Who would have thought that Kim Kardashian West would become a champion of apprenticeships?
The reality TV star and businesswoman has announced she is pursuing a legal career by undertaking a four-year apprenticeship with a law firm based in San Francisco.
The apprenticeship-route available is only available in four US states, California being one, which allows apprentices to become a lawyer and take their bar exams without attending law school. Kardashian West is already one-year into her training and hopes to take the bar in 2022. Her father, Robert, was also an attorney; he gained notoriety for being one of the defence team during the OJ Simpson trial.
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Kardashian West revealed the news she has kept a secret for almost a year in a front cover interview for Vogue magazine.
She used her influence last summer to help get 63-year-old great-grandmother Alice Marie Johnson released from an Alabama prison after serving 22-years for non-violent drugs offences. Kardashian West met US president Donald Trump and, shortly afterwards, he granted Johnson clemency.
Kardashian West said she has been working with the criminal justice reform organisation #cut50 and has visited prisons and petitioned governors. Explaining her decision to Jonathan Van Meter in Vogue, she said: “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.”
There’s plenty to be cynical about with the Kardashian family, but this is not one of them. As one of the most famous people on the planet, anything Kardashian West utters, anything she wears, anything she does is hugely influential.
‘A torchbearer for lifelong learning’
America is trying to grow its apprenticeships system, just like in the UK. The US is starting from arguably a lower base. In 2017, Trump announced a “moonshot goal” of achieving 5 million new apprenticeship starts by 2020, only 2 million more than the UK government’s own target.
This is a great boost to Brand Apprenticeships in America and around the world.
Aged 38, Kardashian West is acting as a torchbearer for lifelong learning, for career changers, for high school graduates without a college degree returning to education.
According to the California Bar Association, a legal apprentice has to go through all the same rigorous steps before they can take the bar as their peers at Law School. We should commend anyone taking on these academic pursuits and I thoroughly hope Kardashian West passes her exams and can add “high-flying lawyer” to her already packed CV alongside TV star, businesswoman and model.
George Ryan is an FE reporter at Tes
