![\"\"](\"https:\/\/likelincoln.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/gary-blasi-profile.jpg\" "\\"gary")
<\/a>\n<\/figure>\n
An interview with Gary Blasi<\/em><\/h3>\nIf you visit Echo Park today, you\u2019ll find a radically different community than the one Gary Blasi lived in when he started his journey as a legal apprentice. The hipsters, mod cafes, and steady progress of displacement through gentrification hadn\u2019t arrived. Rents were still affordable and families could live on one income. Just to give you some context, Blasi\u2019s rent was about $340 per month for a two-bedroom apartment! Today, renting a two bedroom in Echo Park will run you $2,200.00 per month.![\"Echo](\"https:\/\/likelincoln.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Echo-Park-Mural-300x173.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
In 1971, Echo Park was a multi-racial, working class community. Blasi wasn\u2019t interested in going to law school. He was more interested in creating social change and figuring out what tools would best serve that purpose. Before beginning his legal apprenticeship, Blasi\u2019s prior exposure to lawyers had been almost completely negative. Not only that, but he didn\u2019t see them contributing to social justice in any significant way. As his work in the social justice movements of the 1970s progressed, he did meet attorneys that were working on issues that resonated with his activist sensibilities, and his perspective about the law began to change. Now, forty years after starting California\u2019s Law Office Study Program (LOSP), Blasi is a decorated<\/a> Professor Emeritus of UCLA Law School. How did that happen?<\/p>\n\u201cIts California. You don\u2019t have to go to law school.\u201d<\/strong><\/h4>\n\u201cYou want to be a lawyer?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve spent too many years in school already.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIts California. You don\u2019t have to go to law school.\u201d<\/p>\n
From a conversation between Blasi and a grad school dropout at the Echo Park Food Conspiracy\u2014an underground food coop\u2014an award winning legal journey began. While working nights in an orange juice factory, Blasi, and five friends, decided to become attorneys through California\u2019s LOSP. Fortunately, they found a supervising attorney that was willing to take them all on as apprentices (NOTE: in the 1970s, there was no cap on how many apprentices a single attorney could supervise. This part of the law was subsequently amended to restrict each attorney to only two apprentices). Carol Smith, an attorney at the Echo Park Community Law Office, supervised the six apprentices while they performed clerical duties for the law office. Smith, Blasi says, was one of possibly ten women in her graduating class at UCLA School of Law.<\/p>\n
Smith\u2019s practice was mainly focused on criminal defense cases. The apprentices, however, were able to work on cases that typical criminal defense attorneys didn\u2019t work on. One example? Blasi and his compatriots, under the watchful eye of Smith, challenged the entire jury selection system of LA County. They argued that the jury selection process, which was based off of voter registration rolls at the time, was discriminatory against poor and working class people. In People v. Harris<\/em>, 36 Cal.3d 36 (Cal.1984)<\/a>, it was shown that even though the Hispanic population of LA County was 27.6%, of the potential jurors appearing at the courthouses over a three-and-one-half month period in 1979, only 3.4% were Hispanic! This argument, and other similar arguments like Blasi\u2019s, led LA County to make significant changes to how juries are selected. \u201cI saw learning these legal tools as a way to do social justice work,\u201d said Blasi.<\/p>\nBlasi appreciated the experiential learning involved in the legal apprenticeship. It made the content of his textbooks leave the abstract world and relevant to the work of social change he was trying to create in his community. He learned how to produce a complaint for civil law suits not from a law school textbook but from looking at what other complaints looked like and then, actually creating them. \u201cMost students find civil procedure really boring because they have no context to put it in, but to me, that was learning the nuts and bolts. I loved it,\u201d Blasi said. \u201cA demurrer is not interesting until you find out what a demur can do for your client.\u201d (A demurrer<\/a> is a defendant\u2019s way of saying \u201cSo what?\u201d to the facts charged against them, and is a way to challenge the legal sufficiency of a cause of action in a complaint.)<\/p>\n\u201cYou don\u2019t learn to be a lawyer in law school.\u201d<\/strong><\/h4>\nWhen Blasi and his co-apprentices began their journey, they knew it would be an uphill climb. The objective of their journey was to learn how to be a lawyer. When Blasi asked other attorneys about how law school prepared them to practice law, they told Blasi, \u201cYou don\u2019t learn to be a lawyer in law school. You learn to be a lawyer when you work with other lawyers.\u201d Since all the apprentices worked in the Echo Park Community Law Offices 20 hours per week, they had that covered. So their next challenge was to figure out what it would take to pass the bar.<\/p>\n
The apprentices prepared for the First Year Law Students Exam and the Bar Exam by reverse engineering their curriculum. They looked at the outlines in the Bar review prep outlines and used those to structure their curriculum. They visited UCLA and USC\u2019s bookstores, found what textbooks were being assigned to first year law students, and created a curriculum with their supervising attorney, Carol Smith. The six apprentices met two to three afternoons a week to teach each other what they had learned. It became an intense and intimate study group where Carol acted as their mentor. They read every page of their casebooks, hornbooks, and other Bar prep guides. It wasn\u2019t until later that the apprentices realized that even in law school, professors don\u2019t assign the entire casebook to students.<\/p>\n
Then, as today, the California Bar exam was exceptionally difficult to pass. Of the six apprentices studying under Carol Smith, Blasi and three others passed the Bar exam on their first try. A fifth apprentice passed the Bar exam later. The passage rates for those studying law under the California LOSP are \u201cpretty abysmal,\u201d says Blasi, and he doesn\u2019t advise others to pursue the LOSP lightly. What\u2019s Blasi\u2019s advice now? \u201cTake an LSAT prep course and take the LSAT.\u201d That way, he says, you\u2019ll have an idea about what kind of law school you could get into, if you wanted to go that route, and it will give you an idea of how steep you\u2019ll have to climb to pass the bar exam. So, does he recommend the legal apprenticeship today? Yes, Blasi says, \u201cprovided that they figure out how do it with someone and that they take a realistic look\u201d at whether their previous education has enabled them with the analytic and other skills necessary to pass the bar.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n\u201cIts California. You don\u2019t have to go to law school.\u201d<\/strong><\/h4>\n\u201cYou want to be a lawyer?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve spent too many years in school already.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIts California. You don\u2019t have to go to law school.\u201d<\/p>\n
From a conversation between Blasi and a grad school dropout at the Echo Park Food Conspiracy\u2014an underground food coop\u2014an award winning legal journey began. While working nights in an orange juice factory, Blasi, and five friends, decided to become attorneys through California\u2019s LOSP. Fortunately, they found a supervising attorney that was willing to take them all on as apprentices (NOTE: in the 1970s, there was no cap on how many apprentices a single attorney could supervise. This part of the law was subsequently amended to restrict each attorney to only two apprentices). Carol Smith, an attorney at the Echo Park Community Law Office, supervised the six apprentices while they performed clerical duties for the law office. Smith, Blasi says, was one of possibly ten women in her graduating class at UCLA School of Law.<\/p>\n
Smith\u2019s practice was mainly focused on criminal defense cases. The apprentices, however, were able to work on cases that typical criminal defense attorneys didn\u2019t work on. One example? Blasi and his compatriots, under the watchful eye of Smith, challenged the entire jury selection system of LA County. They argued that the jury selection process, which was based off of voter registration rolls at the time, was discriminatory against poor and working class people. In People v. Harris<\/em>, 36 Cal.3d 36 (Cal.1984)<\/a>, it was shown that even though the Hispanic population of LA County was 27.6%, of the potential jurors appearing at the courthouses over a three-and-one-half month period in 1979, only 3.4% were Hispanic! This argument, and other similar arguments like Blasi\u2019s, led LA County to make significant changes to how juries are selected. \u201cI saw learning these legal tools as a way to do social justice work,\u201d said Blasi.<\/p>\nBlasi appreciated the experiential learning involved in the legal apprenticeship. It made the content of his textbooks leave the abstract world and relevant to the work of social change he was trying to create in his community. He learned how to produce a complaint for civil law suits not from a law school textbook but from looking at what other complaints looked like and then, actually creating them. \u201cMost students find civil procedure really boring because they have no context to put it in, but to me, that was learning the nuts and bolts. I loved it,\u201d Blasi said. \u201cA demurrer is not interesting until you find out what a demur can do for your client.\u201d (A demurrer<\/a> is a defendant\u2019s way of saying \u201cSo what?\u201d to the facts charged against them, and is a way to challenge the legal sufficiency of a cause of action in a complaint.)<\/p>\n\u201cYou don\u2019t learn to be a lawyer in law school.\u201d<\/strong><\/h4>\nWhen Blasi and his co-apprentices began their journey, they knew it would be an uphill climb. The objective of their journey was to learn how to be a lawyer. When Blasi asked other attorneys about how law school prepared them to practice law, they told Blasi, \u201cYou don\u2019t learn to be a lawyer in law school. You learn to be a lawyer when you work with other lawyers.\u201d Since all the apprentices worked in the Echo Park Community Law Offices 20 hours per week, they had that covered. So their next challenge was to figure out what it would take to pass the bar.<\/p>\n
The apprentices prepared for the First Year Law Students Exam and the Bar Exam by reverse engineering their curriculum. They looked at the outlines in the Bar review prep outlines and used those to structure their curriculum. They visited UCLA and USC\u2019s bookstores, found what textbooks were being assigned to first year law students, and created a curriculum with their supervising attorney, Carol Smith. The six apprentices met two to three afternoons a week to teach each other what they had learned. It became an intense and intimate study group where Carol acted as their mentor. They read every page of their casebooks, hornbooks, and other Bar prep guides. It wasn\u2019t until later that the apprentices realized that even in law school, professors don\u2019t assign the entire casebook to students.<\/p>\n
Then, as today, the California Bar exam was exceptionally difficult to pass. Of the six apprentices studying under Carol Smith, Blasi and three others passed the Bar exam on their first try. A fifth apprentice passed the Bar exam later. The passage rates for those studying law under the California LOSP are \u201cpretty abysmal,\u201d says Blasi, and he doesn\u2019t advise others to pursue the LOSP lightly. What\u2019s Blasi\u2019s advice now? \u201cTake an LSAT prep course and take the LSAT.\u201d That way, he says, you\u2019ll have an idea about what kind of law school you could get into, if you wanted to go that route, and it will give you an idea of how steep you\u2019ll have to climb to pass the bar exam. So, does he recommend the legal apprenticeship today? Yes, Blasi says, \u201cprovided that they figure out how do it with someone and that they take a realistic look\u201d at whether their previous education has enabled them with the analytic and other skills necessary to pass the bar.<\/p>\n
Blasi appreciated the experiential learning involved in the legal apprenticeship. It made the content of his textbooks leave the abstract world and relevant to the work of social change he was trying to create in his community. He learned how to produce a complaint for civil law suits not from a law school textbook but from looking at what other complaints looked like and then, actually creating them. \u201cMost students find civil procedure really boring because they have no context to put it in, but to me, that was learning the nuts and bolts. I loved it,\u201d Blasi said. \u201cA demurrer is not interesting until you find out what a demur can do for your client.\u201d (A demurrer<\/a> is a defendant\u2019s way of saying \u201cSo what?\u201d to the facts charged against them, and is a way to challenge the legal sufficiency of a cause of action in a complaint.)<\/p>\n When Blasi and his co-apprentices began their journey, they knew it would be an uphill climb. The objective of their journey was to learn how to be a lawyer. When Blasi asked other attorneys about how law school prepared them to practice law, they told Blasi, \u201cYou don\u2019t learn to be a lawyer in law school. You learn to be a lawyer when you work with other lawyers.\u201d Since all the apprentices worked in the Echo Park Community Law Offices 20 hours per week, they had that covered. So their next challenge was to figure out what it would take to pass the bar.<\/p>\n The apprentices prepared for the First Year Law Students Exam and the Bar Exam by reverse engineering their curriculum. They looked at the outlines in the Bar review prep outlines and used those to structure their curriculum. They visited UCLA and USC\u2019s bookstores, found what textbooks were being assigned to first year law students, and created a curriculum with their supervising attorney, Carol Smith. The six apprentices met two to three afternoons a week to teach each other what they had learned. It became an intense and intimate study group where Carol acted as their mentor. They read every page of their casebooks, hornbooks, and other Bar prep guides. It wasn\u2019t until later that the apprentices realized that even in law school, professors don\u2019t assign the entire casebook to students.<\/p>\n Then, as today, the California Bar exam was exceptionally difficult to pass. Of the six apprentices studying under Carol Smith, Blasi and three others passed the Bar exam on their first try. A fifth apprentice passed the Bar exam later. The passage rates for those studying law under the California LOSP are \u201cpretty abysmal,\u201d says Blasi, and he doesn\u2019t advise others to pursue the LOSP lightly. What\u2019s Blasi\u2019s advice now? \u201cTake an LSAT prep course and take the LSAT.\u201d That way, he says, you\u2019ll have an idea about what kind of law school you could get into, if you wanted to go that route, and it will give you an idea of how steep you\u2019ll have to climb to pass the bar exam. So, does he recommend the legal apprenticeship today? Yes, Blasi says, \u201cprovided that they figure out how do it with someone and that they take a realistic look\u201d at whether their previous education has enabled them with the analytic and other skills necessary to pass the bar.<\/p>\n\u201cYou don\u2019t learn to be a lawyer in law school.\u201d<\/strong><\/h4>\n
![\"tenants](\"https:\/\/likelincoln.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/tenants-rights-los-angeles.jpg\")
<\/a>During his apprenticeship, Blasi began taking landlord-tenant cases. He said this occurred because the local legal aid agency decided that there were so many evictions in their service area that, instead of handling some and not others, they decided not handle any of them. What this legal aid agency did for people seeking eviction assistance was give them an eviction education packet. They found it so complicated and unhelpful that people began heading to the Echo Park Community Law Office. Blasi eventually made a deal with his supervising attorney: if Blasi did all the paperwork, his supervising attorney, Smith, would take the case to trial. It worked! Not only did they take cases to trial, this work led Blasi to help organize the community to push for better housing conditions and rent control.<\/p>\n![\"gary](\"https:\/\/likelincoln.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/gary-blasi-phone-interview-200x300.jpeg\")
<\/a>For all of the benefits that law schools provide (and we didn\u2019t get into the disadvantages), there were advantages that Blasi saw with the legal apprenticeship.\u00a0 For one, \u201cIf you look at what lawyers do empirically and what you learn to do in law school, there\u2019s not a huge amount of overlap.\u201d Most law schools, Mr. Blasi says, \u201care designed to produce law clerks and future law professors more than they\u2019re designed to produce lawyers.\u201d If Blasi were re-designing legal education, he would \u201cget rid of, at least, the third year of law school and replace it with an apprenticeship. Maybe the last year and a half, at least as an option.\u201d In fact, this option of combining law school and legal apprenticeship as a route to becoming an attorney is available in seven states, including Maine, California, New York, and Wyoming.<\/p>\n