For people who are looking at various law schools: do higher-ranked schools generally have higher-caliber teaching?
I would assume so, since the more prestigious schools should be able to attract higher-caliber professors, but I was shocked to see that, among other instances, (1) Duke has a short winter period with very short-term classes, some of which are taught by clearly sharp but associates from law firms- not even partners- and (2) some Ivy League schools have professors who graduated from law schools such as Florida.
I’m definitely NOT saying that these are not high-caliber teachers; the professor who went to Florida is very accomplished, and the associates who teach at Duke are clearly very smart, but I’d just think that elite law schools would have minimum pedigree requirements for their teaching personnel. I’d also think that they’d want people with experience, since no matter how sharp a professor is, if someone is a 28-year old assistant professor, even if the person was a Supreme Court clerk and graduated from Yale, there’s only so much that the person would know.
So if you’re looking to learn how to be a lawyer, does it really matter where you go?
Thoughts? If I am being snobbish, don’t hesitate to tell me.
you are asking the wrong question, HA, since there is really no way to evaluate “teaching.”
And, of course, you know that (nearly) the only thing that matters in grad/professional school is research, research and more research. (For LS, that means pubs in high-rated journals.) “Teaching”, such that it is, is a rounding error in the evaluation for tenure.
I find that at the upper-tier, the teaching can be a bit too esoteric. For instance, I was recently at a T14 school, and sitting in a criminal law case—and boy, was it theoretical. So, while I can certainly appreciate the academic discourse, it was apparent, (and confirmed, by peeking at his CV< that this person had less than 2 years in the actual practice of law, but was very well published), he did not have a firm grasp on the practice side of criminal law. On the other hand, I have a good friend, who has really great credentials, H undergrad, master from LSE, Stanford Law, large NYC firm, Assistant AG, US attorney, but, not really the publishing type, and very few law schools have shown interest due to his lack of published writing—seems a bit short-sighted.
@stracciatella, you’re right, but my question is: “does it matter where you go if you want to learn how to be a lawyer”.
I’ve been scrolling through the various Lecturer in Law lists at high-end law schools. Some of them are accomplished professionals–but some went to Who Knows Where law school and seem to just be sole practitioners. Not sure what one would learn from a sole practitioner who went to Who Knows Where law school and has just a few years of experience. Also not sure why a high-profile law school wouldn’t be able to pick the best and the brightest, even for Lecturer in Law positions.
You can learn to be a lawyer by careful choice of elective courses in your second and third years. Clinics and practicum courses will get you working on real cases. And even at highly theoretical schools like Yale and Chicago, you can choose to take courses from visiting professors and lecturers with practice experience if that’s important to you.