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Found: $1,500 (TOTAL) At-own-pace Law School
#11
I'm wondering if you could do this program, get your bar license in CA then leapfrog into taking the bar in other states? I have a friend who has her bar license in several states, so I don't know if they offer reciprocity like they do for nursing degrees etc. Just a "loophole" thought.
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#12
THIS DEGREE WILL NOT LEAD TO A BAR LICENSE.

There are several schools that are state-accredited to provide a path to the bar in California. Yes, if you go through one of them then you can sit for the bar in California, and after practicing for a few years there you can petition another state's bar if that state has a reciprocity agreement with California. There are a handful, not a lot though. This is a "loophole" like I referred to earlier, essentially getting a DL law degree and transferring into another state's bar. Whether you can actually pass the state bar is another question. In fact, the mandatory First Year Law Student Exam has a very low pass rate from these online DL state-accredited schools, and failing to pass (not sure how many tries you get) means you are thrown out and don't get credit for your entire first year.

However, Mid-Atlantic is completely un-accredited and will give you nothing in regards to a "real" law degree. If you want that then after checking out a bunch I fall back to Northwestern California. Tuition is $237 a month for four years, under $15K, and is fully state accredited.

To be honest, since this is something I would look into after a master's degree, I would probably just go with the NWCU option. At least it has some accreditation. Plus after thinking about it for a day or so I have a sneaking suspicion that Mid-Atlantic's module "tests" are merely "write an essay summarizing the textbook" and you pass. If that's the case then the degree really is a joke. I mean, why pay $1,500 and $525 for books (15 x $35 each) when you can get the exact same thing for just the $525? If nothing else, at least now you know what to read, so go through their "course list" and buy the books yourself and read them at your leisure.

So maybe I got all excited over nothing. I thought this was a "steal of a deal" for others in this camp, but it may well just be a scam.

BTW, a lot of lawyers will think any non-ABA school is a scam. Without ABA you will not really be hired at any big firm, but like I said you may be able to do limited private practice in some jurisdictions. That may be enough for some people.

But again, a degree from Mid-Atlantic is not just non-ABA but non-anything and will be worthless if you want to practice law. That needs to be understood.
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#13
dcan Wrote:THIS DEGREE WILL NOT LEAD TO A BAR LICENSE.



But again, a degree from Mid-Atlantic is not just non-ABA but non-anything and will be worthless if you want to practice law. That needs to be understood.

...and worthless if you want to be a pooper scooper!
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#14
Like I said, their "curriculum" seems to simply be "read the outlines and summarize them in an essay" -- which yes means worthless. I guess if you are going to go DL then NWCU is the best at half the cost of Kaplan. But the best would still be in-residence. Too bad the tuition is $100,000. Sad
Community-Supported Wiki(link approved by forum admin)

Complete: TESU BA Computer Science
2011-2013 completed all BSBA CIS requirements except 4 gen eds.
2013 switched major to CS, then took a couple years off suddenly.
2015-2017 finished the CS.

CCAF: AAS Comp Sci
CLEP (10): A&I Lit, College Composition Modular, College Math, Financial Accounting, Marketing, Management, Microecon, Sociology, Psychology, Info Systems
DSST (4): Public Speaking, Business Ethics, Finance, MIS

ALEKS (3): College Algebra, Trig, Stats
UMUC (3): Comparative programming languages, Signal & Image Processing, Analysis of Algorithms
TESU (11): English Comp, Business Law, Macroecon, Managerial Accounting, Strategic Mgmt (BSBA Capstone), C++, Data Structures, Calc I/II, Discrete Math, BA Capstone

Warning: BA Capstone is a thesis, mine was 72 pages about a cryptography topic

Wife pursuing Public Admin cert via CSU.
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#15
...........
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#16
After considering myriad options - and needing to distance - I'll start NWCU on Jan. 23
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#17
Slobodon Wrote:After considering myriad options - and needing to distance - I'll start NWCU on Jan. 23

Out of curiosity, what do you plan on doing with this degree?
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#18
Here is info from their website:

Question:
"Is Northwestern California University accredited? If not, will I be eligible for Bar membership in any state other than California?

Answer:
Our school was approved in 1982 to issue degrees by the State of California Department of Education. It is presently registered with and regulated by the California State Bar. Our students are eligible to practice law in California if they successfully take and pass the California First-Year Law Students' Examination (the "Baby Bar") after the first year of our program and later, upon completion of the program, pass the California General Bar Exam. The school, as with all distance learning and correspondence schools, is not accredited by the American Bar Association (ABA) or by the by the California Committee of Bar Examiners (CBE). However, as mentioned above, it is registered with and regulated by the California Bar as an unaccredited law school and our students are eligible to practice law in California after passing the Baby Bar and General Bar Exam, and are eligible to practice in certain other states and the District of Columbia (Washington D.C.) pursuant to special eligibility rules."

Unfortunately, the Baby Bar is supposed to be incredibly hard, with only a 20% pass rate. It's used to weed people out right off the bat (after their first year at a non-ABA-accredited law school). Then you do 2 more years of law school, then have to sit for the actual bar exam, which has a 60% pass rate. Yikes!

But, I guess if you're wanting to see if you can hack it, doing it this way is a LOT cheaper than going the traditional route. $2850 for a year of the school, $600 for the Baby Bar exam, plus maybe $500 or so to get access to a Baby Bar prep program. If things don't work out, then you've spent a whopping $4000 to find that you don't like the law. And if you do like it, I imagine you can do another 2 years.

Good luck! Let us know how it goes.
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#19
And you can only sit for the bar in California, known for being one of the hardest states to pass. And you can't just transfer it to another state.

And on top of that, your figures are very generous. For all Bar takers who attempted the CA Bar after going to one of these CA unaccredited schools, only 12.5% passed in the most recent stats available (July 2016) (source: http://admissions.calbar.ca.gov/Portals/...0716_R.pdf)

As far as the baby bar, only 18.2% people passed in the most recent (June 2016) (source: http://admissions.calbar.ca.gov/Portals/...1216_R.pdf)

There's really no reason to go to any of these schools. Even if you managed to pass the baby bar and bar exam and move to california, you're not going to get a decent job in the field. People from traditional ABA law schools with lower ranking cant even get decent law jobs.

edit to add this quick rundown I did of the success rate of these programs from a previous thread, based on the passage rates a year or so ago (20% baby bar, 11% bar, 90% first-year drop out rate)

jsd Wrote:let's say 1,000 students are in your cohort... 90% drop out within the first year, so we're already down to 100 students. Only 20% of those pass the baby bar, so 20 left. 11% of those will pass the real bar, or 2.2

It's POSSIBLE you'll be one of those odd 2-3 people who made it. But it's entirely improbable, no matter how ambitious, smart, and driven you are. a 0.22% chance.

And look at the opportunity cost... what could you have been putting all of that effort into for 1-4 years had you not gone? A graduate degree that meant more tangible success perhaps?.
Northwestern California University School of Law
JD Law, 2027 (in progress, currently 2L)

Georgia Tech
MS Cybersecurity (Policy), 2021

Thomas Edison State University
BA Computer Science, 2023
BA Psychology, 2016
AS Business Administration, 2023
Certificate in Operations Management, 2023
Certificate in Computer Information Systems, 2023

Western Governors University
BS IT Security, 2018

Chaffey College
AA Sociology, 2015

Accumulated Credit: Undergrad: 258.50 | Graduate: 32

View all of my credit on my Omni Transcript!
Visit the DegreeForum Community Wiki!
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#20
dcan Wrote:I know this is tangential to the normal "Big 3" discussions here, but this is in keeping with the "insanely low prices if you can put in the work" approach. This is a long post, I apologize, but I wanted to try and capture what I do know (not a whole lot, but enough) about these schools.

This is not an advertisement, just passing this fascinating find along.

Bottom line: I think I've found the "CLEP Law School." Smile 15 classes, $100/class, at your own pace, using top-notch texts. You will NOT practice law though unless you find a loophole, which people here love to find. Smile

So I've been looking around at all these "online law schools" and a few things stand out. First, none of them are accredited by the American Bar Association, which essentially guarantees you won't actually practice law. The one exception is California, which most of these online JD degrees are geared towards and which are state-accredited by the California state bar. However, California requires all state-accredited school students to take the First Year Law Students Exam at the end of year one. Failure to pass the exam means you are thrown out of the JD program. Here's a good overview of the California approach & different types of law school.

That seems like a lot to go through for someone who just wants to learn the law but doesn't plan to practice. Of course, if you just want to learn the law you can get a master's in legal studies in two years. American Military University has them for under $12,000.

However, there is a third option, that grants a full Juris Doctor degree, but by design does not prepare you for any bar exam, and is not accredited, at all. That said, there are some cases where a degree like this can make sense. Think law enforcement, government work, advanced contract knowledge, etc.

It's at Mid-Atlantic School of Law. Horrible website, but some decent reviews, including this one by a current student who works at an attorney's office. The school is apparently valid enough for him to already have his "third-year practice certificate" in the state of Virginia, meaning he can represent in court as long as there is a licensed attorney there for supervision. Plus, at least in Virginia you can get this cheap degree, then do 26 hours in a "real" law school (roughly one year of classes), and sit for the bar. What a loophole.

Tuition is paid in arrears. (seriously) You take 15 "modules" (classes) -- 12 core and 3 electives -- and then you get a JD degree. And classes are at your own pace. So apparently you enroll in the course, study, take the test, then pay and get credit and move on. This sounds very similar to places like WGU, NCU, etc.

The class textbooks are Gilbert's Outlines, available for about $35 each brand new at Amazon. "Outlines" are used by "real" law students to study for the bar exam. So basically you would be reading what law students read to pass the bar. Kind of like reading much bigger REA books. The book on property has stellar reviews on Amazon as it is essentially the study guide written by the author of the property law book used in 90% of law schools. The others are presumably also high quality, since they are designed to help pass the bar exam.

If you want to practice law quickly the student manual itself advises at the beginning that you should look at a traditional B&M route, or alternately go through an online school designed to get you through the California bar. However, if you want to learn the law for personal or professional enhancement (without actually practicing law directly) then this may well be a useful route. Here is an excellent discussion (on "the other board") about the pros and cons of a non-bar JD. Many people are against it, but there can be some cases where it makes sense.

Besides, $1,500 for a law degree at your own pace is rather a ridiculous deal for the people around here.

hmm. Would receiving a JD allow me to one day be able to have a "foot in the door" if I choose to finish up with a bar exam in my state, or do I run the chance of my JD being seen as nothing but a diploma from a diploma mill? That's my only concern. Is it legit?
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