Law School: Much Work and Little Play

This is the first in a series of articles of four major professional schools Harvard. The articles, each written by someone actually attending the school which he is discussing, are designed to help seniors (and others) their futures.

Law School is about a 60-second walk from the Yard--but miles away by any other measure.

The main difference is the academic atmosphere. Whether it's because Dean Griswold's description of the omnipresence of law was taken as a directive by first-year students or because everyone realizes he's now professional school--that it's for the subject of law is everywhere in the dorms, at Harkness Commons, at Lincoln's Inn (a student restaurant-social club), and even at parties.

Law School does its best to dispel rumors that if a student is seen at the movies more than once a month, he's probably going to fail. By closing the library at 5 p.m. on Saturday, it's presumably encouraging students to have a social life. But in in any event, it is true that to do well on the single yearly exam in each subject, a student must study regularly and thoroughly.

Part of the reason may be that there is no equivalent at the Law School to the College's reading period--no easy-going time to catch up on all the work assigned during the term and then walk home with a "B." The Law School requires a constant amount of studying and preparation, and in this it is a deceptive institution.

Slow and Steady

For assignments in any given course are, on the surface, short. Seldom are students asked to prepare more than 15 pages a night. Students fresh from majoring in English are easily lured into believing that in the same way they swept through Bleak House, they can polish off the accumulated law assignments at the end of the year.

It's an expensive lesson. In the first year, there are six courses to master, and in all except one, the beginning of the year lays a foundation on which the rest of the year is built. If a student doesn't master the concept of Consideration in Contracts, he might well not bother to learn about Unilateral Contracts. If he doesn't understand Hadley v. Baxendale, he will study the whole area of breach of contract in a vacuum.

What's more, the Law School courses are taught by the case system, so that legal principles are learned directly from studying the decisions of the state and Federal courts. Thus, effective studying requires not only memorization but an equal amount of analysis.

It's possible to remain at the school, of course. Last year, only three students out of a beginning class of about 529 flunked out. It's even possible to squeeze out a C plus with the last-minute method. And although Dean Griswold and the school Administration firmly believe that a C plus student at Harvard Law School is a capable one, so long as big-city law firms and top government agencies are beset with applications from B and A students, they have no need to experiment with lower-ranked students.

Within the student body, high grades are a definite status symbol. In a school surfeited with Phi Betas and Fulbrights, the high-ranking students are regarded with awe. Everyone knows the ranking of the top 30 students. On more than one occasion, the top-ranked student has been pointed out to parents and dates as a type of tourist attraction, to be seen along with Langdell Hall and the statue of John Harvard in the Yard.

Not everyone gets a ranking, however. To avoid the unfair connotations put on relative class position when grade points are so close--it is reported that more than 250 students have averages between 67 and 69--the school only ranks the top 100 students. These are the students who fill up the Wall St. firms and the top government jobs.

But even the students who get no ranking, many of whom aren't even sure they will eventually practice the law they are learning, find something stimulating in Law School. Potential politicians or those interested in civil rights find that a course like Constitutional Law has relevance to their own lives.

Increasing Fredom

In the first year, a student must take six required courses (with no electives), in addition to the Ames competition, during which he prepares to argue appeals and learns to use the vast facilities of a law library. The second year is freer; a student can choose between several courses within an area--economic regulation or law, for example. By the time third year rolls around, except for the requirement of an extensive paper, he is entirely free to choose electives. Then, a student can either specialize or assemble a background of "bread-and-butter" courses, like Estate Planning.

Throughout, the classroom is the center of the Law School. In college, a student who went to all his lectures was an oddity. In the Law School, partly because of the perfect attendance habit of the non-Harvard graduates, a student who misses lectures is unusual. Besides running the risk of having one of the three or four professors whe reward poor attendance with an appropriately low grade, the truant student misses the most invigorating part of the school.

Under the Socratic method of teaching, students are constantly called on in class, to give what will almost inevitably be a wrong, or incomplete, answer. A professor will continue to question a student, to exact more information and analysis. At the end of an exhausting hour, the student will find to his amazement that, like the magician who can pull an object from the pocket of an unsuspecting child, the professor has extracted an accurate analysis.

Every class remembers its first meeting with a certain colorful professor, whose first class two years ago began typically when a student was asked to state the facts of a case.

"Well...," began the hapless student.

"Well? Well? Where does the well appear in the case?" screamed the professor, as the next student was summoned to respond. A bit overdone, perhaps. But the class learned fast that sloppiness is not tolerated.

Faculty Is Spectacular

The Harvard Law faculty is sepectacular. It is awesome--even frightening. In no other school, including the rest of Harvard, is there such a concentration of brilliance as in the Law School's close-knit, tribal, Faculty.

The faculty members are self-important. Perhaps it is an egotism born of the confidence that each of them knows as much as any legal scholar about his respective field. Yet still they quest after more knowledge. They serve on Commissions, on editorial boards; they lecture, write, engage in private consultative work on the side, and still find time for more.

And "more" includes students. With the exception of one senior faculty member who evidently takes pride in an overstuffed day and accordingly informed his first year class this year not to bother him in his office, all the faculty members are accessible. Dean Griswold, for example, who is frequently lecturing or consulting abroad, will always speak with a student, frequently on less than a day's notice. Likewise, the thought of Freund or Howe or Braucher's turning away a student is unthinkable, despite the grinding schedules these men keep.

By the end of three years, the vast