Qualifying international applicants may apply to take the lawyer bar examination or to be licensed as house counsel or foreign law consultant. California only requires foreign lawyers to be fully admitted to the Bar in their home country.In California, a foreign lawyer must complete an additional 20 credits of study in an LL.M. Program, including instruction in bar-tested subjects. My understanding is that foreign lawyers from a common law country can take the bar exams in Washington state based on the information below. If you are a licensed lawyer in another jurisdiction, you are eligible to sit for CA bar exam even without having a LL.M degree. M. degree or an additional one-year of study at an ABA-approved or California-accredited law school in bar examination subject matter. LL.M. Most states do require a J.D. degree for a US law school in order to sit for the bar exam. You still have some other requirements to fulfill, but your foreign license is a shortcut in the application process. New York, California, Texas, Alabama, and Virginia are some of the states that let foreign law graduates sit for the bar exam. The program is intended for foreign-trained lawyers to become eligible to sit for the bar exam in several states including Washington and California.
