Gold Dust Twins of Legal Education Part Ways in Preparation for Bar

When the Yale Law School faculty voted to change its grading system last year no one batted an eye in either New Haven or Cambridge. The new system, reducing all grades to four--excellent, satisfactory, pass, and flunk--was designed to reduce the emphasis on percentage points, an emphasis which exists strongly at Harvard.

This change served to point up a well-known fact: while among national law schools, Harvard and Yale are at the top, while they both accept only the highest calibre men and put them through intensive training, while they both turn out some of the nation's top lawyers and public administrators, in many significant ways the two schools are quite different.

Harvard Law School, alma mater of such a variety of men as Holmes, Brandeis. Lillenthal and Senator Taft, has the biggest name in the business. Famed for the development of the case method under Langdell, the first dean, and once Infamous for its now abandoned policy of flunking one-third of each first-year class, the school has stuck to its principles of rigor and tough mental discipline in the study of law.

The Yale Law School, smaller, friendlier, and less-well-known, has been a place of ferment and experimentation in legal theory and teaching since Robert Hutching was dean in the late twenties. Thurman Arnold and William O. Douglas sparked the faculty in the late thirties.

When Harvard finally made its tradition-smashing decision two years ago to admit women, Yale met the news with the amusement of an experienced man of the world. The Elis have admitted women for many years; at the moment there are over thirty, many of them high-ranking scholars.

Size Causes Differences

Many of the differences between the Harvard and Yale Law Schools stem from the fact that one is big and the other small. Harvard, with an entering class (550 in '49-'50, for example) larger than all three classes at Yale, is a big professional school. At Yale, where the first-year class totaled 148 for the same year, now students soon get to know everyone in their class, and eventually the whole school. This intimacy promotes a friendlier atmosphere which Yale students praise as "fine group spirit" and which Harvard men are likely to sniff at as collegiate.

The physical layout of the Yale school seems to contribute to this spirit. The Sterling, Law Buildings, which occupy a block next to the Yale library, form a quadrangle of campus gothic surrounding a picturesque court. All the class-rooms, offices, the dining hall, the library, and the men's dormitories are in these buildings. Usually, most of the first-year men live in the quadrangle along with upperclassmen. The easy intermingling helps newcomers learn the ropes quickly and naturally.

The Student Association, a very active student council, runs some five dances a term which are heavily attended by both students and faculty. There are frequent cocktail parties. Weekends, particularly during the football season, are uproarious, and when New Haven palls, students find New York and Poughkeepsie close enough for convenient commuting.

Harvard Not Inhuman

The very size of the Harvard Law School precludes the sort of friendly community spirit evident at Yale, although Harvard is not the inhuman LL.B. factory that critics make it out to be. The students have plenty of social life and take a number of weekends off. The teaching fellow program and the opening of the new Graduate center has helped remove some of the admitted impersonality from student life. But there is no doubt that the grind here is more demanding, and that the atmosphere of the place is less leisurely. Harvard men are notorious for the time they spend "talking law."

Partly because of its size and because of its traditional reputation, the school draws its student body from a wider geographical and economic range than Yale. In 1949, Harvard Law students represented 255 different colleges, as against Yale's 146, for example. Of course, getting to know a variety of people in a group of 1500 demands initiative which is unnecessary in the smaller school.

Yale feels that one of the chief advantages of its size is the amount of contact between students and faculty, both in and out of class. Men get to know their teachers well in the small classes and seminars; and they meet them socially at student parties and dances. It is not uncommon for a Yale upperclassman to call his instructor by his first name.

In Harvard's more formal atmosphere, student-faculty contact is generally limited to the classroom and to office-hours. There are exceptions, of course: men in the more important organizations--particularly the Law Review Staff--see a great deal of the faculty.

Similar Requirements

Applicants for both schools must meet two basic requirements: good college grades, and a fair (around 600) score on the legal aptitude exam, Yale asks, above and beyond this, at least two letters of recommendation to use as secondary criteria in selection.

Since the late thirties, when this system went into operation, Harvard has correlated undergraduate grades of men from different colleges with their law school records. It can thus determine what grades an applicant should have made in his college to have a fifty-fifty chance of passing at the law school. Since these "norm grades" or "deadlines" vary from year to year, they are constantly rechecked.

Since information about extra-curricula activities cannot be used for charting or comparison. Harvard does not ask for it, although the Admissions Office may use it in borderline cases when it is volunteered.

Yale uses a system much like Harvard's correlating undergraduate grades with subsequent law school records of men from various colleges. But it uses the aptitude test more as a check against college grades than as a factor weighted equally with the marks as at Harvard. Yale is also inclined to rate secondary criteria--college activities and recommendations--little higher than does its sister school.

Neither school uses a quota system, geographical or other, but both seem to wind up with good representation and with a national student body. Of course, the relative size of the student bodies directly affects a student's chances for admission. On the average, Yale admits at out a sixth of those applying while Harvard takes between a third and a half.

On the other hand, this factor has made it easier, for a student to get a scholarship at Yale. In 1949 25 percent of Yale men were getting financial help compared to seven percent at Harvard. In awarding its national scholarships, Harvard does consider place of residence, taking it harder for an easterner to get this aid.

Both Dean Erwin N. Griswold of Harvard, and Dean Wesley A. Sturges of Yale hope to have smaller student bodies because of the abnormally huge demand in the future. They kept admissions high for lawyers right after the last war and because of the large number of veterans applying. And Sturges points to financial troubles in the last few years as a reason for keeping his school large. "...We must depend on box office receipts," he states. If each dean has his way, Harvard will eventually have 1400 students and Yale 450-some day.

Once he is admitted, the student is in for a shock, whether he is attending Harvard or Yale. He will be subjected to new pressures and will probably have to learn a way of thinking quite different from the method he used to get through college.

Students must master precise legal thinking, as just retired Harvard professor Edmund M. Morgan puts it, "learn to think things through, not just accept generalizations--when you study a case, details make the difference." Professor Austin W. Scott of Harvard points out that the law student can no longer rely solely on a good memory; he must understanding, Scott adds, comes slowly to many students.

There is no college curriculum that specifically prepares all men for law school, Harvard and Yale agree. Many professors, however, advise courses in mathematics, philosophy, and other disciplines which require an ability to think about problems in concrete terms. Morgan says wryly, however, that he would be well satisfied if his students could all read the English language accurately.

Greater Pressure Here

The pressure is greater on the first year man at Harvard than it is on his brother at Yale. He usually must carry a heavier work load; putting in over twenty hours a week outside of class, as compared to just over ten hours for the Yale student. And, of course, there, is always the strong possibility of flunking out at Harvard, while Yale seldom fails a student.

At Harvard also, examinations do not come until the end of the year, while Yale has mid-year finals which provide a more regular check for the student, and which lessen the amount of review work he must do in preparation. Grades are more important at Harvard than at Yale too. Only a relatively small percentage of the class is eligible for the Law Review, the Board of Student Advisers, and the Legal Aid Bureau-the most important extra-curricular activities.

To help orient and instruct first-year students. Harvard has instituted the successful Teaching Fellow Program. Under this plan, about 18 men meet with a teaching fellow once a week to study problems presented in courses, and to take "dry-run" mid-year exams.

Supposed differences in education philosophy have created a great deal of discussion at both schools. Actually, these differences are not very great. But there is a difference of emphasis, certainly. Courses of very similar content, for example, will be described in more "conservative" terms in the Yale catalogue, more conservative terms by the Harvard book.

The "Yale Approach," so-called, stresses the relation of law to economics, politics, and sociology. This philosophy has two strands. One is the older doctrine of legal realism, which emphasized the actual problems of legal practice and judicial decision rather than more legal theory. According to this way of thinking students should be trained to understand law as a human creation dealing with human problems.

Policy Science

The second and more controversial stand of the "Yale Approach" is the newer and less-accepted policy science theory propounded by professors Myres McDougal and Harold Lasswell of Yale. These men view law as a pragmatic tool which can be used to shape policy for the public good. They feel that the student, as a potential policy maker--lawyer, judge public administrator--should be trained to think in these terms. Lasswell and McDougal also believe that other areas of knowledge--semantics, psychology, sociology for instances--should be brought to bear on law.

The Yale school does not wholly subscribe to the theories of Legal Realism or of Policy Science, although it draws on them both. Thus to teach the "realistic" actualities of law practice, there is the required moot court work and courses in case presentation and in case studies. An entire term is spent on the study of one actual case under direction of one of the original counsels. In line with the Policy Science, emphasis on allied fields. Yale has two non-lawyers on the teaching staff, F.S.C. Northrop and Lasswell.

Almost Entirely Elective

Except for the fall term of the first term, the Yale curriculum is almost entirely elective.. This freedom puts the burden of planning on the student, but it leaves him free to specialize as he will and allows him wide choice.

Besides the regular courses, there are about 30 half-year seminars, ranging from "Air Transportation" and "Legal Aspects of Diplomacy" to "Law and the Arts." One seminar, "Law and Public Opinion," was held at Mory's until 1949, when enrollment of a girl made a change of meeting-place necessary.

These courses are what students call "the fringe;" most men, wary of bar examinations, choose the more orthodox fare, the "bread and butter" courses.

Yale's free elective system is in direct contrast with Harvard, where the first, two years work is, with little exception, required. Harvard's position, in Dean Griswold's words, is that "there is a hard core of law which every educated and qualified lawyer should be exposed to." In other ways, however, Harvard's recent curriculum revision seems to have moved it closer to the Yale method.

For instance, in the fall term 1949, the Harvard faculty introduced five "perspective courses" for second-year men. These were designed, according to Professor Hart, to be "relatively small classes for the discussion of basic issues "about law. The subjects included "Comparison of Soviet and American Law," and "American Legal History."

The creation of the perspective courses was part of a general revision of first and second-year curriculum to provide what Professor Long Fuller calls a "general education in law. "The idea behind this change was to cram as much basic work as possible into the first two years, leaving the third year for more specialized work.

The teaching, at Harvard and at Yale, is based of the case system. Rather than memorize their way through a textbook, students have to think their way through actual court decisions, and the glean the points from them. At both schools many of the lecturers use the "Socratic method." In their classes, questioning student after student about a case until an answer is obtained.

'Bread and Butter' Course

As for the size of classes, Harvard's are large all the way through--around 130 for the first two years. A student will be called upon two or three times a term. At Yale entering men go into classes of about 75; from then on meetings average 40 members, though some of the "bread and butter" courses draw upwards of a hundred.

Besides joining in use of the case method, both Harvard and Yale have set up a research and writing requirement. Legal research must be through and exhaustive and the writing is a though but "necessary discipline." Both Administrations have found that work on the Law Journal (Yale) or the Harvard Law Review, with just this sort of experience, has proved to be the most valuable training law students can get. Of course, unfortunately it is restricted to the top men in the class.

Whether or not Harvard's and Yale's approaches to the study of law be from different angles, both methods are directed by superior faculties. In age and practical experience. Harvard has the edge. Various members of the faculty, like Professors Scott. W. Barton Leach, and Warren A. Seavey have nation-wide reputations.

The average age of the Yale staff is younger, and it includes-some-non-lawyers. On the question of hiring non-lawyers to teach in law school the two Administrations definitely disagree.

Sturges states. "We do have non-lawers on the staff and would like some more: they have disciplines which are valuable for lawyers."

Non-Lawyers Ineffective

Griswold, on the other hand, argues, "I do not think having non-lawyers on the staff is either effective or significant." Harvard does, he continues, look for lawyers who are interested in other fields--sociology, economics, history--and not necessarily for men who have a long career of practice. Nevertheless, Griswold pointed out in 1950, his faculty has twice as much experience as Yale's. Of course, Harvard's comparative advantage in size allows it to have a larger group of teachers.

Yale students have their own advantage because of size. The relative smallness of the school means that their more famous teachers--men like Professors Starges, Boris I. Bittker, Lasswell, McDougal--are always available to talk law and to help students.

Harvard's answer to criticism on this points, as explained by Griswold is that "the school is already committed to the proposition that it is better for a considerable number of men to study with a great teacher than it is for a smaller group to study with a man of lesser stature."

The Harvard faculty has another shock in store for the new student: the final examination in June. While mid-year trial exams do help Harvard men a bit in preparing for the June experience, the full pressure is absent, and there is far less material to be reviewed. Many men do not prepare for the trial-run exams since the grade docs not count.

The undergraduate two-week cram will be of no help to a student in preparing for his law final. There is just too much review work to be done before the four-hour test gets underway. Then the student will get questions phrased in the case form, as in class. He will either13WESLEY A. STURGES took over the Yale Law School after World War ll at about the same time as Dean Griswold was promoted to his present post in Cambridge.