Clerk program an alternative to law school

They wrote down those dreams on paper and put them into sealed envelopes. They were collected by a teacher to be mailed to them in 10 years.

“I put down I wanted to be an attorney,” Alumbaugh said last week from her office at the Kittitas County Courthouse, where she works as a deputy prosecuting attorney. “But I ended up not going to law school. Becoming an attorney in this alternative way, well, it was hard, hard on me and my family, but I made it. It definitely isn’t a short cut around law school.”

Alumbaugh completed a law clerk program to become an attorney through the Washington State Bar Association as an alternative to law school. Students in the program study with a lawyer or judge while working and learning on the job.

“I have always been interested in the law,” she said.

Alumbaugh said after graduating from high school, that she, so to speak, laid aside the dream of a law career.

“Somehow in the early years after high school, that fell by the wayside,” Alumbaugh said. “But, I found that part of me again and pursued it.”

Out of high school she worked as a secretary at a local department store, married and had children.

Later, at 26, she realized she wanted and needed a better education to move on with her life toward some kind of professional career. She attended Yakima Valley Community College to prepare for Central Washington University which she entered in 1999. She received a degree in pre-law and paralegal professions from CWU.

She learned of the availability of the law school entrance test but shied away from it, believing there was no way she could go to law school being a single mom with children on limited finances.

Her parents lived locally and helped with her children while she worked and went to school, and “uprooting my family was probably not going to be an achievable goal at that time.”

“It seemed way out of reach for me; I just couldn’t see myself making that jump to law school,” she said.

Yet the call of the law was still there.

4-YEAR COMMITMENT

While a senior at Central, she learned about an intern position with the local Volunteer Legal Services office which, at that time, was headed by attorney Reed Gardner. She got the position and went to work.

While working in the office, Gardner asked her about law school, and she said it didn’t seem likely.

“Reed asked if I had ever heard of the (state Bar Association’s) law clerk program. I hadn’t. He explained the program to me and told me that I would be a terrific candidate for it and encouraged me to look into it.”

The program is a four-year commitment to be regularly tutored by a senior, supervising attorney in all aspects of general law and also tested monthly on all subjects covered.

Soon after graduation in June 2002, she was hired by county Prosecutor Greg Zempel to fill a receptionist/legal secretary position.

Later she was promoted to the position of legal secretary in the Prosecutor Office’s felony division, working for county Chief Criminal Prosecutor Candace Hooper. Alumbaugh began to seriously consider applying for the law clerk program, which required a college degree and full-time work for attorneys while in the program.

At an attorneys’ meeting in the prosecutor’s office, she asked Zempel and the other prosecutors to consider being her tutors in the program and to develop a curriculum that would lead to taking the state bar exam.

“What I was asking would entail a lot of work by me and by the other attorneys,” she said. “It would be a major commitment.”

After much consideration, Zempel agreed to be her supervising attorney and primary tutor, with Hooper also a tutor along with several of the deputy prosecutors.

Other tutors were Gardner and deputy prosecutors Neil Caulkins and Doug Mitchell.

What followed were years of tutoring by Zempel and the other attorneys, at least three to four hours a week, nearly every work day, all on their own time. Every month she was required to take an examination of the course work and complete a certificate that went to the state Bar Association.

Teaching sessions occurred before work, during the lunch hour, after work and sometimes on weekends.

Zempel said he’s proud of the work Alumbaugh did. It’s unusual for people to go outside the normal route of law school to become attorneys, he said.

“She actually was working full-time and having to assist with the design of coursework and curriculum and when it would take place within the parameters set by the bar association,” he said. “She did a fantastic job and we’re all real proud of her.”

Alumbaugh said the hardest challenge was managing family time, classes with tutors, homework, reading assignments and household chores, and all while working full-time.

She said it got “pretty stressful and overwhelming.”

“It feels like there is no time. However, we coped. My kids and I would do our homework together, read in bed together so that we could find time to at least be around one another. My husband helped take care of chores and helped with the children when I needed time to study or just needed a break.”

Her kids pitched in to do more chores and her parents provided much help with watching the kids when she needed to study.

With a laugh she said when her kids wanted to slide out from having to do their homework, she would remind them that she, too, had plenty of homework.

“I feel I set a good example for my kids to strive to do their best and not just get by,” Alumbaugh said.

Once Alumbaugh had completed a majority of the program, she was able to begin a limited practice of law as a legal intern working in the prosecutor’s office as a deputy prosecutor under existing attorneys.

She began the law clerk program in earnest in May 2006, which was shortly after she married Christopher Alumbaugh. She began her studies on their honeymoon.

She successfully completed the course work in summer 2010. She took a break then began taking bar exam prep courses in January and February of this year.

She passed the bar exam and was sworn in as an attorney on Oct. 20 by Kittitas County Superior Court Judge Scott Sparks. She was formally admitted to the state Bar Association Nov. 7.

Alumbaugh continues to prosecute those charged with misdemeanors and gross misdemeanors in district court.

“It is an outstanding program, and if there are individuals out there who would love to practice law, but don’t believe that law school is an option, I would encourage them to look into the possibility of the law clerk program,” she said.