Question on LS difficulty: T14 vs. TTT Forum

[alexyoshi]

Apologies if this has been addressed before. I've been reading TLS for awhile now and I don't remember seeing this addressed directly. And apologies if the question is too convoluted.

Relative to each other, would the classwork at a TTT be "easier" than at a T14? To anyone reading this that was bright enough to have made the transfer, did the level of difficulty shift?

I understand that students at top schools may tend to be brighter since they are able to attend in the first place. I guess what I'm asking is: for the average 1L student in each respective situation, would their LS experience (with regards to difficulty) be around the same?

[traehekat]

From what I have heard, lower ranked schools tend to focus more on the black letter law than theory, and sometimes teach gearing towards material on the bar exam of the state the school is in. I think this is more typical of REALLY lower ranked schools, so maybe not TTTs (you know, if we are differentiating between TTTs and TTTTs here).

No idea if it is any more DIFFICULT, but there seems to be a little bit of a difference in focus.

[yabbadabbado]

There is no easy answer for this. I've actually attended both types of schools (transferred after 1L) so here goes:

At the low ranked schools, competition is tougher than you think because the grading curves tend to very low. Depending on the particular school, you may also be up against students who are a lot brighter and more intensely motivated than you think, especially those who will be near the top of the class after 1L. On the upside, depending on the school, you may get a much more practical education than you would at a T14.

At a T14, the grading curves tend to be more generous but there is also a lot of competition for good grades since everyone is very bright and most are very motivated. The education can also be a mixed bag, since most of the profs have no incentive to actually teach, and are focused more on getting articles and books published. If you like legal theory and the more academic side of law, you may find the classes to be more to your liking.

As far as "classwork" goes, there is generally no "classwork" in most law school classes (except in some seminars and such) other than assigned reading from casebooks. There is no difference in the casebooks you use at a low ranked school vs. a t14. They are all made by the same publishers and function the same way. Certain casebooks are popular among law profs at all kinds of schools so it's not uncommon to see the exact same casebook assigned at a low ranked school and a high ranked school. There is no real difference in the amount of reading assigned either, although occasionally profs at the higher ranked schools will "recommend" that you read some other book in addition to your casebook.

[alexyoshi]

Thanks for the informative response. I figured that there wasn't a quick and easy answer to the question... just something I was curious about.

[270910]

Apologies if this has been addressed before. I've been reading TLS for awhile now and I don't remember seeing this addressed directly. And apologies if the question is too convoluted.

Relative to each other, would the classwork at a TTT be "easier" than at a T14? To anyone reading this that was bright enough to have made the transfer, did the level of difficulty shift?

No.

All law schools are the same. Faculty comes from HYS and T14 schools after elite clerkships, the curriculum is standardized, and the tests work the same way. Courses are curved and unintuitive so a median student at a T14 could hardly expect be dominating at a T2.

HTH.

[yabbadabbado]

This is a persistent myth among students and applicants at higher ranked schools that is for the most part, not true. Many lower ranked schools will offer generic courses that are often tested on bar exams in a number of states, but they usually NOT geared towards the state law of that particular state. The low ranked school I went to had a VERY high bar passage rate, yet there was not a single state law class offered at the school. As an example, for a 1L class like Torts, we learned ALL the different minority and majority jurisdiction approaches for certain concepts which varied from state to state.

On the other hand, at the t14, my Professional Responsibility professor would talk at length about the ethics rules of the local jurisdiction, even though we would not be tested on them.

sometimes teach gearing towards material on the bar exam of the state the school is in.