Talk:Law school in the United States

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[edit] About the proposed merger...

I went on vacation for a while, so I don't know who the hell proposed a merger with faculty of law, but I think it's a terrible idea. In the U.S., we have a national consensus that the sheer difficulty of learning common law requires a certain amount of intelligence and maturity not found among most undergraduates. This is why we turned law departments into law schools, and severed them from the undergraduate colleges which had frequently been their prior home. This is also why we require that people have to get a bachelor's degree first.

The point is that because law is a graduate program in the U.S., it is dramatically different than the undergraduate programss offered in most other countries. Therefore, it is unique and notable enough to require a separate article of its own, and should not be conjoined with faculty of law to form one giant mess. --Coolcaesar 03:27, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Now this article is getting worse and worse and worse. I may have to do some heavy editing or simply revert back to the last good version (probably somewhere in early August). --Coolcaesar 12:31, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

I compiled the following information about degrees offered by law schools in the United States & thought some of it might be appropriate for the law school article:

The Juris Doctor (J.D.), like the Doctor of Medicine (M.D.), is a first-professional doctorate. The Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.S.D.), Doctor of Judicial Science (S.J.D.), and Doctor of Comparative Law (D.C.L.), are research and academic-based doctorate level degrees. In the U.S. the Legum Doctor (LL.D.) is only awarded as an honorary degree.
Academic degrees for non-lawyers are available at the baccalaureate and masters level. A common baccalaureate level degree is a Bachelor of Science in Legal Studies (B.S.). Academic masters degrees in legal studies are available, such as the Master of Studies (M.S.), and the Master of Professional Studies (M.P.S.).
Foreign lawyers seeking to practice in the U.S., or American lawyers wishing to learn more about a particular area of study, often obtain a Juris Master (J.M.), Master of Laws (LL.M.), Master of Comparative Law (M.C.L.), or a Master of Jurisprudence (M.J.).

I confirmed the title & acronym for most of these degrees at the ABA Post-J.D. Programs page.

[edit] U.S. centrism

I have moved this article and started legal education (which requires a vast amount of improvement). Trying to cover a global topic in an article which is mainly about the U.S leads to things being pulled in two directions, and unsurprisingly the balance was poor. CalJW 11:57, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] So, are there no law schools outside US?

Somebody please tell me why does Law School direct to Law School in United States! I believe this redirection takes the cake! Priyatu 11:11, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Law schools (especially the concept of stand-alone independent law schools) are primarily an American institution. Everywhere else, lawyers are trained in law faculties, which are university departments. --Coolcaesar 18:40, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Not necessarily so. There are several "Law Schools" in Canada, India, and Australia. Though the "law school" concept may have originated from the US but it has been widely adopted in many parts of the world. --PullUpYourSocks 22:48, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think "not necessarily so" and "several 'law schools'" really merits the high tone of US Centrism. If it was an article on film and it went to a Hollywood page, I'd understand. Otherwise, legal education is something we've wrought upon a world where apprentice positions mostly teach/prepare aspiring attorneys/lawyers/solictors/barristers.


"law school" probably should be a disambiguation page because different people would search for that phrase looking for different things, e.g., Juris Doctor, L.L.B., Legal education, Faculty of Law, Education of Lawyers in the United States, etc.

RickReinckens 03:09, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree that a disambiguation is needed. However, "law schools" outside the US are hardly the same thing, it's like comparing a BA program in business with an MBA program. Bobak 16:52, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
I concur. --Coolcaesar 01:34, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
Hardly the same thing? In what way? You are aware that US is not the only country that requires an undergraduate degree to enter law school?--PullUpYourSocks 13:23, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
But nearly all American law school programs require full-time study (and the few that don't are unaccredited). In my research for the rewrite of the Lawyer article, I've noticed that many Latin American "law schools" are actually part-time programs. Also, law schools are used as the basis in Latin American countries for a huge range of careers (direct out of law school), while the vast majority of American lawyers actually do practice law for several years before looking at the possibility of taking their career in non-law directions. --Coolcaesar 05:19, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
Granted I can't speak for Latin American Law Schools but I can assure you that there are other countries with law schools that are as formal as the US. For example, law schools in Canada are almost identical to the US ones and have been around over a hundred years. Also, I don't see why "law school" cannot be defined by (say) its Latin America meaning along with the american meaning. Just because it is a less formal institution doesn't mean it's not worthy of defintion. --PullUpYourSocks 14:24, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism of American Legal Education

It is shocking this page has not contained the many criticisms of American legal education.

[edit] Professional Degree vs. Graduate Degree

I made the change in reference to American law schools. In the US, the law degree is considered a "professional degree" along with the MD, MBA, MFA, DVM, DDS, etc. The defining line is that these students don't tend to go on to be academicians. The other, more snarky way of putting it is "Professional degrees are glorified vocational institutes" --which as a proud American law school graduate I smile and concur. -- Bobak 19:21, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

I concur.  :-) The only point to having law schools affiliated with general research universities is the prestige and access to the resources of the larger institution. --Coolcaesar 20:43, 26 March 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Is this even true anymore?

This article claims that most courses in first year law school courses span a year. It certainly doesn't at my school, and my understanding was that year long courses are on their way out or a thing of the past. The line in question is:

"In the First Year, most courses span a year."

Also, I find the text about the Socratic method going out of fashion to be fairly weak and possibly biased, since many people are critical of the Socratic method itself, and pleased that it is going out of fashion. The article doesn't seem to present this side of the issue.

Have to agree with the above. There were no year-long courses in my law school either (unless you count the three semester legal skills program). However, the Socratic method was used quite extensively. BD2412 T 03:19, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

It's hit and miss. My program's writing/research class is a yearlong class, but they split the rest up. I think the trend is towards 1-semester classes. Bjsiders 12:27, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

My school had a yearlong Lawyering Skills course where a grade was given only at the end of the year. However, all six other courses were one semester in length. Isn't that the typical arrangement? --Coolcaesar 16:07, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Better Source for Info About Admissions

I do not like the link to lawschoolnumbers.com. Why don't we link the article to the actual numbers that are reported to LSAC, namely http://officialguide.lsac.org/search/cgi-bin/results.asp?PageNo=

A vast majority of law schools provide grids that reflect the ACTUAL stats from the previous year. lawschoolnumbers only includes a self-selected group of applicants. Also, the numbers at lawschoolnumbers may over or under inflate admissions. For instance, lawschoolnumbers members may need higher than average credentials for law school A, but lower than credentials for law school B. Even lawschoolnumbers links you to the LSAC site! Accordingly, I will take the liberty and make a change.

[edit] (Moved comment by anonymous poster)

Someone's rant is in the section on criticisms. It should be NPOV'd.

The section in question has a bunch of Couric citations, they need to be expanded to quotable/sourcable individuals. I also question that assertion near the end, that the evaluation method doesn't match the practice. Do employers care about your learning arc if you can't perform under pressure in ambiguous situations? More importantly, do the people you represent care about your topical strengths and weaknesses if you can't win a case? Do you get allowances for being sick at the trial? Does the judge grant you special exceptions to procedure and rules of evidence if your cat died last night? It seems to me that taking an exam in which the scoring is subject to the whims and interpretations of a professor who you've had all semester to study and get to know (and, most likely, whose past exams are available for analysis) is pretty similar to the one shot opportunity you get to convince the judge or jury. The whole thing smells like original research, and all the Couric sources suggest to me that the author is simply stating his or her opinion by proxy through nameless "critics." If we can find some reputable sources that echo these points, let's source this section. If not ... I'm having trouble with keeping it in. There's some good points in there but they can be pulled out and merged with existing material in the Criticism section. Bjsiders 19:08, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Clerkship material should be moved out

The material on federal, state, and Supreme Court clerkships should be moved out of this article and into the Law clerk article. Any objections? BD2412 T 22:41, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] criticisms section

Some bitter female law student has inserted a rant, and while ideas from that rant may be worthwhile, it is a rant and is inappropriate for this meduim. I suggest it be changed to better reflect wikipedia's ethos.

See my comment above. The rant smells like original research disguised with Couric cites. I'll rewrite it this afternoon. Bjsiders 13:41, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I have condensed the criticisms articulated about the single-exam system. I think some of them are personal criticisms offered via the anonymous proxy of unnamed critics by the author, which puts them in the category of original research. Some are easily rebutted, others are fairly valid points. Some rebuttals:

  • The single-exam approach does not mirror the ethical philosophy nor the practice of law.

See below:

  • The essay exams are subject to the whims, interpretations and mood of the grading professor.

So are the decisions of judges and juries, which means it DOES mirror the practice of law.

ANSWER: The vast majority of law is not practiced in front of judges and juries, and whims and the mood of a judge/juror is not supposed to play a role in their decisions. They are supposed to be "blind" like lady justice. This counter-argument is akin to saying, "Since there is no such thing as an unobjective person, we should not be concerned with objectivity and blind justice." --DavidShankBone 19:58, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

  • Students have no opportunity to demonstrate the arc of growth and learning.

You don't have that chance in court either. So it DOES mirror the practice of law.

ANSWER: Again, the majority of law is not practiced in court. If law school is meant to complete mirror the practice of law, then why even have a graduate program in law, when the United States is one of the only countries to do so? Why not just make it an undergraduate degree and push everyone out to learn instead of paying exorbitant costs to do what can be accomplished in an apprenticeship. --DavidShankBone 19:58, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

  • students have no opportunity to demonstrate topical strengths (and weaknesses).

Again, same with court.

ANSWER: Again, same with the above two answers. --DavidShankBone 19:58, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

  • There is no allowance for illness or personal trauma, either of which could severely impact performance.

Again, same with court.

  • Students have little opportunity to consider a complex legal question in depth.

This one is a valid point. In real practice you have some time to do extensive research and tackle a complex legal question, pore over past decisions, etc. However, my understanding is that the types of questions on a typical 1L final are not all that complex. Tricky, but not groundbreakingly complex.

ANSWER: "Your understanding?" Have you never been? Then why are you commenting on things you do not know about? They are incredibly complex. --DavidShankBone 19:58, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

  • Exams are often closed-book, which does not mirror how law is practiced.

Also a valid point, although I'm told that even in an open-book exam, if you're referencing the casebook to do your exam, you're going to do poorly.

ANSWER: Again, your lack of experience - there are more than textbooks to reference. In fact, few people reference the text. Go to law school and find out. --DavidShankBone 19:58, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

  • Too much pressure is concentrated on students at the end of the semester.

How is this any different from the LSAT, a single examination in a single afternoon that could determine not just one grade for one class, but which schools you can even attend, or possibly whether or not you can attend law school at all? In fairness, the LSAT and admission procedures are often criticized for this very reason. However, no matter how prepared you are, no matter how great and impressive your arc of growth and learning is, if you don't perform when it matters, you're going to lose cases for your clients. Maybe you get a do-over on the next case but that client could suffer a loss that changes his entire life forever. You can destroy people's lives in the practice of law by simply being off your game one day.

I understand that many attorneys never see a single day in court (I certainly don't plan to spend much time there) and don't experience this kind of pressure, but to say that the real practice of law is not mirrored by the evaluation techniques is a bit of sophistry.

All that being said, if we can find reputable sources articulating these criticisms with a bit more clarity, I'm all for including them with those sources cited. I have no particular interest in doing this legwork, I'll give it about a week to see if anybody comes up with anything, and if nobody does, I'm going to remove most of these. Bjsiders 14:05, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I concur with all the above, especially with Bjsiders's last three paragraphs. It was only when I was preparing for the bar exam that I truly began to understand why the law school exam process and the bar exam are so harsh (in California no one gets extra time on the bar exam for power outages, computer crashes, flooding, earthquakes, fires, heart attacks, and so on). The reason for making the prelude (and first few years) of a lawyer's career depend on a relatively small number of huge exams is that (for litigators) the rest of their career will depend upon the outcome of a relatively small number of hearings, trials, and appeals — although most of their time will be spent in preparation for those things. But the client never cares about how much time went into your elaborate appellate brief or closing argument. All they care about is winning. --Coolcaesar 20:38, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
"In real practice you have some time to do extensive research and tackle a complex legal question, pore over past decisions, etc." Ha ha ha ha ha ... wait till you get into practice, juggling six or seven cases with negotiations, depositions, etc... when an actual legal question comes up, you'll be lucky if you have as much time to address as you get on a law school exam - oh how I miss the peace and quiet of the exam room, where I could ponder just a few questions for hours, without constant interruption! BD2412T 14:51, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

My issue with a lot of these points is that they assume everyone is going off to be litigators, and many of the skills talked about are things that can be learned in classes that cater to those wanting to practice in that area of law. There really is little comparison between law school exams and the bar or the LSAT. Theoretically, the bar is supposed to test what you learn in law school. In a one exam per class (at the end of the semester, where it is graded on a curve) how is one supposed to know how well they are learning the material with no effective gauge? One never really knows because they do not know what classmates wrote on their own exams. I also find it amusing that people who have not gone through law school are lodging these criticisms of law school exams, the likes of which are almost universally seen as inaccurate, yet still followed. --DavidShankBone 20:09, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed merger: this article with Legal Ed in the US

Someone has suggested merging this article with Legal education in the United States.

  • Strongly Disagree: while this is not as strong a reason as why we shouldn't merge in Admission to the bar in the United States, I still feel that "law school" is to focused on the actual school. Examples of Legal Education in the US that do not involve Law School:
  1. Court clerkships
  2. Legal internships at private law schools (also called "summer associates" or "law clerks")
  3. Mandated Continuing Legal Education for all practicing lawyers
  4. I know for a fact that California still permits students to "apprentice" their way into taking the CalBar (very few try, and very few pass, but it's still allowed).
For these reasons I cannot agree to merging these articles because they are significantly different topics to lawyers and those interested in legal education. --Bobak 21:40, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Oldest law schools

Can someone expand this page with a section on the oldest law schools in the US? I have had no luck in finding that information. Thank you! Mattnt 15:14, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

I have tried to construct as much as I know, but I am missing the fourth oldest. I know PSU-Dickinson is fifth, and the rest I looked up on websites of the law schools as well as wikipedia. NYU is 1835, perhaps there is a defunct law school that is fourth? Any help would be appreciated. Kilroy55 Nevermind, I found my answer. Maryland is the fourth oldest law school. But it is interesting to note that Louis D. Brandeis School of Law of the University of Louisville attempts to claim they are the fifth oldest, according to [[1]], but they explain this away by saying "the fifth oldest law in the country in continuous operation." Dickinson folks should call them out on this.

A serious problem is the deprofessionalization period in the 19th century when the legal profession nearly collapsed and American legal education essentially went to hell. That was the era, for example, when Harvard Law School narrowly avoided a shutdown by inviting Joseph Story to come play dean for a while. The reason for this craziness was that there was a general anti-elitist sentiment that any man could do any job if he set his mind to it, so barriers to entry were legislatively demolished in many American professions. This was the same kind of sentiment that fueled anarchists and communists in the 19th century, because they really believed that all men were equal if given half a chance.
To clarify, this was an era before modern psychiatry was discovered, so people did not understand that there are a lot of mental illnesses which have an inheritable biological aspect, and in even the best environment, people with certain illnesses will not be able to become productive members of society. I'm referring to people with personality and psychotic disorders in particular. Plus there are mentally retarded people for whom it is a triumph to dress themselves in the morning. And so on.
Anyway, I was just reading about the deprofessionalization era in a book by Roscoe Pound about the history of American lawyers at the public library (which I am planning to add citations for to Lawyer eventually). So a lot of law schools have weird gaps in their history as a result of the Jacksonian Era. I think that's what you're seeing.--Coolcaesar 04:48, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

University of California Hastings College of the Law established 1878 (California's First Law School) is not the 11th oldest law school. GW enrolled class in 1865. Please only put the law schools in their actual order.

Somewhere a law school is lying. PSU-Dickinson says they are the fifth oldest, Cincy says they are the Fourth, but somewhere the dates are not working out.

Why isnt washington and lee on the list? its website even says it was founded in 1849

All is right now, no one was lying except Maryland. Maryland law reports to US News and world Reports that their law school was founded in 1870.

http://www.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/schoolarchives/index.asp The university of Maryland law school may have had its inception in 1816, it didn't last long. The law school didn't start full operation as a law school until 1870. Hints why the law library has an article on the first 50 years from 1869 to 1919. We should use the 1870 date.

[edit] Law review/legal journals

I propose merging the subsection on "legal journals" into "law review," as the law review WP article discusses both. Also, the "prestige" of law review vs. "legal journals" is better explained in the law review article, I think. Wl219 07:25, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Information about GPA curves

This is the second place this disagreement has occurred, please see article on Stanford Law School. User 69.215.136.98 believes that GPA curves for law schools are relevant to include on wikipedia. Though I personally disagree, I see no real problem with this. However, this appears to be a strangely singular attack on Stanford Law School. 69.215.136.98 claims Stanford has the highest mean in the country, but I have not seen this cited anywhere and is contrary to what I've heard individually. The wording reverted here is especially obvious in indicating his believe that Stanford grade inflates, but for some reason he is not listing any other schools as engaging in the practice. With a blip here or there, it is my understanding that as a school's ranking or general quality goes up, so does its mean GPA. I think it's unfair to single out Stanford for this practice. Please, thoughts? I'm hoping I'm not being overly defensive but I really think it has to be more thorough than this. As is I think it's a thinly-veiled attack at Stanford for what is far from unique behavior. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.44.212.48 (talk • contribs). on 28 December 2006.

[edit] historically inadequate

This article lacks historical information.
Specifically: Historical study of law in the US; development of separate professional law schools
Please fix this article if you can.
For more information, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Historical information.
Please remove this message once the article has been expanded.


This article badly needs a lot of historical background! For instance, the way that law was taught prior to the creation of separate professional "law schools" ... --lquilter 18:05, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

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