Yes, that is true in the typical HackerNews geek libertarian sense. Sure. But this is only the case in a small number of genius autodidacts, perhaps like yourself (minus the statistical knowledge gap). Think of the actual education as a more thorough exam and preparation, even if it is not "sufficient" as some have indicated.
no it's true in any sense. for those committed to credentialism, why not increase the difficulty of the bar exam until is a sufficiently thorough mark of preparation for a legal career, and then do away with the jd altogether?
i'm really not sure it's possible to launch a robust defence of the three year JD, bearing in mind the goals of the average student (not a life of scholarship) and the cost of full time education.
You do get more coverage with both though. I mean, we talk on HN all the time about how exams are flawed at measuring knowledge, and can be gamed. School is also flawed and does not guarantee learning, but with both school + exam you can have greater confidence in your candidates...
Going the opposite direction, I grew up in a (the?) state that auto-stamps "pass" on the exam if you graduated from an in-state school. Not a figure of speech, you're auto-admitted if you have an in-state accredited law degree.
Yes although the location isn't as important as the concept that in a discussion of removing one half of "diploma plus test" we have a lot of experience with removal of the other half of the requirement.
In practice I don't think the horror stories really matter... if we graduate roughly 2 to 3 times as many new lawyers as there are jobs for them, then by definition we only employ roughly the top 1/2 to top 1/3 of grads, so horror stories about what could theoretically happen if an idiot got past the idiot filter are not entirely relevant if only the far right side of the bell curve will ever get jobs in the field anyway.
Schooling == 4 years of law school
Qualification != Schooling