At its meeting on May 15 the Board of Managers of the Vermont Bar Association approved the creation of a Section for Vermont’s State’s Law Office Study (“LOS”) Program. The first co-chairs of the section are its proponents Kira Botting, Esq., a law office study graduate who practices at Rousseau & Ross, PLLC in Lebanon, NH, and Victoria Richardson, who is currently pursuing Law Office Study at Sabbeth Law in White River Junction.
The LOS program is a signature aspect of legal education in Vermont and a key component in legal workforce development. The venerable program provides an alternative path to becoming an attorney without attending traditional law school. It requires four years of apprenticeship under a supervising Vermont attorney or judge, including 25 hours of study per week, culminating in eligibility to take the Vermont Bar Exam. The program is managed by the Vermont judiciary, and the rules are set out in Rule 7 of the Rules of Admission.
Some 117 attorneys have followed the LOS path to admission to the Vermont Bar and there are currently 47 participants in the program. The passage rate on the Vermont Bar exam for LOS students is comparable to the passage rate for law school graduates.
The VBA has more than 30 substantive law sections and 3 divisions, each chaired by leaders in their respective fields. VBA members can join as many sections as they wish, all included in the price of membership. Section members share their collective wisdom by way of our online communities at VBA Connect. A forum for in LOS is available on VBA Connect. Anyone interested can reach out there to ask questions or make suggestions. The new Section is already working on a CLE for the VBA Annual Meeting scheduled for Sept. 25 at Lake Morey.
