Earning the Right to Practice Law

The educational prerequisites to becoming a lawyer vary greatly from country to country. In some countries, law is taught by a faculty of law, which is a department of a university's general college. Law students in those countries pursue a Bachelor or Master of Laws degree. The Bachelor of Laws (LL.B) is a first professional degree in law in England and most common law countries (with the exception of the United States, and Canada) as the primary law degree. The Master of Laws (LL.M) is an advanced academic degree, pursued by those holding a professional law degree. These are often followed by a series of advanced examinations and apprenticeships.

In the United States and countries following the American model, such as Canada, law is primarily taught at law schools. Most law schools are part of universities but a few are independent institutions. The United States is the only common law country that no longer offers the LL.B. Law schools in the United States award graduating students a Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D). Many schools also offer post-doctoral law degrees such as the Master of Laws (LL.M), or the Doctor of Juridical Science (S.J.D) for students interested in advancing their research knowledge in a specific area of law.

The methods and quality of legal education vary widely. Some countries require a formal apprenticeship with an experienced practitioner in place of any kind of formal legal education (though the number of persons who actually become lawyers that way is increasingly rare). A few countries prefer to teach through readings of judicial opinions (the casebook method) followed by intense in-class cross-examination by the professor (the Socratic method). Many others have only lectures on highly abstract legal doctrines, which forces young lawyers to figure out how to actually think and write like a lawyer at their first job.

Depending upon the country, a typical class size could range from five students in a seminar to five hundred in a giant lecture room. In the United States, law schools maintain small class sizes, and as such, grant admissions on a more limited and competitive basis.

Some countries, particularly industrialized ones, have a traditional preference for full-time law programs, while in developing countries, students often work full- or part-time to pay the tuition and fees of their part-time law programs.

Some jurisdictions grant a "diploma privilege" to certain institutions, so that merely earning a degree from those institutions is the primary qualification for practicing law. However, in a large number of countries, a law student must pass a bar examination before receiving a license to practice. The bar examination can be very challenging; only about 50% of applicants pass the examination.

2. Look at the following sentences from the text and match the words in bold to their definitions (a-h) below.

TEST 4

(Variant 2)

To complete this Test refer to GRAMMAR REFERENCE for revision.