Before 1900 most American lawyers learned law by apprenticeship, not law school

Evidence

Until the twentieth century, most American lawyers never attended law school. In 1860, there were only 22 law schools nationwide, and they enrolled relatively few students. Harvard Law School averaged only nine students a year from 1817 to 1829, its first 12 years of operation. Thus, before 1900, most lawyers received their legal education by clerking in the office of a practicing attorney. They would read law books and assist the lawyer, often by taking on the drudge work of the practice. The quality of the preparation this apprenticeship provided varied enormously, but even poor preparation rarely prevented one from practicing law. Admission to the bar tended to be lax. In 1879, only 15 of 38 states required formal training; bar examinations, typically conducted orally by local judges, were perfunctory at best. Gustave Koerner, who began his practice in Illinois during the 1830s, described his exam as lasting only half an hour, in which a few desultory questions were asked; then everyone adjourned for rum toddies. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 642

Until the twentieth century, most American lawyers never attended law school. In 1860, there were only 22 law schools nationwide, and they enrolled relatively few students. Harvard Law School averaged only nine students a year from 1817 to 1829, its first 12 years of operation. Thus, before 1900, most lawyers received their legal education by clerking in the office of a practicing attorney. They would read law books and assist the lawyer, often by taking on the drudge work of the practice. The quality of the preparation this apprenticeship provided varied enormously, but even poor preparation rarely prevented one from practicing law. Admission to the bar tended to be lax. In 1879, only 15 of 38 states required formal training; bar examinations, typically conducted orally by local judges, were perfunctory at best. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 642

Categorization

• CANDY: The rum-toddies bar exam anecdote is a delightful, self-contained fact about 1830s Illinois legal training.
• XREF: Reverses modern assumptions about the bar’s gatekeeping; connects to course themes on lawyers as gatekeepers and professionalization. — connects to: University-based law schooling replaced apprenticeship only within the last century — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1194; Law-school training and strict bar admission are recent American developments — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 972; Early nineteenth-century lawyers trained by apprenticeship, not formal schooling — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law: An Introduction, 1261 (+3 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 642

Broader Connections

• University-based law schooling replaced apprenticeship only within the last century #corroborates (0.95) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1194
• Law-school training and strict bar admission are recent American developments #expands (0.90) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 972