What classes do you have to take to become a lawyer?

Answer 1

It depends where you are, what age you are and what kind of lawyer you want to be. For example, if you want to be a notary public, you need to study at least one foreign language (preferably two or three). There are three main ways of becoming a lawyer:

1. Study for a law degree or acceptable alternative (in some universities the name of the course is jurisprudence) then sit the Common Professional Exam. From then on you sign indenture papers called Articles and work as a trainee lawyer to become a solicitor or a barrister/advocate

2. Register with one of the societies of notaries and train on the job (for this you do not need a degree to start but you do need languages

3. Train as a legal secretary then take a job with a firm of lawyers, a law centre or the legal department of a local authority and register to train as a Legal Executive. The training is part-time, usually at night school or with day-release. Once you are fully qualified as a legal executive, you are also exempt from sitting the Common Professional Exam and your qualifications count as a law degree. You can then serve Articles to train as a solicitor or barrister. This is the easiest way to train because the costs are low and you only have to sit exams connected with the work that you do, so you get a law degree without getting into debt and you can earn your own fees as soon as you are partly qualified as a legal executive. There are similar advantages to training as a notary.