From: lkk@panix.com (Larry Kolodney)
Subject: Re: Harvard (Was: Re: Clinton Nominees for the Supreme Court)
Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1992 21:09:18 GMT
Organization: PANIX Public Access Unix, NYC

In <1992Nov7.151906.15645@midway.uchicago.edu> thf2@ellis.uchicago.edu (Mmmm... Purple) writes:


>>Is there any reason *to* go to Harvard, other than their reputation, which
>>should help in the job market?

>Well, there is occasionally a good professor there.

Now Ted...  I'm sure that's true with Chicago as well.  Everyone knows
that profs get tenure for writing, not for teaching.


> It's a good place to
>learn critical legal studies, if you're into that sort of thing.  If you're
>into ideological warfare, it's a veritable Beirut.

It is, as Duncan Kennedy says, "delicious" in this sense.


>>Just how much difference is there really between law schools in, say, the
>>top 10, and, say, the next 20.  

>I can only speak about the law schools I know first-hand, but I think
>there's a great difference between a Chicago and a #25 law school.

So how come you're talking authoritatively about Harvard?


>(Actually, I don't believe a lot of this applies to Harvard, where the
>class size is humongous enough that there are fewer opportunities to
>work with professors and there's more competition for jobs/law review
>spots/etc.)

I think you may be right about the law review and professor access,
but I've seen no evidence of weakness in the job market for Havard
grads.  Everyone I know who wanted to work in a humongous Wall Street
law firm did so (with one pathological exception).

For whatever its worth, Harvard has consistently had the most alumni
sitting as Supreme Court Justices of any law school (by a long shot).


>Between #10 and #11?  Probably none.  Between #4 and #25?  I'd say a great
>great deal.

I concur.  My impressions is that access to sheer brilliance in the
faculty and students and monetary resources really increases
exponentially as you approach the top of the heap.

>>For that matter, how much real difference
>>is there between the top 10 and the bottom 20 of ABA-approved schools?

>I've seen law schools that are essentially three-year-long bar review
>courses.  I'd say there's a great deal of difference.

Absolutely.  The judge I clerked for recently retired and went back to
teaching.  He had been at Harvard 20 years ago, and now he's teaching
at Suffolk, which is probably significantly above the bottom 25, and
whenever we talk he expresses his dismay at to poor quality of
classroom discussions.  He says that the students want everying
spoon-fed to them, just as they would in a bar-review course.  They
don't see the point of discussing anything not on the bar exam.

I think you can also make a generalization that there are two distinct
categories of law school, national and local. National schools, such
as Harvard (but also "second tier schools" like American, Fordham,
Wisconsin, etc.) teach a very broad based curriculum.  Lots of Federal
Law, very little state law from the state they happen to be located
in.  Class disucssions center around "policy" questions.  By contrast,
local schools tend to be, as Ted says, 3 year long bar review
courses.  They are geared to the state bar in the state they are
located in, and have much more the atmosphere of a trade school than
an academic research instution.

-- 
larry kolodney:(lkk@panix.com) 
_(*#&)#*&%)@(*^%_!*&%^!)*&#+!*&$+!?&%+!*&^_)*&#%)*&^%#+&
The past is not dead, it's not even past.   - Wm. Faulkner

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