#law-school

Girls don't go to law school," I told him."No, but women do.

I asked Hillary why she had chosen Yale Law School over Harvard. She laughed and said, "Harvard didn't want me." I said I was sorry that Harvard turned her down. She replied, "No, I received letters of acceptance from both schools." She explained that a boyfriend had then invited her to the Harvard Law School Christmas Dance, at which several Harvard Law School professors were in attendance. She asked one for advice about which law school to attend. The professor looked at her and said, "We have about as many woen as we need here. You should go to Yale. The teaching there is more suited to women." I asked who the professor was, and she told me she couldn't remember his name but that she thought it started with a B. A few days later, we met the Clintons at a party. I came prepared with yearbook photos of all the professors from that year whose name began with B. She immediately identified the culprit. He was the same professor who had given my A student a D, because she didn't "think like a lawyer." It turned out, of course, that it was this professor -- and not the two (and no doubt more) brilliant women he was prejudiced against - who didn't think like a lawyer. Lawyers are supposed to act on the evidence, rather than on their prejudgments. The sexist professor ultimately became a judge on the International Court of Justice.I told Hillary that it was too bad I wasn't at that Christmas dance, because I would have urged her to come to Harvard. She laughed, turned to her husband, and said, "But then I wouldn't have met him... and he wouldn't have become President.

Professional school grads from diverse classes get higher salaries

One question that prospective law students should carefully consider is whether they find analysis congenial. Majors in linguistics, chemistry, philosophy and computer science, among others, have a lot of exposure to this kind of work. Majors in poli sci, history and literature less so. During the critical first year there are dozens of topics, each of which has an analytic framework with several elements, some of which have sub-elements. Generally, the student must infer these from a sequence of case excerpts that do not come labelled. For example, common law burglary is the nocturnal breaking and entering of the dwelling of another with the intent to commit a felony therein. Nine elements. And yes, an irreducible amount of rote memorization is required and no, brilliant flights of creativity won't save an answer that doesn't touch the required elements. A second, graver question is whether the student can overcome the "right answer problem." We arrive in law school as natural born jurors, interested mainly in "what really happened." Our sense of reason and justice find frequent offense in the case outcomes. The hypotheticals and exam questions contain ambiguous facts and we don't know the correct answer. The idea that you should outline your answer before you see the question is incomprehensible.

Are Law Schools Neglecting Half of the Brain?

One of my law school spiels, parked here for convenience