The Prestige Chase

They don't use four-color click pens, but listening to the myths at the Harvard Law School (HLS) suggests law students may be just as uptight as their medical school colleagues.

One story circulating on campus describes the leader of a study group preparing for a recent exam who required the transcripts and resumes of other students who wanted to be part of the exam prep contingent.

The story, at least one third-year law student believes, could very well be true.

But the rumor is only one of a number of similar horror stories that paint HLS as a place full of backstabbing students concerned only with getting ahead, an unusually hard and arbitrary grading system and faculty more concerned with their own academic work than interacting with students.

Most students acknowledge that a cutthroat reputation figures prominently in widely read guide-book descriptions of Harvard's law program and serve as a basis for HLS's poor showing in the quality of life component of the U.S. News & World Report's annual law school rankings. In those rankings--which administrators and students love to hate--Yale University's law program has claimed the number one spot for some time.

Indeed this sort of mythic lore about the law school has been a thorn in the side of HLS administrators for more than two decades. Thanks in part to commercially-successful works like One L. by Scott F. Turow (HLS '78), or The Paper Chase, a book-turned-movie about the darker side of HLS, Harvard has struggled with the notion that one of its most prized graduate schools is less than perfect.

But it was not until recently that the school began looking for ways to rectify the problem--including the hiring of an expensive consultant to pinpoint some failings--perhaps because most students have not stopped agreeing that the rumors have more than just a grain of truth.

Some others contend that the perception of HLS as anything less than a top-notch facility is merely a misperception--and a work of rumor--and fails to reflect the school's reputation in the academic legal field and among potential employers.

But some students and professors say HLS has far to go in bringing the institution as a whole to the level of its competitors in New Haven or Palo Alto.

And these critics find it ironic that the school is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on determining problems it could have learned simply by listening.

SOME INITIAL EVIDENCE

Even critics of the school agree that HLS "pretty clearly" retains its top academic reputation even over competitors like Yale or Stanford, according to Weld Professor of Law Charles R. Nesson '60.

But when taking the overarching student experience into consideration, Nesson says the school's top billing--so prized among the Harvard establishment--quickly gets lost.

In particular, Nesson suggests that HLS' more rigorous system of grading, in addition to a lack of personal interaction between faculty and students, lead to a sense of frustration within the school community.

"The intellectual excitement of the faculty doesn't get translated to students," Nesson says.

In contrast, he says, Yale Law School garners a reputation of a "college-like environment" that is more theoretical and friendly than HLS.

"It's like there's an ethos at Harvard that this isn't supposed to be a pleasant experience--and it doesn't have to be this way," Nesson says.

Professor of Law Lani Guinier, a recent addition to the ranks of tenured faculty at the law school, agrees that HLS' reputation for its quality of life is regarded as less than outstanding.

"Both Yale and Stanford, I am told, are considerable more `student friendly' with better faculty/student ratios and more opportunities for student interaction with faculty both in and out of the classroom," Guinier writes in an e-mail message.

And while praising many aspects of the academic opportunities at the school, some students still acknowledge the prevailing sense that HLS trails other top schools in the realm of quality of life.

"HLS is very much a place where you have to make your own happiness," says one third-year law student who asked not to be identified. Although she herself is happy at the school, the student says a similar sense of contentedness is "almost definitely not the norm" among her law school colleagues.

Another current third-year law student says much of the ill will toward the school comes from the almost hands-off way that HLS approaches it students.

"Whereas Yale [Law School] has this all embracing language in their welcoming speeches...you don't necessarily get that from the HLS administration," the student says.

Moreover, the student cites a culture in which grades are "overemphasized," contributing largely to a sense of resentment among many of the school's approximately 550-student population.

But most agree that the reputation of HLS that is derived from these complaints is somewhat exaggerated, in part because students especially enjoy the chance to complain.

"It's a lot like going into the Navy SEALs," says Hamilton Chan '95, who recently completed his third year at HLS. "Students want to feel like they're having a difficult time or otherwise they feel gypped."

According to Amy J. Oliver, a second-year law student, the lore about HLS has turned out to be largely untrue in her own experience.

"The school's not anything like it was described," she says.

And many students accept the fact that Harvard is both a blessing and a curse.

"People trade off prestige and reputation for quality of life," one of the students says.

Whether administrators concede a major problem or not, many other members of the community say the school is currently operating like it suffers from reputation difficulties.

In a somewhat unprecedented action, HLS recently commissioned a million-dollar study by the McKinsey consulting group, a move some see as an indication that the school is concerned with rectifying its status as the perennial number two law school.

But in a letter to alumni in the Harvard Law Bulletin, Dean of Law School Robert C. Clark presented the study as a form of strategic planning for the school and not as a response to criticisms that the school may be losing its luster.

The study, which is currently underway, has assigned about half of law school's active faculty to five strategic planning committees that range from academic development and internationalization to infrastructure and intellectual life.

According to Chan, HLS students were asked to complete surveys of about 20 pages in length and attend small focus groups on various topics.

Inherent in the goal of the study, it seems, is a concern with upholding HLS' reputation.

"The quest is for a Harvard Law School of the future that gets the highest marks for analytical rigor of its training and the theoretical sophistication of its scholarship," Clark writes.

But this concern for maintaining high marks, some say, is not necessarily warranted.

Despite some of the existing lore about the school, alumni in the field say HLS' reputation has not been tarnished by recent rumors.

"I don't think that anyone would dispute that [HLS] is one of the top few law schools," says Robert N. Shapiro '72, who, as a partner at prestigious Boston law firm Ropes & Gray, is one of the people responsible for hiring new lawyers.

Shapiro, who is also vice president for the HLS alumni association, says the firm consistently hires "deep" into the graduating class, a fact that reflects the academic quality of the school's students.

Similarly, Boston lawyer and HLS graduate Harvey A. Silverglate says his impression from working with undergraduates considering lawschool is that people recognize that "it's veryvaluable to have a HLS degree...in terms of beingable to generate choices for after you graduate."

But Silverglate acknowledges that HLS oftenlacks some of the vibrancy of schools like Yale orStanford, simply because it often fails to drawstudents who don't fit into a traditional mold.

"I do think from time to time that law schoolfails to get some of the more interestingstudents...and that's where the law school loses,"he says.

Still, as a former solicitor for the lawschool's alumni fund when he was a student atHarvard College, Chan says he noticed that manyalumni do indeed look back at their HLSexperiences with a bit of resentment.

"There is this strong sentiment among manyalums that HLS is this haunted mansion of a lawschool that they don't want much associationwith," Chan recalls.

On the whole, however, several people, bothcurrent and former students, say HLS' problems--oflarge classes, a distant faculty and a cutthroatatmosphere--simply mirror similar ones on theundergraduate level.

"To be fair, those are criticisms I think[apply to] Harvard College as well," Silverglatesays.

Still, some members of the HLS community saythe expense of conducting the McKinsey study mayoutweigh the benefits of the results.

"A lot of students share the sentiment that thelaw school is spending $1million to hire McKinseyto get what it could have gotten for free," Chansays.

And indeed others see the study as embodyingexactly what is wrong with the HLS administration:they hired a consultant rather than talkingdirectly to students.

"They could have split the million dollarsamong the students and gotten some really nicefeedback," Chan jokes

But Silverglate acknowledges that HLS oftenlacks some of the vibrancy of schools like Yale orStanford, simply because it often fails to drawstudents who don't fit into a traditional mold.

"I do think from time to time that law schoolfails to get some of the more interestingstudents...and that's where the law school loses,"he says.

Still, as a former solicitor for the lawschool's alumni fund when he was a student atHarvard College, Chan says he noticed that manyalumni do indeed look back at their HLSexperiences with a bit of resentment.

"There is this strong sentiment among manyalums that HLS is this haunted mansion of a lawschool that they don't want much associationwith," Chan recalls.

On the whole, however, several people, bothcurrent and former students, say HLS' problems--oflarge classes, a distant faculty and a cutthroatatmosphere--simply mirror similar ones on theundergraduate level.

"To be fair, those are criticisms I think[apply to] Harvard College as well," Silverglatesays.

Still, some members of the HLS community saythe expense of conducting the McKinsey study mayoutweigh the benefits of the results.

"A lot of students share the sentiment that thelaw school is spending $1million to hire McKinseyto get what it could have gotten for free," Chansays.

And indeed others see the study as embodyingexactly what is wrong with the HLS administration:they hired a consultant rather than talkingdirectly to students.

"They could have split the million dollarsamong the students and gotten some really nicefeedback," Chan jokes