Talk:Legal education
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[edit] Comments
I have two complaints with this article:
First: Your section “Top Tier Law Schools” is patently biased. Ignoring the arbitrariness of what constitutes a top tier law school, the traditional (albeit highly subjective itself) classification has always been (once again, embracing the subjectivity of this classification) the T-14; the 14 law schools on your list, exclusive of Texas. Quite simply, Texas sharing the company of institutions such as Harvard, Georgetown and Berkeley is not “well agreed-upon”. I’d suggest you remove all references to the “top tier” as it is ill-defined and subject to large regional biases.
Second: There are 28 occupational categories listed under the BLS’s Occupational Outlook Handbook’s (where the salary statistics you’ve cited are located) "Management and business and financial operations occupations” category. 17 of these fall under the “management” heading. Out of those 17, only 2 had a median salary greater than $90,000. I don’t believe that properly establishes pay equity between attorneys and “managerial positions”
[edit] Response to neutrality complaints
I have tried to address the complaints regarding neutrality in the following ways:
First, with regard to the section on "tiers," I replaced "Top 14" with "Top 15," and included U Texas on the list (this was simply an oversight, not a biased snub).
Second, again with regard to the "tiers" section, I added the following parenthetical phrase: (The U.S. News Rankings have been critiqued by some -- notably Texas law Prof. Brian Lieter -- as being easily manipulated, and as having questionable methodologies.)
Third, with regard to the salaries section, I have deleted the sentence "This is comparable with many other professional and managerial positions."
As a comment, re-reading the entry, I do not agree that the entry is "patently biased." The entry acknowledges that the division of tiers and rankings is "informal," and that it has been highly influenced by U.S. News rankings. (The flaw, perhaps, is not bias, but rather the mere repetition of conventional wisdom.) As well, I don't think many would quibble with the idea of the "top 15," so long as it is acknowledged (as the entry acknowledges) that other good schools round out the list. Finally, there is a good deal of information in the entry that backs up the informal observation: Supreme Court clerkships, government positions, teaching jobs, and jobs at prestigious firms mostly go to graduates of these schools.
Even acknowledging ranking subjectivity does not and would not radically alter the ranking contours. Subjectivity might present an argument for not drawing an arbitrary line between, say, UCLA and U Texas. But it is does present a enough strong argument to telescope the differences between UCLA and Catholic U.
The discussion of regional tiers is also meant to address some of the subjectivity concerns raised in the comments.
Should there be further disagreement with this text, I suggest the following:
1. If there is a strong argument to be made that other schools should be on the list of "top tier" schools, it should be explicitly made and added to the text. Such an argument would have to either minimize the differences between the schools listed and those in the informal "lower tiers" (e.g., is there really no difference between Northeastern and UVA?), or explain how the usual measures of rank (faculty quality, student quality, and job placement) overlook other factors that ought to matter in ranking schools.
2. The subjectivity argument should be explicitly drawn out and explained. It would be beneficial to note how it matters and how it would matter in distinguishing (or not distinguising) between those schools in the top 15/25 and those considered at the "bottom" tier.
Should any further changes be made, they should be made directly to the text with an explanation. If they are not, I will consider the subject closed and will remove the neutrality warning.
[edit] Tiers revisited
I've made a modification to the article which both addresses my concerns regarding neutrality and objectiveness and the desire to inform the public about the very real "ranking" that goes on in legal education in the US. I hope this appeases both parties...
[edit] "Highly Correlated"
The article states: "Although many have criticized the heavy emphasis of the LSAT in law school admissions, scores on the test have been shown to be highly correlated to success in law school." This isn't true. Or rather, the exact opposite has been shown by LSAT correlation studies done by LSAC. Scores on the test are weakly, not strongly, correlated with 1L grades only. This correlation is, however, higher than any other known measure, including UGPA. I'd like to amend the article to reflect this unless somebody has a source for this claim. Bjsiders 16:43, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
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- I'd like to offer a second call for discussion of this change. I've been through extensive and exhaustive debate on this in the LSAT article and I'd rather not repeat it. One last call for any discussions, objections, or other questions about changing the description in the article of the relationship between LSAT scores and law school performance. Again, I propose that that current phrasing is grossly inaccurate and represents exactly the opposite of what correlation studies on the matter have found, including those carried out by LSAC itself. Cites are available in the LSAT article. Bjsiders 15:05, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
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- I'd be happy to see the changes proposed, given the citations alluded to. Chart123 15:24, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
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- Since there's been no further commentary, the cited change has been made. Please offer up any complaints, problems, or other concerns anybody may have about the new verbiage. Bjsiders 13:59, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
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[edit] Top Tiers and U.S. News
I removed a reference to NYU in the "most pretigious opportunities" section. An editor thought it should reflect the U.S. News rankings. I disagree. Although there is a high correlation between so-called prestigious opportunities and the U.S. News rankings, in fact NYU has fewer Supreme Court clerks and professors than does U. Chicago and UVA. As written, the text in this section is careful not to equate the availability of opportunities directly to the exact placement in U.S. News rankings, in part because the rankings are controversial, and in part because the methodology used to calculate rankings does not actually weight jobs graduates obtain. So, for example, NYU's post-graduation job-attainment rate might be equal to or greater than that of its peer schools. But U.S. News does not weight those jobs -- s Supreme Court clerkship, a professorial placement in a top 10 school, a law firm job at a top NY firm, and all other legal jobs are all weighted equally.
However this information ought to best be presented, simply equating jobs with the U.S. News rankings on a 1:1 basis is not the way to go. I would be happy to see nuanced text added, but for now I think it easier to delete the NYU reference.
Chart123 12:40, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
- I think we need an article about the US News law school rankings, and to then allow pages like this to link to it. This same type of discussion takes place in multiple pages, such as the LSAT page, with people who love/hate various programs zealously editing to pump up/tear down various programs. I think we should move all such discussion into one article and link to it from pages like this to isolate the discussion in one place. Bjsiders 13:35, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
- I was the one who edited the "Tiers" section and initiated the neutrality dispute involved with using the US News to relay ranking information. The list of the six schools (where NYU was included) was just carried over from a previous iteration of the section. I would agree that NYU may or may not belong on that list of "top SCOTUS clerk feeders". I don't think more nuanced text can be added in this section without making it longwinded. Thus, I'd support removal of NYU, or even removal of the remaining schools completely. Ocap8
[edit] Footnotes tweaked
As I added a footnote to the undisputable fact of how many Supreme Court clerks have come from what school (just count'em, right?), and I noticed the original footnote from the WSJ used a different format. I've updated it to fit with the easier <ref></ref> style. --Bobak 18:36, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
[edit] US content
Most of the US section is almost the same as what is found in Law school in the United States. Since this is about legal education generally the US section shouldn't be as long as it is. I'm trying to remove the duplicated text and migrate as much of it to the "law school in US" article.--PullUpYourSocks 21:06, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
Ok...Um I have a problem because all I really want to know how long a lawyer goes to school for and the average salary a household obtains.
[edit] Proposed Merger
This section of the "Juris Doctor" article does not really reference the degree, it instead talks about the educational process. I figured Legal Education would be a better place than the Law School article. That said, the section is poorly written (seems to be from experience, not from verifiable sources), and it may be better off being marked for deletion altogether. Thoughts? Dextrosity 03:53, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
Comment 1: Perhaps the merger would be called for, but deletion isn't necessary. While citations are lacking, the section is on the certainly on mark (this is as good of a synopsis of the first year experience as you are going to get). A little research would solve the problem.
Comment 2: I agree that the section appears to be written from personal experience, but seems to be generally accurate. My opinion is that the first paragraph should be moved over to the legal education section. The second and third paragraphs should be deleted as those are merely conjecture by the author. (If someone believes those paragraphs are relevant, that information could always be added later by someone willing to properly research the issue.) 3 July 2007
7 July 2007. I think the section should stay, although it does not in truth concern the degree itself. It does, however, serve to explain the degree, which promotes understanding.--Lawman15 11:09, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
Comment. "The First Year Experience" section no longer exists in the article Juris Doctor. →Wordbuilder (talk) 22:26, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
