After six years of study, Kim Kardashian has completed her law studies. On Wednesday, she celebrated privately with a single-student surprise graduation ceremony attended by friends, key supporters and family, including her children.
“It’s an absolute honor to stand here today, not just as mentors but as witnesses to one of the most inspiring law school journeys we’ve ever seen,” said Jessica Jackson, one of the attorneys who sponsored the 44-year-old in her studies. “Six years ago, Kim Kardashian walked into this program with nothing but a fierce desire to fight for justice. No law school lectures, no Ivory Tower shortcuts, just determination and a mountain of case law books to read.”
Jackson’s speech was captured in one of a series of videos posted by Khloé Kardashian and then by Kim in their Instagram stories. Khloé said in a separate video that her sister’s work was “such a cool accomplishment” and called the ceremony “so inspiring and motivating.”
Attorney and CNN host Van Jones also came to the lectern and praised Kim Kardashian for her advocacy work to help get the First Step Act, which applies to federal inmates, signed in 2018 by then-President Trump. The act, which contains a series of criminal justice reforms including changes in sentencing and recidivism risk assessment, has benefited 40,000 people, he said.
And in Pinterest-type moments tailor-made for reality TV, the placemats on the lunch table were made up in the image of flash cards that Kardashian used in her studies and each cup of coffee was garnished with a logo of a 2025 mortarboard.
Ivanka Trump was among those congratulating Kardashian on her accomplishment, as was Lauren Sanchez, Jeff Bezos’ bride-to-be.
The Skims founder decided to study law in the summer of 2018, she told Vogue in early 2019, when she embarked on her program. She told the outlet that her desire to learn sprang up while she was lobbying for the early release of Alice Marie Johnson, imprisoned for life plus 25 years for a nonviolent drug offense. Johnson’s sentence was commuted in 2018, and she was fully pardoned in 2020, but Kardashian seemed unsatisfied with her own level of participation in the process.
“The White House called me to advise to help change the system of clemency, and I’m sitting in the Roosevelt Room with, like, a judge who had sentenced criminals and a lot of really powerful people and I just sat there,” Kardashian said. “I need to know more.”
She also wanted to follow in the footsteps of her father, Robert Kardashian, an attorney and famously a member of his good friend O.J. Simpson’s “dream team” of legal defenders.
Rather than attending law school — Kardashian didn’t graduate from college — she planned to do a four-year apprenticeship with a law firm in San Francisco and then take the bar in 2022. That’s allowed under California law, but the COVID pandemic stretched out the timeline.
She passed the so-called baby bar exam in December 2021 after her fourth swing at the test. In March of this year, she passed the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam. A passing MPRE score is required before a person attempts to pass a bar exam in the United States.
Kardashian hasn’t revealed yet when she will attempt to pass the California bar exam. The two-day test is administered twice a year, in February and July.
“I know my dad would be so proud and he would actually be so shocked to know that this is my path now but he would have been my best study partner,” Kardashian wrote on social media after passing the 2021 “baby bar” exam.
Kardashian said in 2023, via People, that she “would be just as happy being an attorney full time” as working in reality TV. She added that her criminal justice advocacy efforts up to that point had “really opened up my eyes so much. It gets overwhelming because there’s so much to be done.”
But perhaps she’s working on ways to blend her TV and law pursuits? Could be.
Kardashian will star as attorney Allura Grant in the upcoming Hulu drama “All’s Fair.” The series, premiering in August and co-created by “American Horror Story” mastermind Ryan Murphy, revolves around a team of women lawyers.
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