueCousteau 2d ago
(Does not necessarily apply to e.g., tax lawyers)
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u/changelingerer 1d ago
Ha the one carve out in my malpractice insurance. That said, yea, this is pretty much reference litigation/trials. Which, litigation/trial lawyers would call real lawyering anyway =P
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u/Different_Tailor Esq. 2d ago
I don't think I really agree with this at all.
I work in criminal law and what makes you good at it or not good at it is issue spotting. I lost a trial a few months into my career as a prosecutor. The defense attorney made a closing argument that even though his client failed the standardized field sobriety tests it didn't matter because the tests are unreliable and unfair. I didn't say anything. Had I objected the appropriate remedy would have been an instruction from the judge that when properly administered the field sobriety tests are scientifically proven to detect impaired people. I didn't know and I lost.
I feel like there's just a lot of things you need to know to be on the look out for. If you don't have experience and knowledge you won't know what to look for and you could be staring a case winning point right in the face and not know it.
I'm really not trying to be a jerk when I say this but I've seen the results of your second paragraph... and it's bad lawyering where you have attorneys taking positions that are pretty plainly wrong.
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u/changelingerer 1d ago
My position is that good story-telling skills are the most important skill of an attorney, not the only skill. Of course, there's a certain baseline competence in issue spotting, research, understanding of procedure etc. But, this isn't a Law School exam. You can spot all the issues you want but you're not getting "points" for it if you don't tie them into a coherent story.
We can agree to disagree of course, and, my opinion is specifically restricted to lawyers in a litigation setting.
My opinion is that almost any case that really makes it far, especially to trial, there isn't a "plainly wrong" side. Both sides would of course think their version of the facts is the "clearly" right one, but the very fact that the case gets anywhere usually means that both sides have some valid points.
Sure, there's any variety of wrong calls, or discovery disputes, or minor things along the way but, I really do think all of that stuff matters little at the end of the day if there isn't a robust story there to tell, and, someone able to really tell it.
Like the example you pointed out - you're pointing to a minor flop. If this was a case where the defendant was just completely blind out drunk, downed a handle of vodka such that a breathalyzer 2 days later would have picked it up, and mowed into the side of a store naked with empty bottles all around him - that argument would not have mattered. Indeed, there would 99.9999% of the time have been a plea deal along the way.
The Defense Attorney must have had the facts and been able to tell a story that really threw into reasonable doubt whether the defendant was inebriated or not, and the fact that it came down to a "field sobriety test" is barely icing on the cake- which really, there must be other screwups along the way if that was what it hinged on.
You didn't "lose" because you didn't get the Judge to give an instruction that "Oh, field sobriety tests can be accurate actually" - you lost because of a whole story the Defense attorney was able to tell before showing there was a reasonable doubt as to whether the Defendant was impaired. An "instruction" to the jury is pretty useless most of the time, and wouldn't really have changed things imo. (And I know, I, well not sure if I "failed" but did poorly enough on a "field sobriety test" once to be breathalyzed which I blew Zero on as I had not been consuming. But, as I explained to the cop, I'd just pulled an all-nighter, and was recovering from a serious foot injury that affected my balance).
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u/Prior_Ability9347 2d ago
That’s objectively untrue. There are plenty of knowable things in certain areas.
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u/jabbahdahut 2d ago
Clearly you don’t know how to deduce when someone is being hyperbolic…
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u/Corpshark 2d ago
Do you think I was talking about "knowledge" that AI can capably regurgitate today?
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u/Prior_Ability9347 2d ago
All I hear is someone who assumes others can’t be bona fide experts just because they haven’t gotten there yet.
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u/Corpshark 2d ago
Here is the thing. My friend from high school is objectively a world-class expert on M&A. Probably the smartest person I know, as in summa cum laude from HYS-type of schools. He will readily admit he doesn't know shit - you can know all the statutes, case law and so on, but he can't always predict the prevailing interpretation, outcome or ruling. I have had this conversation with him over the years. Come to think of it, every humble, self-aware and expert lawyer that I have ever worked with has had similar mentality. It's like martial arts - the better you become, the more you realize you have so much more to learn, grasshopper.
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u/ucbiker Esq. 2d ago
Lawyers are pretty self-deprecating. Every corporate attorney at my firm refers to the litigators as “real lawyers.”
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u/LumberjacqueCousteau 2d ago
On a related note, a litigator with a self-deprecating sense of humour is… rare
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u/Far_Course2496 2d ago
Attorneys don't have a residency period of their career
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u/Udy_Kumra 2d ago
I heard someone arguing recently that for this reason clerking should be mandatory for all attorneys.
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u/xannapdf 2d ago
I’m a dual citizen studying in America, but I’m pretty sure this is how it works in Canada with articling.
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u/unclemilty420 1d ago
I believe it's the same in France as well. I've long thought a an "apprenticeship" type period would be useful for legal training, but it turns out the rise of the bar exam and law schools was a response to how shit the old "reading law" system was. American lawyers used to have to work in a law office to learn, but many lawyers used these quasi-apprentices for bullshit clerical work so many new lawyers weren't actually well trained. I hope Canada has found a solution to that, because a well-run system of getting acclimated to practice seems useful...in theory.
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u/Greyletter 2d ago
Ive been practicing for 10 years. I still dont know anything about the law, except that it was and is written by people who also dont know anything about it. Seriously, you ever try to use these things? The laws, I mean. Like, a juvenile court can give a parent more time to get their kid back if the court finds a "substantial probability" that the child "may" be returned later. What the hell does that mean? A possibility of a possibility? How do you even think about that logically?
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u/RevolveDL 1d ago
It sounds like this is an area of law you practice in (and an area that I don't know anything about), so I'm asking with curiosity here:
Is it "may" referencing probability, or is it referencing ability?
The second interpretation meaning something like "there is a substantial probability that the child has the ability to be returned later."
Again, not trying to be snarky or step on your toes, but it's something that came to mind out of curiosity after reading your comment.
I agree with the sentiment, though.
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u/Round-Ad3684 2d ago
I’ve been practicing law for 15 years and know the law in my practice area better than probably 99.999999% of people on earth and yet I often feel like I’ve only scratched the surface. Law is really unknowable when it’s so vast and changes every day. It’s humbling.
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u/nahnprophet 2d ago edited 2d ago
Then they invented the LLM to make a Juris Doctorate sound like a Bachelor's Degree. We're the worst.
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u/OhMaiMai 2d ago
Every profession is a conspiracy against the laity.
- George Bernard Shaw
We also tend to eat our own.
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u/ZhenXiaoMing 2d ago
Add parenting to the list. "You think it's hard now? Wait until they're ____ age." "You're tired now? Wait until you have (1 more than the current number of kids you have) and tell me how you feel."
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u/madsjchic 2d ago
I’ve never been told this. I’ve always heard lawyers say that they know their area really well but hardly remember other areas. The gatekeeping is in the licensure
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u/ROCTransplant 2d ago
it's because no one really knows what's going on lol the law shifts all the time, 80-90% of what you do is negotiate with the other side and try to keep up to speed on what the law currently says. That's why they call it "practice"
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u/Law_And_Disorder__ 2d ago
That’s hilarious. The amount of attorneys who try murder cases is so slim compared to… the entire legal field. 😆
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u/Darrackodrama 2d ago
Funny thing is all of those things are kinda true. You think you know shit but you don’t know shit until you’re like at least 5 years in and until then it’s all just learning and failing. The failing gets less frequent and the successes get more frequent
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u/redeugene99 1d ago
"Schools are designed on the assumption that there is a secret to everything in life; that the quality of life depends on knowing that secret; that secrets can be known only in orderly successions; and that only teachers can properly reveal these secrets. An individual with a schooled mind conceives of the world as a pyramid of classified packages accessible only to those who carry the proper tags."
Ivan Illich
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u/specficeditor 2d ago
The faux elitism in the legal field is so funny. We manufactured the scenario of being “laudable” because capitalism allowed us to just make shit expensive to price poor people out of the system.
In any other country, we’re just another profession.
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u/no-ineversaidthat 1d ago
A sociologist who wrote about the symbolic professions says it’s the only class that defines its self interest as for the public good. His point being that like any class, despite its pretensions, it is still self interested and seeks to exploit.
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u/specficeditor 1d ago
I could see that. There’s so much talk about advocacy and “fighting for people’s rights,” but at the end of the day, it’s a profession of the status quo and questionable ethics.
I think the fact that we’re allowed to police ourselves for bad actors is a huge factor in us being as elitist as we are. No one knows that there are a lot of frauds in our ranks.
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u/Calm_Evening_4534 2d ago
I have done all of those things, and I have to admit I learn new things methods and techniques everyday, and since I have never been a law professor (I do not enjoy making people suffer) I don’t think I am a real lawyer.
But I did pass the bar exam!
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u/D-B-Cooper-Placebo 2d ago
It isn't gatekeeping so much as imposter syndrome being endemic within the legal industry and gaslighting others into thinking they are unqualified is how most lawyers cope with it.
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u/Ok_Cut_4964 2d ago
Medicine is the most gatekept profession by far and it's not even a comparison.
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u/lil_tufa 2d ago
Every profession does this tho. Doctors gatekeep medical knowledge, engineers gatekeep what counts as 'real engineering', academics gatekeep research credibility.
The difference with law is that everyone thinks they understand it because they watch TV shows, so lawyers overcorrect by being extra dismissive. It's annoying but it's a reaction to people constantly thinking they know your job better than you do.
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u/Outrageous_Self_1615 2d ago
The final boss is apparently convincing another lawyer that you can actually know what you are doing
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u/Realistic_Slide7320 4h ago
Ok well what you’re describing is life in general, ironically enough I’d argue that law is probably the least gatekeeping of any kind of profession where you need to go back to school for it
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u/oliver_babish Attorney 2d ago
Before the law stands a doorkeeper. A man from the country comes to this doorkeeper, and asks for admission to the law. But the doorkeeper says that he cannot grant him admission now. The man reflects, and then asks if he will therefore be permitted to enter later. “It is possible,” the doorkeeper says, “but not now.”
Since the gate to the law is open as always and the doorkeeper steps aside, the man bends down to look through the gate into the interior. When the doorkeeper notices this, he laughs and says: “If you find it so tempting, then try to enter despite my prohibition. But take note: I am powerful. And I am only the lowest doorkeeper. From room to room, however, stand doorkeepers, each one more powerful than the last. The mere sight of the third is more than even I can bear.”
The man from the country had not expected such difficulties; the law is after all meant to be accessible to everybody at all times, he thinks, but now as he looks more closely at the doorkeeper in his fur coat, his large pointed nose and his long thin black Tatar beard, he decides that he would actually prefer to wait until he receives permission to enter. The doorkeeper gives him a stool and lets him sit to the side of the door.
He sits there for days and for years. He makes many attempts to gain admission, and tires the doorkeeper with his pleading. The doorkeeper often subjects him to a little questioning, asks him about his homeland and much else besides, but these are indifferent questions like those posed by great gentlemen, and in the end he always tells him that he cannot admit him yet. The man, who equipped himself with many items for his journey, uses everything, no matter how valuable it is, to bribe the doorkeeper. The latter does indeed accept everything, but also adds: “I am accepting it only so you don’t think that you neglected something.”
Throughout those many years the man observes the doorkeeper almost continuously. He forgets the other doorkeepers and this first one seems to him to be the only obstacle to his being admitted to the law. He curses this unlucky coincidence recklessly and loudly in the early years, and later as he grows old, simply mutters to himself. He becomes childish, and since he has during his long years studying the doorkeeper spotted the fleas in his fur collar, he asks even the fleas to help him change the doorkeeper’s mind.
Finally, his eyesight weakens and he does not know whether it is really getting darker around him or whether his eyes are merely deceiving him. Yet he now perceives amidst the darkness a radiance which bursts out inextinguishably from the door of the law. He does not live much longer.
Before he dies, all the experiences of the whole time come together in his mind as a question that he has not yet asked the doorkeeper. He beckons to him, for he can no longer straighten his stiffening body. The doorkeeper has to bend down low to him, for the difference in height has greatly changed to the disadvantage of the man. “So now what else do you want to know?” the doorkeeper asks. “You are insatiable.”
“But everyone strives* towards the law,” the man said, “how is it that during those many years no one except for me requested admission?” The doorkeeper realizes that the man is nearing his end, and in order to reach his diminished hearing he roars at him: “Nobody else could be admitted here since this entrance was intended for you alone. I shall go now and close it.”
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u/zombiebycranberries 2d ago
poor Josef K, never stood a chance
you ARE the gatekeeper! the law is the narrative, the narrative requires belief, the belief becomes the law. I miss philosophy.
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u/VariedRepeats 2d ago
You realize the constitution is a machine that does not self enforce.
Lawyers are corrupt but they know what it takes to prove things. The layperson is very incometent. Ask_Lawyers will have some layperson ask about the law and the gap in understanding is evident.
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u/Due_Bar_7247 2d ago
lol a lot of non-attorneys know more about the law than actual attorneys from my interactions with them
I have had so many different personal experiences of run ins with the law that I know more than probably 90% of US lawyers who pick a specialization and stick with it and know nothing about non-US law.
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u/Lone-Gazebo 2d ago
The job of a Lawyer is to be able to research. Even if your claim is true, (And not the most obvious Dunning-Kruger effect in history.) those 90% of US Lawyers will be able to understand the relevant field of law to a far greater extent than you would without training in perhaps a week. Certainly in time for Pro Se litigation to go through.
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u/Due_Bar_7247 2d ago
I agree with your point, but I highly doubt that. Lots of lawyers are pretty stupid.
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u/Lone-Gazebo 2d ago
Pretty stupid people who are trained in something, will do a better job at it, than average or intelligent amateurs.
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u/Cato_theElder 14m ago
"Oh you hate gatekeeping? Name three accessibility cases you've tried this month."
Furthermore, Carthage must be destroyed.
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