Claiming he took the "easy route" to get a degree is lame. He worked in that mail room for TEN YEARS while doing the correspondence work on the side and taking care of his brother too, and he legitimately learned the law. Who cares if it was a shytty by-mail school, he still did the work and earned the degree and clearly learned a lot in the process. At least in the show's universe, there's no indication that he cheated the system to earn the degree or become a lawyer.
I just don't see Jimmy and Walt as great analogies. Walt almost always held the power, and when he didn't have it, he figured out a way to get it back. Jimmy for most of the show was always subject to someone else's power, whether that was his brother or the law firm or the authorities, etc. And Jimmy tried to "break good" at multiple times in the show but was thwarted by circumstances, whereas Walt never really tried to get clean or do anything for others outside of his family/Jesse.
And Walt, to the very end, was still using threats and death to get what he wanted, he never truly accepted responsibility for the fact that the entire thing he did was a massive fukkup. From the laser pointer scheme to the final shootout, he was still the exact same Walt. Whereas Jimmy finally realized where he had gone wrong and accepted the consequences in a way that didn't hurt anyone else.
Skyler and Chuck aren't good analogies either. Skyler helped Walt far more than she hurt him, and honestly he didn't deserve it. Walt put his entire family in mortal danger and ruined his family life for his last two years on Earth solely due to his own pride. Jimmy took care of Chuck at home for years, worked as a peon in Chuck's firm for years, and only hurt Chuck as a reaction when Chuck had fukked him over and he felt he had no choice left.
Going back, I just realize that Jimmy/Chuck are such an obvious parallel to the Prodigal Son parable that that has to be intentional. Jimmy is the younger brother who goes off into the wilderness and gets involved in all sorts of fukk shyt, but comes back and wants to be forgiven. Chuck is the judgmental older brother who will never trust the younger and is pissed off that he might get away with his wins or ever have a "good" result. Chuck knows that God (or the firm in place of God) might want to forgive Jimmy and give him another chance, but he never will.
