Before family, friends and colleagues, Bennett Brandenburg raised his right hand and recited the attorney’s oath, standing in the same Clark County courtroom where his father was sworn in as a lawyer nearly three decades earlier.
But, unlike his father, Brandenburg never went to the usual three years of law school. Instead, the 28-year-old spent a little more than four years learning the law under his dad’s supervision.
In February 2017, he completed the state bar’s Law Clerk Program that allows students to forgo law school in exchange for learning under an experienced attorney. As luck would have it, his father and employer, Barry Brandenburg, fit the bill.
“I’m laying the foundation for him to slide in at the end of my career,” said Barry Brandenburg, 59, while seated next to his son at their office in downtown Vancouver’s historic Cushing-Caples House. “It’s a treat to watch that. I’m not going to pack up one day and think, ‘What did I do with 30 some-odd years?’ ”
Instead, Bennett Brandenburg will carry on the family business — a law firm that specializes in criminal defense and personal injury cases.
The Law Clerk Program, frankly, was an experiment for both father and son, but they’re happy to say it worked out.
Bennett Brandenburg didn’t want to attend traditional law school, he said, because it’s costly, and for many new attorneys, there is no guarantee of a job afterward.
In an annual survey conducted by U.S. News & World Report ranking 194 law schools, the average annual tuition and fees for private law school in the 2017-18 academic year was $47,112. The average cost for in-state public law school was $26,864 and $40,308 for out-of-state public law school.
Going the non-traditional route, Bennett Brandenburg saved tens of thousands of dollars. The program cost him $1,500 annually, which went to the state bar association. However, it also took him about a year longer to get his law education than traditional school: law school programs typically last three years, whereas the Law Clerk Program takes four years straight through.
Opting for the program was also a leap of faith.
“I don’t think we knew what we were getting into,” he said. But they thought, “If this works, this could be an amazing opportunity.”
Learning curve
They quickly discovered there was a learning curve for both father and son.
“I’m not a law professor, and I’m grading his exams,” Barry Brandenburg said. “My buddies would say to me, ‘Well, I guess we’ll find out what kind of teacher you are.’”
Bennett Brandenburg faced his own challenges.
“I had to drive myself to do all of the coursework. There was no one to compare myself against so there was a lot of self-doubt,” he said. “It was really tough to see the end goal… There was a lot of pressure to keep pushing ahead and realize everything was going to be OK.”
Bennett Brandenburg started out in his father’s office fielding phone calls, consulting criminal defendants and plaintiffs in personal injury cases, shuttling papers to the courthouse and managing the firm’s calendar.
Once he completed about three-fifths of the program, he obtained a limited license to practice on his own in District Court and assist his father on Superior Court cases.
He mostly handled traffic infractions on a weekly basis in District Court, as well as in Battle Ground and Camas municipal courts.
The hands-on experience was useful, Barry Brandenburg said, because if the student didn’t present the case well, the stakes were small. A sustained traffic infraction might result in a $100 fine, as opposed to a criminal conviction where incarceration is possible.
Since 2016, the majority of cases the father and son have tackled together have been civil suits. Barry Brandenburg said he’s been grateful for the help.
“If it wasn’t for him, I’d be in real trouble, the firm would be in real trouble,” he said of his son.
But for Bennett Brandenburg, one of the more eye-opening cases, he said, was sitting second chair with his father on an attempted child rape and molestation trial.
“That was an experience for sure. It’s one thing to learn criminal law but another to realize the impact it has on someone’s life,” he said.
Their client was acquitted of the most serious charge but convicted of attempted child molestation. Instead of facing about 10 years in prison, he was ordered to spend less than a year in jail.
“It’s a difficult case when it’s an offensive matter, but you have to be objective,” Bennett Brandenburg said.
Keeping it in the family
While mentoring his son, Barry Brandenburg said he received a number of calls from friends and colleagues asking if he would take on other law students. His answer was a resounding no.
“The fit for us was family,” he said.
The father and son have a close relationship — they golf together on the weekends and hit the brew pubs together.
But, make no mistake, the program wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows.
“He pops off,” Barry Brandenburg said, motioning to his son, “But I’m stubborn.”
Bennett Brandenburg said he often heard his father say, “Well, when you’re running the show, we can do it your way.”
At those times he said he thought, “I hope to God I pass (the bar exam) the first time.” And he did.
Bennett Brandenburg took the Washington state bar exam in July, he said, passing the Multistate Bar Examination with a score in the top third.
“That was an emotional day, because all of the doubt and hard work came to fruition,” he said.
He later successfully took an ethics exam and received his law license around Christmas.
During his swearing-in ceremony, Washington Court of Appeals Judge Rich Melnick, a friend of the Brandenburgs’, acknowledged Bennett Brandenburg’s unusual path to a law license.
“He not only did it as a minority, but he did it the first time,” Melnick said.
According to overall pass rates for the Summer 2017 Washington State Bar Exam, 11 law clerks took the exam, with five passing or about 45½ percent. In comparison, 663 traditional law students took the exam, with 504 passing or about 76 percent.
Melnick told Bennett Brandenburg that he knows he will live up to his father’s name and reputation.
Melnick’s son, Ben Melnick, who’s also an attorney, told Bennett Brandenburg that he thinks his friend will go on to do great things.
“If Bennett attacks the rest of his legal career the way he’s attacked driving infractions, he’s going places,” he joked.
