Harvard 1L will take some questions about Harvard. Forum

[mallard]

Ask me anything.

[avacado111]

ah. Your back!

How do youl ike harvard?

[mallard]

ah. Your back!

How do youl ike harvard?

It's alright. The people are awesome, but the place's foibles seem pretty persistent. I'm feeling a bit down about legal culture as a whole, and many of the flaws are definitely present here.

[James Bond]

do you pronounce it as "haaaaaahrvaaaaahrd" or "a school in boston?"

[mallard]

elaborate on the persistent foibles?

Though I don't necessarily agree with his politics or many of his conclusions, a lot of stuff in Duncan Kennedy's essay "Legal Education and the Reproduction of Hierarchy" is accurate, and it does a pretty good job of drawing out a lot of the common reactions and thoughts law students will have. Not all of it completely correlates with my experience (for example, my professors tended to feel that the result in the "hot" cases should have been decided a bit less technically). But go especially to page 602, where he's discussing The Modeling of Hierarchical Relationships, and the following section on The Student Response to Hierarchy (I feel like I've personally experienced all of the responses he outlines, so it seems well done to me).

biv0ns, I've gotten comfortable with saying Harvard Law, but I have a pretty strong "r."

[James Bond]

biv0ns, I've gotten comfortable with saying Harvard Law, but I have a pretty strong "r."

Good to see you back, btw

[prezidentv8]

Ask me anything.

How bad would you like to whup some pansy Yale ass?!

[mallard]

Ask me anything.

How bad would you like to whup some pansy Yale ass?!

They have no grades first semester. I could stop somebody's face in.

[prezidentv8]

Ask me anything.

How bad would you like to whup some pansy Yale ass?!

They have no grades first semester. I could stop somebody's face in.

Niiiiiiiiiiice.

[02082010]

Why won't JR call me? Or at least send an email saying that he will be calling me?

[mallard]

Why won't JR call me? Or at least send an email saying that he will be calling me?

Probably your GPA?

Honestly, don't worry. I know a bunch of people who got in way late, April-June type stuff. The fact that a bunch of TLSers get in around Thanksgiving shouldn't stress you out.

[srb]

Ask me anything.

How bad would you like to whup some pansy Yale ass?!

They have no grades first semester. I could stop somebody's face in.

You don't either "high pass".

What will it take to get you to ford the fuckin' river a little more often (as in, at least once) next semester?

[mallard]

Ask me anything.

How bad would you like to whup some pansy Yale ass?!

They have no grades first semester. I could stop somebody's face in.

You don't either "high pass".

What will it take to get you to ford the fuckin' river a little more often (as in, at least once) next semester?

I'll make sure to stop by! I'm going to be more social in general next semester.

[02082010]

HLS offers a few programs of study (http://www.law.harvard.edu/academics/de ... index.html) that students can be a part of. I'm interested in the Law & Social Change program. How popular are these types of programs in general? Do you know any current students participating in one? Are they worthwhile, etc?

[02082010]

One more!

How many hours, outside of class, did you spend doing school work? What about in the month leading up to finals?

Also, although this isn't Harvard specific, I'm thinking about getting a laptop for general use but a small netbook for taking notes in class. Is that going overboard?

[mallard]

HLS offers a few programs of study (http://www.law.harvard.edu/academics/de ... index.html) that students can be a part of. I'm interested in the Law & Social Change program. How popular are these types of programs in general? Do you know any current students participating in one? Are they worthwhile, etc?

I have never heard anybody discuss these tracks. I don't think they're particularly popular. A lot of the more activist people I know have involved themselves in one of the 1L clinical type things, like HLS Defenders, the Tenant Advocacy Program, the Prison Assistance Program, etc. I will say that people who are doing one of those clinicals also seem cheerier than the rest of us, and less stressed about exams. Probably having the practical experience alongside the academic experience puts things into perspective. So I guess that's my recommendation as regards a social change-y experience at HLS, at least as a 1L.

Just looking at this page cursorily, the courses look good, and I know or have met a bunch of the faculty advisors and they're pretty solid. However, I'd recommend against pigeonholing yourself by undertaking the entire program of study as it's laid out here. You will probably want to make sure to take the basic 2L/3L curriculum, including classes like Evidence, Corporations, Constitutional Law, etc.

You also might find that your 1L experience alters your perspective, at least regarding what sorts of courses you want to take later on. It might not (and probably should not) alter your political perspective, but you don't know yet how you feel about Criminal Law as opposed to Torts, for example, or even more broadly how you might feel about public law as opposed to private.

So I guess in general I'd say don't worry about the programs of study right now. 1L (at HLS, at least) you'll get to pick your international elective and your other elective and that's it. You'll have your 1L summer experience and then come back and take all of these things into account when you start deciding what sort of lawyer you want to be (or not).

To respond to your second set of questions. Two laptops seems excessive to me, although if you have a lot of specific and very not law school related stuff you want to do, like graphics-intensive gaming, it might be good to have a second system. As for hours outside of class spent doing schoolwork, I actually tapered off near finals. A friend and I started outlining in September and made sure to finish everything up before Thanksgiving, so I mostly took and went over practice tests over the past few weeks. I highly, highly recommend this method, although I can't promise it earned me anything special.

Edited to add: Realized I didn't actually answer the hours question, so... let's say on average, every week, 16-18 hours in class, another 20 hours spent reading (I actually recommend briefing cases, which many people here will advise against), maybe five or ten hours outlining, plus any LRW stuff.

Also, get OneNote before the semester begins.

[Mr. Matlock]

Have you been able to use the "I'm attending Harvard Law" line to get any booty action? If yes, details please and don't fucking hold back.

[mallard]

Have you been able to use the "I'm attending Harvard Law" line to get any booty action? If yes, details please and don't fucking hold back.

A few girls have reacted positively, but it hasn't translated into anything concrete yet (nor am I sure I'd like it to). I haven't really been on the prowl since school started, though. I think if it helps at all, it's more apt to help because of the accompanying rise in my confidence rather than as a good line.

[excelsiorcaelo]

Mallard is a gunner.

Outlining since September? Briefing cases?

[02082010]

Mallard is a gunner.

Outlining since September? Briefing cases?

[excelsiorcaelo]

For the record, I didn't make my own outlines, and I stopped writing briefs two weeks into the semester. Instead, I would pull them from the Internet using various sites (some better than others).

I also never took than two thirds of a practice test for any class, and I didn't do any practice at all for one class.

I suppose only time will tell whether my decisions were justified.

[generals10]

What's the general feeling about OCI's/job prospects this year? Is nearly everyone still going to be fine, or has ITE taken a serious toll on the bottom half of the class? What's the consensus on how the new grading system has affected jobs?

Do you think the Harvard name/opportunity set is still worth a substantial premium over the lower T10, for us admits?

Have the profs been as icy cold/unavailable as some would have us believe?

Did you go to ASW? If so, how was it?

[mallard]

Are you hung over?

More seriously, how have you found your HLS classmates? Is it as diverse as advertised? (side note: any NDNs?) What is the gunner:non-gunner ratio?

I'm quite hungover. The gunner:non-gunner ratio is, even with a very cruel interpretation of "gunner," something like 1:20, at least in my section. There are more gunnerish sections, from what I hear, though.

The place is very diverse. But be careful. Law students and lawyers all share a lot of characteristics, and everybody will be going through very similar experiences. People will not be at their most interesting in law school and diversity (interpreted broadly) does not always come in handy and sometimes has to be suppressed in order to make time for learning your cases, learning your rules, learning your policy arguments, etc. So people won't necessarily seem all that diverse (in the sense of having interesting things to say that you might not have considered) at first blush while you're in the heat of 1L.

As to diversity in the sense of gender, class, ethnic, racial, etc., it's a pretty diverse school. There are a few more men than women. My section has maybe ten or twelve black students (which I think matches the HLS ratio), at least a couple Native American students, several Hispanic students, and several international students. Many people went to HYPS undergrad, but many went to public universities as well. In particular, there are a ton of people from Berkeley, UT, UVA, UNC, etc. here.

In general, I've found my classmates to be pretty awesome, with the situational caveat described above. I don't know if I trust that we'll do a great job running the world when it's our turn but I've certainly never met another group as capable or competent for the task.

Responding to more comments...

I guess my study schedule was a little gunnerish. I just took gunner to mean people who were annoyingly active in class. Yes, I am definitely a gunner in the broader sense. I'm not sure I will do it again next semester and I'm definitely not sure I recommend it. There's a lot of randomness and arbitrariness in the legal world, and many lawyers seem to do what they do to fill some sort of hole or void. Thing is, you need to keep striving and earning to fill it. Even Public Interest Lawyers describe their experience in this way. Honestly, more than anything I recommend becoming friends with your classmates while you're here, and when you're taking your time off, you should be with them, not alone or in front of the computer or the television.

I went to the April ASW. It was good, but not trustworthy. Free food, free booze, cool people. Definitely go. Professors are fine but Socratic is still Socratic and even some of the better ones will occasionally fall into the normal law school "participation" bullshit (repeating your question back to you, playing the "why" game, taking the opposite position just to prove what everybody already knows - that there are good justifications for either of two approaches).

As for OCI, yes, yes, and of course yes HYS have a premium, and of course people here will be able to get jobs. Biglaw jobs might be a little bit tougher than normal, but biglaw sounds horrifying anyway, so I haven't been paying that much attention to it. I don't think there's a consensus yet on how grading has affected jobs except that mandatory LPs are a dumb idea.

The real rationale for taking the higher-ranked school is simple. Kids here are simply not that much smarter than kids at BU or BC. Your extra point or two on the LSAT or the fact that you spent that one semester studying and the other kid spent that semester drinking does not mean you will perform better in law school. You have a comparative advantage now; you got into Harvard. You give it up by going to another school because the legal profession overvalues law school prestige.

There are, of course, other great reasons. My professors have been friends with Thurgood Marshall, William Brennan, Antonin Scalia, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama. My friends will be running for Senator and Governor; they'll be on the federal bench; they'll be coming back here to teach. Even Yale and Stanford do not have the feeling Harvard has. That's one reason why the arbitrariness and the randomness and the strange sense of hierarchy and misplaced priorities is so unsettling and occasionally nauseating while you're here: you're at the heart of a vast system, you know you're a little cell being pumped back and forth, carrying oxygen to one finger or toe of this system, and yet you can hear that the heartbeat is just a little irregular, the heart is just a little diseased.

[englawyer]

how is recruiting for non-law careers? ex banking/consulting. sorry for the odd question

[02082010]

As for OCI, yes, yes, and of course yes HYS have a premium, and of course people here will be able to get jobs. Biglaw jobs might be a little bit tougher than normal, but biglaw sounds horrifying anyway, so I haven't been paying that much attention to it. I don't think there's a consensus yet on how grading has affected jobs except that mandatory LPs are a dumb idea.

The real rationale for taking the higher-ranked school is simple. Kids here are simply not that much smarter than kids at BU or BC. Your extra point or two on the LSAT or the fact that you spent that one semester studying and the other kid spent that semester drinking does not mean you will perform better in law school. You have a comparative advantage now; you got into Harvard. You give it up by going to another school because the legal profession overvalues law school prestige.

There are, of course, other great reasons. My professors have been friends with Thurgood Marshall, William Brennan, Antonin Scalia, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama. My friends will be running for Senator and Governor; they'll be on the federal bench; they'll be coming back here to teach. Even Yale and Stanford do not have the feeling Harvard has. That's one reason why the arbitrariness and the randomness and the strange sense of hierarchy and misplaced priorities is so unsettling and occasionally nauseating while you're here: you're at the heart of a vast system, you know you're a little cell being pumped back and forth, carrying oxygen to one finger or toe of this system, and yet you can hear that the heartbeat is just a little irregular, the heart is just a little diseased.

That was F'n beautiful.

I liked it.