Kim Kardashian reveals she is studying to become a lawyer
The reality star started a four-year apprenticeship last summer
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Kim Kardashian has revealed that she is studying to become a lawyer and plans to take the bar by 2022.
The reality star announced the latest direction for her career in a new interview with Vogue, in which she explained that she began a four-year apprenticeship with a San Francisco law firm last summer.
In California, it is possible to become a lawyer without attending law school as long as you apprentice with a practising lawyer or judge.
According to Kardashian, whose father Robert Kardashian was infamous for being OJ Simpson’s defence attorney, she decided to embark on her new career after successfully appealing to President Trump to grant clemency to Alice Marie Johnson.
Johnson, who was serving life in prison for a first-time, non-violent drug offence, was released last June.
Of her decision, Kardashian said she’d had to think “long and hard,” but that it ultimately came down to realising that if she “knew more” she could “do more”.
“The White House called me to advise to help change the system of clemency, and I’m sitting in the Roosevelt Room with, like, a judge who had sentenced criminals and a lot of really powerful people and I just sat there, like, Oh, sh**. I need to know more. I would say what I had to say, about the human side and why this is so unfair. But I had attorneys with me who could back that up with all the facts of the case,” she recalled.
“It’s never one person who gets things done; it’s always a collective of people, and I've always known my role, but I just felt like I wanted to be able to fight for people who have paid their dues to society. I just felt like the system could be so different, and I wanted to fight to fix it, and if I knew more, I could do more.”
According to the Keeping Up with the Kardashians star, her experience with Johnson was a “turning point” - as before that she never “in a million years thought we would get to the point of getting laws passed”.
In December, the prison reform bill the FIRST STEP Act was signed into law by President Trump, after it was passed by Congress.
In addition to her success advocating on behalf of US prison reform, Kardashian also credited her father with instilling in her an interest in law and recalled snooping through his office when she was young.
According to Vogue, the 38-year-old will take a state-administered “baby bar” this summer, which will indicate whether she can continuing practising law for the next three years.
But the makeup mogul plans to follow through with her goal no matter what negative things outsiders may say, as she told the magazine she doesn't "pay attention to that anymore".
As for the hardest part of becoming a lawyer, Kardashian said it is the reading.
“The reading is what really gets me,” she said. “It’s so time-consuming. The concepts I grasp in two seconds.”
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments