When I watched the Perry Mason series on HBO a couple years ago, I was a bit surprised when Perry went from being an investigator working for a lawyer to being a lawyer himself without going to law school and was somewhat surprised (although in retrospect, it should have been less surprising) that law school as such is a very recent invention (although it was hard to find the exact date(s) of the transition). I have a vague notion that in some states you don’t need a law degree to sit for the bar exam (or at least that was the case a few years ago).
> I have a vague notion that in some states you don’t need a law degree to sit for the bar exam (or at least that was the case a few years ago).
It looks like that's still the case, including in California, where Mr. Mason practices. Of course, word on the street is California's bar exam is the toughest in the nation.
Meanwhile lawyer services are often ruinously expensive for the lower rungs of society. Allowing lawyers to control the supply of lawyers is a big mistake.
