Is it possible to be self-taught in law?

It's absolutely possible to get the equivalent of a university legal education from books. All you'd need to do is read the textbook for each compulsory subject in a college curriculum. None of it is hard - it's just a lot of reading. (Read more: Patrick Brown, Web Developer and Corporate Lawyer. Is it possible to become a self-taught lawyer? Answered June 25, 2012. https://www.quora.com/Is-it-possible-to-become-a-self-taught-lawyer)

That said, the most important thing for anyone who wants to be a practicing lawyer is to get hands-on experience. I can't think of a way to get that experience anywhere outside the workplace - and it's impossible to get it from a book. The best indicator of this is how useless law graduates are for law firms when they first arrive. They might have spent several years learning about the law, but none of them have the foggiest idea about how to "practice."

As an example, it would be possible to practice drafting by looking at specimen contracts, but the significance of why certain things are done in certain ways would be lost on you. In my view, there's just too many unknown unknowns for someone to teach themselves.

There's also the question of intuition. A lot of that is ingrained by submitting multiple drafts and getting them covered in red pen by a mentor. (Read more: Patrick Brown, Web Developer and Corporate Lawyer. Is it possible to become a self-taught lawyer? Answered June 25, 2012. https://www.quora.com/Is-it-possible-to-become-a-self-taught-lawyer)