Hi there,

I'm a graduate from the University of Melbourne's Melbourne Law School. I hold an LLB, a degree that was phased out in favour of a JD to make the law school program more internationally marketable. Substantively, they are the same degree, however - I was there for the crossover years and class materials and credit were identical, though compressed for the JD.

I have read the information on the California Bar webpage, including the following:

"Foreign applicants must establish their eligibility to take the California Bar Examination by showing that their degree is equivalent to a Juris Doctor (JD) degree awarded by an American Bar Association (ABA) approved...law school in the United States AND that they have successfully completed a year of law study at an ABA approved law school..."

Now, I understand the first prong is easily satisfiable and likely not a problem. The second usually necessitates taking some sort of LLM in the US prior to taking the bar. HOWEVER - according to the 2013 ABA/LSAC Official Guide to ABA Approved Law Schools, Melbourne Law School is the first LSAC member law school outside of the North American continent. It also states that Melbourne Law School is "accredited", which in context I took to mean as ABA accredited.

Correspondence with UniMelb has been murky, though, and I've had mixed positive and negative responses from all up and down the administrative hierarchy. Correspondence with the ABA themselves has also been a mixed bag. On the face of it, though, is it potentially correct that Melbourne Law School is ABA accredited and therefore I satisfy the second prong by benefit of having graduated from there? I don't think I can afford another year of law school with the student debt I incurred to go through once already. :/

Sorry for the long post, but thank you for reading this wall of text!

Cheers!