Kim Kardashian
Plus Icon

Kim KardashianGilbert Flores/Variety

Kim Kardashian and her family celebrated her law school graduation all over social media on May 22, but for social media users calling her degree into question. Now a legal expert is setting the record straight.

After Kardashian posted a series of Instagram posts donning a neutral-toned cap and gown while celebrating her at-home graduation, headlines quickly dubbed the event a “law school graduation,” though Kardashian never used those words. Some social media users were quick to note that the Skims founder did not go to law school, nor does she have an official Juris Doctor, a graduate-entry professional degree that law students typically get before sitting the bar exam.

However, legal expert and attorney Goldie Schon is breaking down exactly what Kardashian does have and what she’ll need to officially become a lawyer. As Schon explained to The Sun, Kardashian did not go to an accredited law school, which may cause difficulties for her when it comes to passing the highly competitive California Bar Exam. Kardashian will need to pass the bar to practice as a lawyer in California.

Instead, Kardashian completed a self-study, something Schon says is not a common route. “The people that do it this way have to have a lawyer who is essentially their superior and who sign off, on the regular, to the state bar that they’re student is doing a, b and c on a regular basis,” Schon said.

“It has to be a certain person who’s signing off saying, yeah, they finished this stuff, and they read that stuff and they’re doing this stuff. It’s like the benchmark.”

After initially embarking on this path back in 2019, Kardashian took four attempts to pass the Baby Bar Exam, which signifies the completion of the first year of study for students taking unaccredited law classes. She passed it in 2021.

Unlike Kardashian’s six-year-long path, Schon said that a typical law school is three years full-time, or four years part-time, with some students opting to take an intensive two-year program. “It’s a massive amount of reading, and it’s a massive amount of reading comprehension, so it’s not just reading the text, it’s reading the text, understanding it, and being able to communicate it in a paraphrased fashion so that it shows that you understood it,” Schon said.

Though Kardashian’s path is “unconventional,” as she described it in a May 22 Instagram post, it is a legally recognized way to pursue a license to practice law, even without attending law school

“Law school does not teach you how to be a lawyer, it teaches you how to think,” Schon said. “That’s all law school does. It teaches you how to think on your feet. It teaches you how to read something or listen to facts that people tell you, and take in what you said, and then dumb it down and throw it out to you.”

Kardashian still has an uphill battle because California’s State Bar Exam has one of the highest fail rates in the country, with only 55% of students passing this past February. Kardashian is expected to sit the bar in July. “You finally, in six years, finished your self-study, now you have to take a test based off everything you learned over six years,” Schon said of Kardashian’s next steps.

Kardashian has been transparent about taking an alternate route to her law studies from day one. “I chose a rigorous program registered with the California State Bar, building on 75 college credits to complete a four-year curriculum that stretched to six,” she wrote on Instagram while celebrating her graduation. “The journey was real, and so is the accomplishment.”

“This experience has shaped me profoundly, and I’ll carry its lessons with me forever. Here’s to celebrating resilience and new beginnings,” she added.

Kardashian has not said whether or when she plans to sit the California State Bar.