Path to career in law (USA Focus)

Posting for child

My child wants to be a lawyer (solicitor), she is particularly interested in corporate law such as M&A and investment banking. She also plans to relocate to USA.

This is my understanding of the paths:

In USA, she cannot do law at graduation level, but she can do JD and pass bar exam to practice as solicitor. So its 3/4 years bachelors plus 3 years JD plus 1 year bar = 7/8 years to become a solicitor.

In UK, she can do LLB and then must have a training contract of 3 years to qualify as solicitor. Its about 6/7 years.

Or she can take a bar exam in some of the US states such as NY and can then practice as solicitor.

My Questions:
a. Is my above assumption about paths correct.
b. Why is a training contract required in UK but not in USA?
c. Is there any sense in doing LLB and then JD, as it seems there would be duplication. If the aim is to relocate to USA, will it be better to study finance in UK and then JD in USA.

Thanks for help.

Any other insight, link for information, also greatly appreciated.

Quick question: Does your daughter have joint US/ UK nationality? If not getting anything other than a short term work visa is really quite complicated. The H1-B visa is incredibly over subscribed so comes down to a lottery, the visa given to investors would require $500K, and those given to employees of an International company with offices in the US is only temporary. On the other hand if she has dual nationality none of this matters.

We will figure out Visa issues later as she will do JD only if she gets great university; makes sense to move to US when the person is extra competitive, otherwise UK and Canada are good . PS: One option could be to do JD in USA and settle in Canada.

We will figure out Visa issues later as she will do JD only if she gets great university; makes sense to move to US when the person is extra competitive, otherwise UK and Canada are good . PS: One option could be to do JD in USA and settle in Canada.

The extra competitive visas are incredibly hard to come bye unless you happen to be someone that brings something of immediate value to the US. Just being bright won’t cut it. Being an Olympic athlete might.

Visa is a very real problem. Goodwin (one of the US biglaw firms) just fired all of its first year foreign associates who were unlucky in the H-1B visa lottery. Some firms might be nice enough to transfer unlucky foreign associates to offices in other countries while they try for the H-1B lottery again, but there's no guarantee. Bearing in mind that a US JD from a T14 law school is expensive (for reference, Harvard estimates the cost of attending at USD330k+ for 3 years), this is quite a risk. For 2022, the odds of winning the H1-B lottery was around 18%.

I don't know about Canada but you and your daughter should similarly look into visa and costs. Do not assume that getting a work visa will be a given.

You are also incorrect about the timeframes. It's more along the lines of:
US: typically 4 years undergrad (3 years is doable) + 3 years JD. Bar exam is taken in the summer in between JD graduation and starting work in the fall
UK: 3 or 4 years undergrad (no need to do law) + Solicitors Qualifying Exam + 2 years of qualifying work experience. This is a change from the previous GDL/ LPC/ Training Contract model and has not formally commenced yet so no one is entirely sure how things are going to work out, but it appears that some City law firms will be putting all their graduates (law and non-law) into a 1 year SQE course. Your daughter should study whatever subject she likes best and do as well as she can.

As to why the pathways are different, that's because each jurisdiction is entitled to decide on its own qualification criteria and rules. Same logic as medicine.

Thanks for the inputs.

I think Visa is easier with experience but unsure if experience of working in Canada counts in the USA. I find it difficult to believe anyone struggling to get a job after a JD at Harvard ! I did some reading and it appears, USA law is more focussed on legal practice and UK is geared towards academic.

Also thanks for information about SQE, just wondering if lawyers are too protective of their profession while at same time scared about AI replacing jobs of solicitors/ lawyers.

PS: Also, looking at trends of USA facing increasing competition for Talent from many locations depending on each persons preference, I know quite a few people who relocated from USA to Sweden after they got citizenship because USA is too competitive and not everyone likes it there.

tbh, if Harvard or equivalent offered her a place, we will take it without second thoughts.

1) It's not a question of getting a job, it's a question of getting a visa for said job. They're two different things - getting a US biglaw job offer doesn't mean you will get a US visa. H1-B is a lottery, and if I'm not wrong, it applies to both experienced lawyers and those who are fresh out of law school (not qualified to advise on US immigration law, do your own research on this). It's literally a put numbers into a box and draw them at random lottery. Whether you graduated from an Ivy League university or not is irrelevant - your chances are the same as everyone else's. That's what makes it scary. You could do everything right - get admitted to Yale, work hard for 3 years and graduate with top honours, secure a biglaw job after 2L summer, and still lose your job just because you were unlucky in the H1-B lottery. 8 out of 11 international first years at Goodwin lost their jobs because of this, and that is a horrific position to be in if you're staring down USD300k of student debt. However, you said your daughter will attend if she gets an offer from a top school, so I assume that money isn't an issue for your family and therefore this doesn't matter.

2) I'm sure AI will replace low-level legal work to an extent, but I don't think it can replace the entire legal profession. My prediction is that in future there will be fewer junior level positions, but only time will tell. I'm sure there's some degree of protectionism, but there's also a genuine need to ensure that lawyers are properly trained and can give accurate advice. The things lawyers do and say can have very serious implications for individuals and corporates - it can determine child custody outcomes, whether someone goes to prison etc. Just as you don't want incompetent surgeons or accountants, you also don't want incompetent lawyers.

3) As a legal practitioner who has actually worked with or across UK and US qualified lawyers, there is no substantial difference to me. Law school is certainly academic, but actual legal practice is a completely different kettle of fish. The strategies, norms and substantive laws may vary depending on jurisdiction, but the fundamental approach is the same (i.e. get to the desired commercial outcome through legal means). Clients don't want to be told that something can't be done, they want lawyers to tell them how to achieve it legally. Transactional biglawyers especially will almost certainly work with lawyers from other countries at some point during their careers, so everyone has to be on the same page regardless of jurisdiction.

4) Law is jurisdiction-specific, which means that any time a lawyer wants to switch jurisdiction, they need to look into cross-qualifying or practising as a foreign qualified lawyer. There's also a question of language (very hard to get hired in some jurisdictions if you cannot speak the local language) and visa. It's certainly not impossible to switch countries, but it can