Harvard Student(s) Answering Your Questions Forum

[DetroitRed]

Hey guys,

Thanks for doing this thread. It's really valuable for ignorant 0Ls like me.

So I was just accepted at HLS yesterday and am trying to determine whether it's financially feasible for me to attend. Many of my questions can be answered with information online, but one thing I've yet to find an answer to is: does LIPP cover loan payments while you clerk? Harvard's website says there are certain conditions under which you will be covered by LIPP as clerk, but that link is conveniently defunct. (http://hls.harvard.edu/dept/sfs/judicial-clerkships/)

Another part of the website says you will be covered if you remain in a LIPP-eligible job, which I take to mean any legal job (since LIPP technically has no income ceiling).

Thanks again for the help!

[TripTrip]

There is lots of advising for EIP. None for course selection.

It makes sense when you think about it though. What courses you take are important to you because you have to be in each of them for 11.6 hours per credit, but they will probably never matter besides that.

To take the cynical route, they also matter because they give you the grades that help to determine things that matter to HLS kids, such as firms and clerkships.

To that end, delineating which courses are basically auto-Hs would be a good thing to do if you're actually making some sort of course guide.

are there actually any courses that are known to be easy H's? don't all courses still have to adhere to the 30% H/rest P rule?

Yes to your first, no to your second. Classes under a certain size are not allowed to give DSs out but are unrestricted otherwise.

They have also lifted the % rule entirely. It's just a guideline now. Some professors choose not to follow it at all. Some choose to give Hs to everyone in their reading groups or seminars.

If this sounds oddly arbitrary, it is.

[nothingtosee]

There is lots of advising for EIP. None for course selection.

It makes sense when you think about it though. What courses you take are important to you because you have to be in each of them for 11.6 hours per credit, but they will probably never matter besides that.

To take the cynical route, they also matter because they give you the grades that help to determine things that matter to HLS kids, such as firms and clerkships.

To that end, delineating which courses are basically auto-Hs would be a good thing to do if you're actually making some sort of course guide.

are there actually any courses that are known to be easy H's? don't all courses still have to adhere to the 30% H/rest P rule?

Yes to your first, no to your second. Classes under a certain size are not allowed to give DSs out but are unrestricted otherwise.

They have also lifted the % rule entirely. It's just a guideline now. Some professors choose not to follow it at all. Some choose to give Hs to everyone in their reading groups or seminars.

If this sounds oddly arbitrary, it is.

How does one find these?

[HorseThief]

Hey guys,

Thanks for doing this thread. It's really valuable for ignorant 0Ls like me.

So I was just accepted at HLS yesterday and am trying to determine whether it's financially feasible for me to attend. Many of my questions can be answered with information online, but one thing I've yet to find an answer to is: does LIPP cover loan payments while you clerk? Harvard's website says there are certain conditions under which you will be covered by LIPP as clerk, but that link is conveniently defunct. (http://hls.harvard.edu/dept/sfs/judicial-clerkships/)

Another part of the website says you will be covered if you remain in a LIPP-eligible job, which I take to mean any legal job (since LIPP technically has no income ceiling).

Thanks again for the help!

Last time I read up on that, my impression was that they cover you while you're doing your clerkship if you're going to take a LIPP-eligible job afterwards. I think they just give you a different loan that is either forgiven when you've done your time in the eligible job (1 yr clerkship = 1 yr work, 2 yr clerkship = 2 yr, etc.), or if you take a non-eligible job, becomes due immediately.

There might be a caveat for when you have a post-clerkship job lined up. Say you defer from doing big-law to spend a year on a clerkship. When you get back to biglaw, they'll give you a sizeable bonus and LIPP doesn't want you to double dip, so they may not cover your loan payments for that year. Idk if that's really the case though.

[Lovely Ludwig Van]

They have also lifted the % rule entirely. It's just a guideline now. Some professors choose not to follow it at all. Some choose to give Hs to everyone in their reading groups or seminars.

If this sounds oddly arbitrary, it is.

Any evidence for this? Does this apply even to 1L courses?

[BlakcMajikc]

don't listen to blackmajikc she's forgotten what it's like to be [never was] a neurotic 1L

the answer to your question is 7

175

edited.
180.

[Doorkeeper]

are there actually any courses that are known to be easy H's? don't all courses still have to adhere to the 30% H/rest P rule?

Yes to your first, no to your second. Classes under a certain size are not allowed to give DSs out but are unrestricted otherwise.

They have also lifted the % rule entirely. It's just a guideline now. Some professors choose not to follow it at all. Some choose to give Hs to everyone in their reading groups or seminars.

If this sounds oddly arbitrary, it is.

How does one find these?

Second hand gossip and reading tea leaves.

Also sometimes the professors are up front about their desire to give everyone Hs. That's the best.

[m_ross]

Hey guys,

Thanks for doing this thread. It's really valuable for ignorant 0Ls like me.

So I was just accepted at HLS yesterday and am trying to determine whether it's financially feasible for me to attend. Many of my questions can be answered with information online, but one thing I've yet to find an answer to is: does LIPP cover loan payments while you clerk? Harvard's website says there are certain conditions under which you will be covered by LIPP as clerk, but that link is conveniently defunct. (http://hls.harvard.edu/dept/sfs/judicial-clerkships/)

Another part of the website says you will be covered if you remain in a LIPP-eligible job, which I take to mean any legal job (since LIPP technically has no income ceiling).

Thanks again for the help!

Last time I read up on that, my impression was that they cover you while you're doing your clerkship if you're going to take a LIPP-eligible job afterwards. I think they just give you a different loan that is either forgiven when you've done your time in the eligible job (1 yr clerkship = 1 yr work, 2 yr clerkship = 2 yr, etc.), or if you take a non-eligible job, becomes due immediately.

There might be a caveat for when you have a post-clerkship job lined up. Say you defer from doing big-law to spend a year on a clerkship. When you get back to biglaw, they'll give you a sizeable bonus and LIPP doesn't want you to double dip, so they may not cover your loan payments for that year. Idk if that's really the case though.

That's pretty accurate, from what I remember. Basically, if you're clerking and then going into PI (or something that would qualify you for LIPP based on income/ debt levels), you'll be covered by LIPP during your clerkship. If you're clerking and then going into BigLaw, you have two options: i) Defer your loan payments for economic necessity during your clerkship (I believe this is an option, but I'm not 100%); ii) Take LIPP for your clerkship year(s), which will become due immediately after you start at BigLaw. Conveniently, this is also when you will (probably) get your clerkship bonus, thus providing funds to pay off the LIPP loans. http://hls.harvard.edu/dept/sfs/low-inc ... lerkships/

Major caveat: all of this is to the best of my knowledge, but the only people that will know for sure are the folks that administer LIPP. If you email/ call them and tell them you're an admit, they'll be happy to answer any questions you have. Congrats on getting in!!

[juzam_djinn]

There is lots of advising for EIP. None for course selection.

It makes sense when you think about it though. What courses you take are important to you because you have to be in each of them for 11.6 hours per credit, but they will probably never matter besides that.

To take the cynical route, they also matter because they give you the grades that help to determine things that matter to HLS kids, such as firms and clerkships.

To that end, delineating which courses are basically auto-Hs would be a good thing to do if you're actually making some sort of course guide.

are there actually any courses that are known to be easy H's? don't all courses still have to adhere to the 30% H/rest P rule?

Yes to your first, no to your second. Classes under a certain size are not allowed to give DSs out but are unrestricted otherwise.

They have also lifted the % rule entirely. It's just a guideline now. Some professors choose not to follow it at all. Some choose to give Hs to everyone in their reading groups or seminars.

If this sounds oddly arbitrary, it is.

Dang...unfortunate how random that is. Thanks for the info though

[DoubleChecks]

Dang...unfortunate how random that is. Thanks for the info though

At least when I attended, the curves seemed to hold more true for 1L year, but by 2L and 3L years, it really varied depending on class size, professor, etc.

[TripTrip]

They have also lifted the % rule entirely. It's just a guideline now. Some professors choose not to follow it at all. Some choose to give Hs to everyone in their reading groups or seminars.

If this sounds oddly arbitrary, it is.

Any evidence for this? Does this apply even to 1L courses?

I don't really think there is a way to provide evidence for this, other than that some professors have openly admitted to giving Hs to entire seminars. If you mean evidence that the % rule isn't a hard rule anymore, though: yes. I believe that info comes straight from the administration. Search this thread maybe?

1L courses tend to be much different. First, you never have a class size small enough that this tends to happen. Second, professors are aware that they are distinguishing between students in 1L and many feel they need to assign based on the unofficial curve. There are also a few 1L profs who firmly believe in 8% LPs (especially the older ones).

[wtrc]

They have also lifted the % rule entirely. It's just a guideline now. Some professors choose not to follow it at all. Some choose to give Hs to everyone in their reading groups or seminars.

If this sounds oddly arbitrary, it is.

Any evidence for this? Does this apply even to 1L courses?

I don't really think there is a way to provide evidence for this, other than that some professors have openly admitted to giving Hs to entire seminars. If you mean evidence that the % rule isn't a hard rule anymore, though: yes. I believe that info comes straight from the administration. Search this thread maybe?

1L courses tend to be much different. First, you never have a class size small enough that this tends to happen. Second, professors are aware that they are distinguishing between students in 1L and many feel they need to assign based on the unofficial curve. There are also a few 1L profs who firmly believe in 8% LPs (especially the older ones).

I think the classes without DS's are ones with under 9 students or something ridiculously small.

[tomwatts]

I gathered all the links for the current grading policy, and it's all back in the OP. 30 is the magic number: below that, the grade distribution doesn't apply. DS's are available in classes with at least 7 students. It just flatly says this last point in the longer explanation of grades in the handbook, linked in the OP.

When the grade distribution doesn't apply, profs may choose to do whatever. That could include giving all H's. (I think it usually doesn't, but in principle it can.) The grade distribution is just "recommended" even above 30, but profs tend to follow pretty close to it for most classes as far as anyone knows. More details in OP.

EDIT: Maybe I linked to only the shorter version. The longer one is here: http://law.harvard.edu/academics/handbook/index.html.

[meisme23]

For Harvard students who have attended in the past, how big of a deal is the Admitted Students Weekend?

I just got my admittance email with the two dates in March and April, and I don't think I'm going to be able to attend either of them (work constraints). What kind of things go on at the ASW? How valuable is it?

[HorseThief]

For Harvard students who have attended in the past, how big of a deal is the Admitted Students Weekend?

I just got my admittance email with the two dates in March and April, and I don't think I'm going to be able to attend either of them (work constraints). What kind of things go on at the ASW? How valuable is it?

Beer. Networking. Swag. That's about all it's good for. If you already know where you want to go, you won't need to come.

[sjgonzalez3]

For Harvard students who have attended in the past, how big of a deal is the Admitted Students Weekend?

I just got my admittance email with the two dates in March and April, and I don't think I'm going to be able to attend either of them (work constraints). What kind of things go on at the ASW? How valuable is it?

Beer. Networking. Swag. That's about all it's good for. If you already know where you want to go, you won't need to come.

Yeah, you won't be hindered in any way. Not a big deal. ASW is super fun, but not important.

[094320]

..

[rabbit5000]

ASW is a ton of fun. I think it's worth going to just for that, even if you have to skip some work. You'll meet a bunch of people, drink a ton of free drinks, and collect your HLS bag. And they put on a really good show.

[meisme23]

Thanks for the advice guys! I'm pretty much definitely going to Harvard, so it's good to hear that even though the ASW is a lot of fun, the fact that I'm going to have to miss it won't set me back tremendously or anything.

[Pneumonia]

Yeah ASW is fun but it doesn't matter at all.

[a.sleepyhead]

Unrelated but does anyone who is/was in Warren's tax have that pdf of the US tax code that's divided up by sections/know where I could find it? Thanks!

[flyingboy]

Is there any difference between a clerkship and a summer judicial internship? I'm a 1L applying to the latter and trying to see if I could get SPIF funding.

[Pneumonia]

Also a 1L, but yeah there's not funding for judicial internships.

Generally TLS nomenclature is that the term "clerkship" is reserved for full-time employment with a judge post graduation. Internship is in the summer. It can get confusing though; boomers call summer employment "clerking" even if you're at a firm etc.

[hls.burner]

anyone hear back from BCG? or still in limbo?

[robotrick]

No one I know has heard back from BCG yet...