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Law schools across the country just hosted nontraditional graduation ceremonies for thousands of students, unleashing them into a brand new world thanks to the COVID-19 outbreak, but one law school added a very nontraditional student to the mix. He’s younger than all of his classmates — probably smarter, too — and he’s coming to destroy the bar exam and make history while he’s at it.
Meet Seth Harding. He recently received a degree from the University of Alabama School of Law, but he’s not your average law school graduate. He’s only 19 years old, and he’s currently on track to be the youngest person to ever take the Alabama bar exam.
Harding, who graduated high school at the age of 10 and college at the age of 16, says, “If you look in the history of the U.S. a lot of our leaders started in the legal field and then moved up through there. And that’s the plan. To be the best lawyer I can be and be the best person I can be.”
“For the past 100 years no one’s ever sat for the bar in our state at the age of 19 or younger and I’ll be the first,” Harding said.
Harding has begun preparing for the bar and is taking practice exams.
He said in his prep course “they have you start out by taking the hardest portion of the bar, and I took that and I actually got a passing score on my first try. I don’t think that speaks anything to me. I think it just speaks to UA law and how fantastic of law school they are.”
According to WSFA, Harding is currently working as a law clerk at Beasley Allen, and if he passes the bar, he’ll not only become a staff attorney at the firm, but he’ll also be the youngest lawyer in his state’s recorded history.
Congratulations to Seth Harding, a supersmart kid who will likely breeze through Alabama’s bar exam this summer (yes, Alabama is still hosting the bar exam in person), pandemic be damned. Best of luck!
Montgomery teen on track to be youngest lawyer in Alabama history [WSFA 12 News]
Law grad, age 19, could become youngest lawyer in modern Alabama history [ABA Journal]
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.