Opinion ID: 1345636
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: Educational Background

Text: A threshold requirement for this court's waiving of rule 5C has been that the applicant must possess a professional legal degree from a foreign law school. In In re Application of Collins-Bazant, the applicant held a Canadian LL.B., a graduate degree earned after 3 years of legal studies. In In re Application of Gluckselig, the applicant held a master's degree in law and legal science, which he had earned at a law school in the Czech Republic. We have held that a master of laws degree from a U.S. law school is not a viable substitute for an ABA-approved J.D. required under rule 5C. See In re Appeal of Dundee, supra . When requesting a waiver, the applicant must show that the education received at any particular school was functionally equivalent to the education provided at ABA-approved schools. In re Application of Collins-Bazant, 254 Neb. at 622, 578 N.W.2d at 43. Our waiver cases indicate that foreign-educated applicants provided extensive information regarding their academic background, including, among other aspects, the accreditation status of their law school, transcripts, official course descriptions, letters of recommendation from professors, and affidavits from law school officials describing the education offered at their schools. This court has found significant whether the applicant has received education based on the English common law. In In re Application of Collins-Bazant, we waived rule 5C for an applicant who graduated from a foreign law school based on English common law. In In re Application of Gluckselig, we waived rule 5C for an applicant who graduated from a foreign law school based not on English common law, but on Roman civil law; however, we took into account that the applicant's extensive legal education included significant studies based on the common law. He spent a year of study at the University of Nebraska College of Law and the University of Michigan Law School, earning a total of 44 credit hours. Although we have refused to make a bright-line determination regarding the legal courses required as prerequisites to a waiver, see In re Application of Gluckselig, supra , we have recognized certain legal courses as examples of basic, core courses deemed `minimally necessary to be a properly-trained attorney,' In re Appeal of Dundee, 249 Neb. 807, 811, 545 N.W.2d 756, 759 (1996). These courses include civil procedure, contracts, constitutional law, criminal law, evidence, family law, torts, professional responsibility, property, and trusts and estates. The Commission should not construe this listing of courses as a checklist, but it should consider whether an applicant's education includes exposure to a range of foundational substantive areas of law.