Law School Begins Faculty, Student Life Initiatives

In his famous book One L about Harvard Law School (HLS) Scott Turow writes about the school's reputation as being "large, harsh, and stifling"-his "enemy," as he called it. But this HLS of legend may soon change, thanks to a massive change in law school education requiring funds of nearly $400 million. This new "Strategic Plan," which outlines the reforms, is designed to make the Harvard Law School education more appealing, enjoyable, and enriching to its students.

The plan will cut first year class size by half to create "law colleges" for first years in an attempt to create a more hospitable environment. The plan will also increase financial aid for graduates in low-income fields and strengthen the school's international curriculum.

Pioneered by HLS Dean Robert C. Clark, the plan still must be approved by the Harvard Corporation, and is expected to pass in the next few weeks.

"[This plan] is the biggest change since 1871," says HLS visiting professor and Monan University professor at Boston College Law School Daniel R. Coquillette, referring to the institution of new teaching methods by former HLS Dean Christopher C. Langdell 130 years ago.

Law Colleges

The plan will slash first year class sizes by almost half; instead of being divided into 4 sections of 140 students, the approximately 550 first year students will now have 7 sections of 80. HLS must therefore raise money to hire 15 new faculty members at a cost of $75 million, five of whom will teach first year students.

According to Elhauge, the law colleges will be modeled loosely after the house system at Harvard College-although they will not be residential. Each law college will have a master, who will also teach first year classes, in the hopes that they will be better in touch with first year concerns.

These smaller first year sections, called "law colleges" resemble systems at schools like Yale, which only has 150 students in each graduating class, as opposed to 550 at HLS.

The goal of the law colleges, administrators say, is in part to forge a greater social cohesion at HLS and make students feel welcome.

"Harvard law school is a metropolis, not a town," says HLS spokesperson Michael A. Armini.

The trick for HLS is to capture the small community feeling which characterizes a place like Yale Law School and still maintain its broader ties.

Lisa M. Card `01, who will be a first-year at HLS next year says this smaller feel to HLS was a plus in her decision to attend the school.

"It does have a reputation for being big and impersonal...[but] they are definitely trying to move towards having more interaction between students and faculty," Card says.

Justin Cooper, a third-year student who is the outgoing vice-president of the Law School Council, says instituting the law colleges may not be enough to fix HLS' problems.

"[The faculty is] going to need to get more involved in terms of advising, social life, and shaping the academic experience outside the classroom," Cooper says.

Students and faculty continue to debate the role of law colleges and whether they should be more oriented towards students' academic or personal matters.

HLS professor David Westfall, who will serve as a Master of one of the law colleges next year, says many of the masters are not entirely sure what their advising focus should be.

Westfall says he will try to foster a sense of community in the future not only with first-years but with upperclassmen after they "graduate" from the first year law colleges.

Nirvana at HLS

HLS officials maintain that the plan was not designed to remedy a decline in the quality of HLS education-the move was instead an effort to make HLS even better.

"Using anyone's estimate [HLS] is at or near the top [of law school rankings]," says Robert Morse, the director of data collection at U.S. News, which ranks law schools. In this year's U.S. News ranking, HLS placed third behind Yale and Stanford.

But while there may not be a "crisis" which is prompting the reforms, some criticize the first year experience at the law school as harsh and alienating.

HLS professor Jonathan Zittrain, who graduated from HLS in 1995, recalls that his experience as a first year was not a comforting or nurturing one.

"To be sure, when I experienced Harvard Law School as a student it wasn't as a Carnival

Cruise," Zittrain says. "It's an intense and disorienting experience to come to a law school as big as this one."

Student discontent with HLS education has been simmering for many years. A 1999 McKinsey & Co. study, which surveyed current students and alumni as far back as the class of 1980, was commissioned to help with the development of the plan.

The report showed that students wanted smaller class sizes, more interaction with faculty, and a more flexible grading curve.

In the spring of 1999, hundreds of students signed a "Student Bill of Expectations" outlining student concerns. The Bill was presented to the faculty, and many of its recommendations, which closely paralleled those of the McKinsey survey, have been adopted into the plan.

But many students don't believe things will change when the Strategic Plan is initiated. The expectations, they argue, may be too high.

"If Harvard thinks it's going to do this and every student is going to...say, 'This is Nirvana', the administration is going to be disappointed," says Todd Anderson, a 1997 graduate who now works at a firm in Washington, D.C.

Show Me The Money

Clark has decided to go begin to implement the plan despite not yet having the money to fund it.

The plan's three most expensive elements-creating new space on HLS' crowded campus, increasing the size of the faculty, and expanding financial aid, will cost a total of $235 million.

Less expensive items that can be funded under the school's existing budget, like the creation of the law colleges, will happen immediately, says Story professor of law Daniel J. Meltzer `72.

Coquillette cites a growing threat on the part of smaller law schools, which provide more attention to mid-level students, as a reason for haste.

"If we can't assure a quality legal education for the average JD student, I'd say go to Stanford or Yale," Coquillette says.

The scope of the upcoming capital campaign, which Dean for Development Scott G. Nichols says is in still in the planning stages, is unprecedented.

"This would be one of the biggest if not the biggest capital campaign ever among graduate schools or professional schools in the country," Nichols says. "Its very sobering."

The probability of not raising the requisite funds to carry out even the most expensive parts of the plan, Nichols says, is "remote."

According to Meltzer, Clark has discussed the plan with some of the school's biggest donors and has found a high level of enthusiasm.

Faculty members hope to begin implementing changes as soon as possible.

"We aren't going to sit still and wait for a capital campaign," HLS associate Dean Todd D. Rakoff `68 says.

The last capital campaign at HLS was a tremendous success, exceeding its $150 million goal by $33 million--a good omen for Clarks' plan.

A More Accessible HLS

In the 1990's, law schools like Stanford and Yale began to encroach on Harvard's territory by offering better financial deals to their students.

In the 1998-99 the net cost for a student attending HLS stood at $35,451, almost $2,000 more expensive than Yale and $3,000 more than Stanford, according to the American Bar Association.

In an attempt to narrow this gap, HLS spending on student grants has increased by roughly 50% over the last two years-compared with a 7% average annual rise in past years.

In order to help HLS graduates in low income fields, the school pioneered a program which later became known as the Low Income Protection Plan (LIPP) to forgive some student loans, but other schools copied LIPP, and in many cases were able to improve on it.

Clark's plan proposes the elimination of many of the restrictions on LIPP, such as its salary cap and its stipulation that careers must be law oriented, and proposes to guarantee to each incoming class the availability of LIPP upon their graduation.

HLS will also seek to bolster its already strong international reputation by increasing financial aid for foreign students. The Plan asks for a $10 million endowment for further aid to the law school's graduate LL.M. program, which serves mostly foreign students.

"There is a real effort to increase scholarship aid for foreign students...to enable people who can't afford it to come here when they have the ability," says Henry J. Steiner `51, director of the HLS center for human rights.

The plan will also try to incorporate more international scholars into the faculty-which Steiner says will also enhance the study of domestic matters.

Understanding international law, Meltzer says, is important both professionally and intellectually for lawyers.

But Timothy A. Chorba, a 1972 HLS graduate who served as U.S. Ambassador to Singapore from 1994 to 1997, says some of the HLS rhetoric about the emergence of an international law community might be overblown.

"It sounds good but I don't believe it," he says. "It's no different now than it was 30 years ago."

A Thriving Metropolis

If HLS is already a metropolis, the strategic plan will only perpetuate that reality. Space at HLS is at a premium and the administration will be pressed to meet the space demands of the strategic plan.

Currently, the plan calls for $100 million to create room for new faculty offices and social spaces for the law colleges.

"We have a variety of preliminary ideas which require discussion with the University and the neighborhood," Meltzer says.

HLS must provide space for 15 new faculty members, provided the school is able to raise the funds to hire them.

One possibility, Rakoff says, is moving some HLS housing across the river to Allston, where there has been talk of creating a graduate school "village."

The reduction of class size also means that classrooms will have to be reformatted, since they are currently designed for 130 people, not 80.

In the Future

Its been over a century since changes this dramatic swept HLS, Coquillette says, and Zittrain predicts a bright future for the school, though he says that if the changes do not produce the desired result, HLS is not averse to backtracking.

"If we feel we've tweaked something that's best left alone, one could return to it," he says.

HLS is not looking back. Support among the faculty is strong, the students seem to want a change-all signs point to go.

"This is the first time I've ever seen a plan like this adopted by a unanimous vote [of the faculty]," Coquillette says. "We are determined to succeed."