Door 1
A non-ABA law school in the US
A non-ABA law school is one the American Bar Association hasn’t approved. The ABA rule that requires an admissions test doesn’t bind these schools, so each one sets its own admission rules. Some still use the LSAT, so check each school’s own page.
The catch: where you can sit the bar. Seventeen states take only graduates of ABA-approved schools. Most of the rest accept a non-ABA degree only after you’ve been admitted in another state and practiced there for years. The pass rates are part of the catch too. In February 2026, first-time takers from ABA schools in California passed the California bar at 62.9 percent. First-time takers from California-accredited schools passed at 29.7 percent. Read that with a caution: February is the smaller sitting, and most people who sit it are retaking.
If you’re settled in California, or you want the degree for a business you already run there, this door can make sense. If there’s a real chance you’ll move, it’s a gamble.
Door 2
An ABA law school that admits you without a test
In November 2024 the ABA approved a process that lets a law school apply for a variance from the rule that requires an admissions test, so that it can admit first-year JD students without one. By August 2026, the ABA’s own public notices listed 23 law schools granted this kind of variance.
The catch: the school has to choose you. Holding a variance and using it are two different things. A school with permission may admit a handful of students without a test, or none. At one variance school, 11 of the 186 first-year students who enrolled in 2025 came in with no LSAT, GRE, or JD Next score. The list of schools holding a variance is short, and it changes.
Chapter 2 shows how to check a school in three steps, and what to ask its admissions office in writing.
Door 3
A law degree earned abroad
In England and Ireland, law is an undergraduate degree, the way history or biology is in the US. Because law is taught that way, schools also run shortened courses for people who already hold a degree in something else. Admission turns on your degree and your grades. None of the UK or Irish programs in the book lists an admissions test.
The catch: years, and the name on the paper. The route takes years, and the credential you finish with has to be the kind a US bar will accept. A conversion diploma alone falls short, so finish with a degree. Decide between online and in-person study before you enroll, too. New York, for one, gives no credit for online study toward a foreign law degree.
This is the door I took. I earned my law degree from a school in the UK, studying online, and then did an LL.M. at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School. I never sat the LSAT.
Two next steps
If you already hold a foreign law degree: the LL.M. or the two-year JD
You have two ways to finish the job in the US. The LL.M. is one academic year, and in some states that year is enough to sit the bar. The two-year JD gives you the full degree in two years instead of three, with credit for your foreign law degree. Thirteen programs listed in the book required no admissions test, or didn’t mention one, when I checked their pages in September 2026.
The catch: pick the bar exam before you pick the school. The same LL.M. can qualify you in one place and do nothing for you in the next. And the price of the fast route shows up on results day. On Washington’s February 2026 exam, first-time takers with a foreign law degree and an ABA LL.M. passed at 31.25 percent. First-time takers with an ABA JD passed at 72.22 percent. Those are group numbers, and they aren’t a forecast for you.
Side door
If you’re still an undergraduate: the 3+3 and direct admission
A 3+3 program lets you start law school after your third year of college, which saves you a year of time and tuition. Whether it also saves you the LSAT depends on the program. Some still require it. Others swap it for a test you took in high school. Every version helps you only if you’re still an undergraduate at a school that offers one.
Off to the side
With no law school at all: the law reader route
Four states let you qualify for their bar by studying for years in a law office under a supervising lawyer: California, Virginia, Vermont, and Washington. You finish with no law degree and the right to sit that state’s bar exam.
The catch: the numbers, and the border. In Virginia from 2001 through 2025, law readers passed the bar at 21.26 percent against 68.72 percent overall. Virginia’s Board calls the route “not an equivalent alternative to law school for most people who want to practice law.” Virginia and Washington each say their program qualifies you for their own bar only.
If you'll sit a test, just not the LSAT
Two other tests can get you into many ABA-approved law schools: JD Next and the GRE. Chapter 5 explains what each one is and how to tell whether your schools accept it. I've sat both.
