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Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT ( talk) 02:19, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
There has apparently been an organized effort to vandalize this wikipedia page executed by members of the anti-law school blog Law School Transparency and the blogger Paul Campos.
Per Wikipedia policy, blogs by LST, Mr. Campos and Mr. Tamanaha are not reliable sources of information. In addition, many of the claims asserted in recent wikipedia edits are factually inaccurate and constitute [ attacks], also in violation of wikipedia policy.
If this vandalism continues after this warning, this will be escalated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 150.108.60.10 ( talk) 00:13, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
I went on vacation for a while, so I don't know who the hell proposed a merger with faculty of law, but I think it's a terrible idea. In the U.S., we have a national consensus that the sheer difficulty of learning common law requires a certain amount of intelligence and maturity not found among most undergraduates. This is why we turned law departments into law schools, and severed them from the undergraduate colleges which had frequently been their prior home. This is also why we require that people have to get a bachelor's degree first.
The point is that because law is a graduate program in the U.S., it is dramatically different than the undergraduate programss offered in most other countries. Therefore, it is unique and notable enough to require a separate article of its own, and should not be conjoined with faculty of law to form one giant mess. -- Coolcaesar 03:27, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
I compiled the following information about degrees offered by law schools in the United States & thought some of it might be appropriate for the law school article:
I confirmed the title & acronym for most of these degrees at the ABA Post-J.D. Programs page.
I have moved this article and started legal education (which requires a vast amount of improvement). Trying to cover a global topic in an article which is mainly about the U.S leads to things being pulled in two directions, and unsurprisingly the balance was poor. CalJW 11:57, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
Somebody please tell me why does Law School direct to Law School in United States! I believe this redirection takes the cake! Priyatu 11:11, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't think "not necessarily so" and "several 'law schools'" really merits the high tone of US Centrism. If it was an article on film and it went to a Hollywood page, I'd understand. Otherwise, legal education is something we've wrought upon a world where apprentice positions mostly teach/prepare aspiring attorneys/lawyers/solictors/barristers.
"law school" probably should be a disambiguation page because different people would search for that phrase looking for different things, e.g., Juris Doctor, L.L.B., Legal education, Faculty of Law, Education of Lawyers in the United States, etc.
It is shocking this page has not contained the many criticisms of American legal education.
I made the change in reference to American law schools. In the US, the law degree is considered a "professional degree" along with the MD, MBA, MFA, DVM, DDS, etc. The defining line is that these students don't tend to go on to be academicians. The other, more snarky way of putting it is "Professional degrees are glorified vocational institutes" --which as a proud American law school graduate I smile and concur. -- Bobak 19:21, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
This article claims that most courses in first year law school courses span a year. It certainly doesn't at my school, and my understanding was that year long courses are on their way out or a thing of the past. The line in question is:
"In the First Year, most courses span a year."
Also, I find the text about the Socratic method going out of fashion to be fairly weak and possibly biased, since many people are critical of the Socratic method itself, and pleased that it is going out of fashion. The article doesn't seem to present this side of the issue.
It's hit and miss. My program's writing/research class is a yearlong class, but they split the rest up. I think the trend is towards 1-semester classes. Bjsiders 12:27, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
I do not like the link to lawschoolnumbers.com. Why don't we link the article to the actual numbers that are reported to LSAC, namely http://officialguide.lsac.org/search/cgi-bin/results.asp?PageNo=
A vast majority of law schools provide grids that reflect the ACTUAL stats from the previous year. lawschoolnumbers only includes a self-selected group of applicants. Also, the numbers at lawschoolnumbers may over or under inflate admissions. For instance, lawschoolnumbers members may need higher than average credentials for law school A, but lower than credentials for law school B. Even lawschoolnumbers links you to the LSAC site! Accordingly, I will take the liberty and make a change.
Someone's rant is in the section on criticisms. It should be NPOV'd.
The material on federal, state, and Supreme Court clerkships should be moved out of this article and into the Law clerk article. Any objections? bd2412 T 22:41, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
Some bitter female law student has inserted a rant, and while ideas from that rant may be worthwhile, it is a rant and is inappropriate for this meduim. I suggest it be changed to better reflect wikipedia's ethos.
Ok, I have condensed the criticisms articulated about the single-exam system. I think some of them are personal criticisms offered via the anonymous proxy of unnamed critics by the author, which puts them in the category of original research. Some are easily rebutted, others are fairly valid points. Some rebuttals:
See below:
So are the decisions of judges and juries, which means it DOES mirror the practice of law.
ANSWER: The vast majority of law is not practiced in front of judges and juries, and whims and the mood of a judge/juror is not supposed to play a role in their decisions. They are supposed to be "blind" like lady justice. This counter-argument is akin to saying, "Since there is no such thing as an unobjective person, we should not be concerned with objectivity and blind justice." -- DavidShankBone 19:58, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
You don't have that chance in court either. So it DOES mirror the practice of law.
ANSWER: Again, the majority of law is not practiced in court. If law school is meant to complete mirror the practice of law, then why even have a graduate program in law, when the United States is one of the only countries to do so? Why not just make it an undergraduate degree and push everyone out to learn instead of paying exorbitant costs to do what can be accomplished in an apprenticeship. -- DavidShankBone 19:58, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
Again, same with court.
ANSWER: Again, same with the above two answers. -- DavidShankBone 19:58, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
Again, same with court.
This one is a valid point. In real practice you have some time to do extensive research and tackle a complex legal question, pore over past decisions, etc. However, my understanding is that the types of questions on a typical 1L final are not all that complex. Tricky, but not groundbreakingly complex.
ANSWER: "Your understanding?" Have you never been? Then why are you commenting on things you do not know about? They are incredibly complex. -- DavidShankBone 19:58, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
Also a valid point, although I'm told that even in an open-book exam, if you're referencing the casebook to do your exam, you're going to do poorly.
ANSWER: Again, your lack of experience - there are more than textbooks to reference. In fact, few people reference the text. Go to law school and find out. -- DavidShankBone 19:58, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
How is this any different from the LSAT, a single examination in a single afternoon that could determine not just one grade for one class, but which schools you can even attend, or possibly whether or not you can attend law school at all? In fairness, the LSAT and admission procedures are often criticized for this very reason. However, no matter how prepared you are, no matter how great and impressive your arc of growth and learning is, if you don't perform when it matters, you're going to lose cases for your clients. Maybe you get a do-over on the next case but that client could suffer a loss that changes his entire life forever. You can destroy people's lives in the practice of law by simply being off your game one day.
I understand that many attorneys never see a single day in court (I certainly don't plan to spend much time there) and don't experience this kind of pressure, but to say that the real practice of law is not mirrored by the evaluation techniques is a bit of sophistry.
All that being said, if we can find reputable sources articulating these criticisms with a bit more clarity, I'm all for including them with those sources cited. I have no particular interest in doing this legwork, I'll give it about a week to see if anybody comes up with anything, and if nobody does, I'm going to remove most of these. Bjsiders 14:05, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
My issue with a lot of these points is that they assume everyone is going off to be litigators, and many of the skills talked about are things that can be learned in classes that cater to those wanting to practice in that area of law. There really is little comparison between law school exams and the bar or the LSAT. Theoretically, the bar is supposed to test what you learn in law school. In a one exam per class (at the end of the semester, where it is graded on a curve) how is one supposed to know how well they are learning the material with no effective gauge? One never really knows because they do not know what classmates wrote on their own exams. I also find it amusing that people who have not gone through law school are lodging these criticisms of law school exams, the likes of which are almost universally seen as inaccurate, yet still followed. -- DavidShankBone 20:09, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
Someone has suggested merging this article with Legal education in the United States.
Can someone expand this page with a section on the oldest law schools in the US? I have had no luck in finding that information. Thank you! Mattnt 15:14, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
I have tried to construct as much as I know, but I am missing the fourth oldest. I know PSU-Dickinson is fifth, and the rest I looked up on websites of the law schools as well as wikipedia. NYU is 1835, perhaps there is a defunct law school that is fourth? Any help would be appreciated. Kilroy55 Nevermind, I found my answer. Maryland is the fourth oldest law school. But it is interesting to note that Louis D. Brandeis School of Law of the University of Louisville attempts to claim they are the fifth oldest, according to [ [1]], but they explain this away by saying "the fifth oldest law in the country in continuous operation." Dickinson folks should call them out on this.
University of California Hastings College of the Law established 1878 (California's First Law School) is not the 11th oldest law school. GW enrolled class in 1865. Please only put the law schools in their actual order.
Somewhere a law school is lying. PSU-Dickinson says they are the fifth oldest, Cincy says they are the Fourth, but somewhere the dates are not working out.
Why isnt washington and lee on the list? its website even says it was founded in 1849
All is right now, no one was lying except Maryland. Maryland law reports to US News and world Reports that their law school was founded in 1870.
http://www.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/schoolarchives/index.asp The university of Maryland law school may have had its inception in 1816, it didn't last long. The law school didn't start full operation as a law school until 1870. Hints why the law library has an article on the first 50 years from 1869 to 1919. We should use the 1870 date.
First of all, please do not use run-on sentences ("Hints why the law library has an article on the first 50 years from 1869 to 1919") when having a discussion on Wikipedia, especially on law schools. It undermines your authority and makes your logic difficult to follow. Having said that, I have to respectfully disagree. Unless you show me any evidence of why the law school cannot be considered a law school until 1870. The school was established in 1816 and the first classes started in 1823. The criterion we are using is the establishment of a law school, which clearly was in 1816 and not in 1870 as you claim. I have decided to use the 1816 date, since there are records in the library that also point to this date, proving that the school was established way before 1870. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.13.250.75 ( talk) 14:22, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
I've arbitrarily left only the 10 oldest schools on the list, the rest are here. Really, do we need a crufty list that, when I trimmed it, was up to 67 schools??? If anybody cares about founding dates, the List of law schools in the United States article now has them. Wl219 10:20, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
I propose merging the subsection on "legal journals" into "law review," as the law review WP article discusses both. Also, the "prestige" of law review vs. "legal journals" is better explained in the law review article, I think. Wl219 07:25, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
This is the second place this disagreement has occurred, please see article on Stanford Law School. User 69.215.136.98 believes that GPA curves for law schools are relevant to include on wikipedia. Though I personally disagree, I see no real problem with this. However, this appears to be a strangely singular attack on Stanford Law School. 69.215.136.98 claims Stanford has the highest mean in the country, but I have not seen this cited anywhere and is contrary to what I've heard individually. The wording reverted here is especially obvious in indicating his believe that Stanford grade inflates, but for some reason he is not listing any other schools as engaging in the practice. With a blip here or there, it is my understanding that as a school's ranking or general quality goes up, so does its mean GPA. I think it's unfair to single out Stanford for this practice. Please, thoughts? I'm hoping I'm not being overly defensive but I really think it has to be more thorough than this. As is I think it's a thinly-veiled attack at Stanford for what is far from unique behavior. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.44.212.48 ( talk • contribs) on 28 December 2006.
{{ histinfo}}
This article badly needs a lot of historical background! For instance, the way that law was taught prior to the creation of separate professional "law schools" ... -- lquilter 18:05, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
I removed a section about Illinois schools being included in state accredited law schools. Every law school in Illinois, as far as I know, is fully ABA accredited. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.194.130.70 ( talk) 04:12, 18 April 2007 (UTC).
Which undergrad degrees are typically held by students entering law school? Is there a statistic? Are there special undergrad degrees that specifically prepare for law school? Please add this information. -- 212.63.43.180 ( talk) 16:11, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
Any liberal arts degree will do. It doesn't really matter. My degree was in economics, as was my father's and sister's (both attorneys too).-- Davidwiz ( talk) 15:58, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
There are a growing number of science and engineering majors going to law schools as well. These people are usually eligible to sit for the USPTO registration examination (a/k/a the "patent bar"). -- Eastlaw ( talk) 08:02, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
I think it's a stretch to call William and Mary the oldest based on the lone undergraduate law professor that they had from 1779 on. Not sure when the real program got established, but that is not a conventional "law school" by any standard. bd2412 T 08:58, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
I have removed the Charleston Law School from the list of oldest active law schools, as it clearly does not belong there. Its public relations materials state: "The Charleston School of Law is rooted in tradition. In fact, its origins predate the formation of the oldest law school in the country." [3] However, this is not a statement that the schools itself predates anything at all. Hawaii's origins predate the American Revolution, but that doesn't make it the oldest state. bd2412 T 05:40, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
There are several reasons noted for why top law schools decline to teach doctrine as extensively as other law schools and instead focus on theory and analysis. The list is highly incomplete. All of the reasons focus on the academically-oriented nature of top schools, but that is one small part of the story.
Other reasons should be added because it is an important distinction between law schools and a big reason why higher ranked law schools are higher ranked.
Some to get started: top law schools don’t teach doctrine as much because they perhaps have less faith in doctrine as being useful. Being able to do the analysis is far more useful to legal professionals. The law changes all the time and being able to adapt to those changes and understand them is much more important than knowing what the law is at any given time. Moreover, even the clearest doctrine is a tenuous concept, so understanding how to do the analysis is useful for attacking a doctrine that on its face seems against you.
There are more reasons out there too; I just thought the section was misleading because of how limited it was. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.247.205.107 ( talk) 20:35, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
It's cited for five propositions but appears nowhere in the references. Great. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.253.90.111 ( talk) 04:06, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
He qualifies as WP:RS. While the particular material is WP:SPS, Vitiello is a professor at an ABA school (McGeorge) [4] and has published texts with West Publishing. See: OCLC 800041220 for just one. Thus he is a "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." The particular deleted material needs to be reconciled with what his particular article says, and cleaned up for citation format. -- S. Rich ( talk) 06:22, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
The section on criticism of law schools violates several Wikipedia policies, including: (1) Information must be verifiable -Many of the cites are to blogs and other unreliable sources. Much of the objective information (i.e., numbers, percentages) is inaccurate. (2) No disproportionate criticism -The criticism of law schools is longer than the description of law schools. (3) No original research Again, lots of stringing material together here. (4) Information must be noteworthy Off the cuff remarks and this one guy I knows blog or horror story are not noteworthy. Peer reviewed Empirical research in noteworthy.
I've tried to fix some of these problems, but it's a mess. Wikipedia is not supposed to be a blog. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 100.2.189.16 ( talk) 13:36, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
edited Controversy section to match generic "law school" search results and removed irrelevant and derogatory ad hominem Berknyc81 ( talk) 22:58, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
An editor removed references to an article called "The Economic Value of a Law Degree" on the grounds that draft articles should not be cited in wikipedia. This not the correct interpretation of Wikipedia policy on reliable sources in this case.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOURCES#Reliable_sources
Under Wikipedia policy, posting to SSRN constitutes publication. The article is authored by two well regarded, university based empirical researchers, and it has been widely covered in the national press.
Therefore, inclusion in Wikipedia is appropriate under Wikipedia policy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.190.187.213 ( talk) 16:16, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
It seems to me that section 7 on post-law school employment and section 10.1 on employment statistics and salary information should probably be consolidated as they sufficiently overlap in subject matter (including many citations to the same sources). I propose consolidating both under the latter heading because, as the citations in the article already show pretty well, and has been noted elsewhere, [1] the subject is a matter still under debate in the legal community. Sneekypat ( talk) 20:51, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
References
There seems to be some dispute as to how the finding of the Economic Value of a Law Degree source, and it's derivative sources (i.e., articles discussing it and relying on it) should be described. I changed the sentence "More recent press coverage by some higher education reporters has noted that peer reviewed studies and comprehensive data suggests that law graduates are still typically better off financially than they would be had they not attended law school, notwithstanding challenges facing recent graduates." to read "More recent press coverage by some higher education reporters has noted that peer reviewed studies and comprehensive data suggests that law graduates are still typically better off financially than they would be had they not attended a post-college graduate program, notwithstanding challenges facing recent graduates." (Emphasis mine). I did so because the study compared lifetime earnings of JD holders to lifetime earnings of those who obtained only a college degree and calculated a premium for the JD holders over the college degree holders. The study explicitly did not compare the lifetime earnings of JD holders to holders of all other degrees, such as medical degrees, doctoral degrees, or masters degrees. See 43 J. of Leg. Studies at 256 ("Below we report both OLS and quantile regression coefficients. To estimate the law degree earnings premium, we compare law degree holders to bachelor’s degree holders who are similar to law degree holders on many observable dimensions that predict earnings. We defer to later research the differences in earnings associated with law degrees compared with alternate graduate degrees." (emphasis mine)).
Another editor has reverted the change (in addition to moving a section currently under discussion for a different move on a different section of this talk page). I believe that the original language is potentially confusing as to the study's finding and seek consensus on how the description should be phrased. Sneekypat ( talk) 12:18, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
Am I the only one who thinks that the "oldest active law schools" section doesn't belong here? It's totally unsourced (as it would pretty much have to be), and it doesn't really serve a purpose in the article. I think we should delete it. agtx 22:22, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
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This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available
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Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT ( talk) 02:19, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
There has apparently been an organized effort to vandalize this wikipedia page executed by members of the anti-law school blog Law School Transparency and the blogger Paul Campos.
Per Wikipedia policy, blogs by LST, Mr. Campos and Mr. Tamanaha are not reliable sources of information. In addition, many of the claims asserted in recent wikipedia edits are factually inaccurate and constitute [ attacks], also in violation of wikipedia policy.
If this vandalism continues after this warning, this will be escalated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 150.108.60.10 ( talk) 00:13, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
I went on vacation for a while, so I don't know who the hell proposed a merger with faculty of law, but I think it's a terrible idea. In the U.S., we have a national consensus that the sheer difficulty of learning common law requires a certain amount of intelligence and maturity not found among most undergraduates. This is why we turned law departments into law schools, and severed them from the undergraduate colleges which had frequently been their prior home. This is also why we require that people have to get a bachelor's degree first.
The point is that because law is a graduate program in the U.S., it is dramatically different than the undergraduate programss offered in most other countries. Therefore, it is unique and notable enough to require a separate article of its own, and should not be conjoined with faculty of law to form one giant mess. -- Coolcaesar 03:27, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
I compiled the following information about degrees offered by law schools in the United States & thought some of it might be appropriate for the law school article:
I confirmed the title & acronym for most of these degrees at the ABA Post-J.D. Programs page.
I have moved this article and started legal education (which requires a vast amount of improvement). Trying to cover a global topic in an article which is mainly about the U.S leads to things being pulled in two directions, and unsurprisingly the balance was poor. CalJW 11:57, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
Somebody please tell me why does Law School direct to Law School in United States! I believe this redirection takes the cake! Priyatu 11:11, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't think "not necessarily so" and "several 'law schools'" really merits the high tone of US Centrism. If it was an article on film and it went to a Hollywood page, I'd understand. Otherwise, legal education is something we've wrought upon a world where apprentice positions mostly teach/prepare aspiring attorneys/lawyers/solictors/barristers.
"law school" probably should be a disambiguation page because different people would search for that phrase looking for different things, e.g., Juris Doctor, L.L.B., Legal education, Faculty of Law, Education of Lawyers in the United States, etc.
It is shocking this page has not contained the many criticisms of American legal education.
I made the change in reference to American law schools. In the US, the law degree is considered a "professional degree" along with the MD, MBA, MFA, DVM, DDS, etc. The defining line is that these students don't tend to go on to be academicians. The other, more snarky way of putting it is "Professional degrees are glorified vocational institutes" --which as a proud American law school graduate I smile and concur. -- Bobak 19:21, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
This article claims that most courses in first year law school courses span a year. It certainly doesn't at my school, and my understanding was that year long courses are on their way out or a thing of the past. The line in question is:
"In the First Year, most courses span a year."
Also, I find the text about the Socratic method going out of fashion to be fairly weak and possibly biased, since many people are critical of the Socratic method itself, and pleased that it is going out of fashion. The article doesn't seem to present this side of the issue.
It's hit and miss. My program's writing/research class is a yearlong class, but they split the rest up. I think the trend is towards 1-semester classes. Bjsiders 12:27, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
I do not like the link to lawschoolnumbers.com. Why don't we link the article to the actual numbers that are reported to LSAC, namely http://officialguide.lsac.org/search/cgi-bin/results.asp?PageNo=
A vast majority of law schools provide grids that reflect the ACTUAL stats from the previous year. lawschoolnumbers only includes a self-selected group of applicants. Also, the numbers at lawschoolnumbers may over or under inflate admissions. For instance, lawschoolnumbers members may need higher than average credentials for law school A, but lower than credentials for law school B. Even lawschoolnumbers links you to the LSAC site! Accordingly, I will take the liberty and make a change.
Someone's rant is in the section on criticisms. It should be NPOV'd.
The material on federal, state, and Supreme Court clerkships should be moved out of this article and into the Law clerk article. Any objections? bd2412 T 22:41, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
Some bitter female law student has inserted a rant, and while ideas from that rant may be worthwhile, it is a rant and is inappropriate for this meduim. I suggest it be changed to better reflect wikipedia's ethos.
Ok, I have condensed the criticisms articulated about the single-exam system. I think some of them are personal criticisms offered via the anonymous proxy of unnamed critics by the author, which puts them in the category of original research. Some are easily rebutted, others are fairly valid points. Some rebuttals:
See below:
So are the decisions of judges and juries, which means it DOES mirror the practice of law.
ANSWER: The vast majority of law is not practiced in front of judges and juries, and whims and the mood of a judge/juror is not supposed to play a role in their decisions. They are supposed to be "blind" like lady justice. This counter-argument is akin to saying, "Since there is no such thing as an unobjective person, we should not be concerned with objectivity and blind justice." -- DavidShankBone 19:58, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
You don't have that chance in court either. So it DOES mirror the practice of law.
ANSWER: Again, the majority of law is not practiced in court. If law school is meant to complete mirror the practice of law, then why even have a graduate program in law, when the United States is one of the only countries to do so? Why not just make it an undergraduate degree and push everyone out to learn instead of paying exorbitant costs to do what can be accomplished in an apprenticeship. -- DavidShankBone 19:58, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
Again, same with court.
ANSWER: Again, same with the above two answers. -- DavidShankBone 19:58, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
Again, same with court.
This one is a valid point. In real practice you have some time to do extensive research and tackle a complex legal question, pore over past decisions, etc. However, my understanding is that the types of questions on a typical 1L final are not all that complex. Tricky, but not groundbreakingly complex.
ANSWER: "Your understanding?" Have you never been? Then why are you commenting on things you do not know about? They are incredibly complex. -- DavidShankBone 19:58, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
Also a valid point, although I'm told that even in an open-book exam, if you're referencing the casebook to do your exam, you're going to do poorly.
ANSWER: Again, your lack of experience - there are more than textbooks to reference. In fact, few people reference the text. Go to law school and find out. -- DavidShankBone 19:58, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
How is this any different from the LSAT, a single examination in a single afternoon that could determine not just one grade for one class, but which schools you can even attend, or possibly whether or not you can attend law school at all? In fairness, the LSAT and admission procedures are often criticized for this very reason. However, no matter how prepared you are, no matter how great and impressive your arc of growth and learning is, if you don't perform when it matters, you're going to lose cases for your clients. Maybe you get a do-over on the next case but that client could suffer a loss that changes his entire life forever. You can destroy people's lives in the practice of law by simply being off your game one day.
I understand that many attorneys never see a single day in court (I certainly don't plan to spend much time there) and don't experience this kind of pressure, but to say that the real practice of law is not mirrored by the evaluation techniques is a bit of sophistry.
All that being said, if we can find reputable sources articulating these criticisms with a bit more clarity, I'm all for including them with those sources cited. I have no particular interest in doing this legwork, I'll give it about a week to see if anybody comes up with anything, and if nobody does, I'm going to remove most of these. Bjsiders 14:05, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
My issue with a lot of these points is that they assume everyone is going off to be litigators, and many of the skills talked about are things that can be learned in classes that cater to those wanting to practice in that area of law. There really is little comparison between law school exams and the bar or the LSAT. Theoretically, the bar is supposed to test what you learn in law school. In a one exam per class (at the end of the semester, where it is graded on a curve) how is one supposed to know how well they are learning the material with no effective gauge? One never really knows because they do not know what classmates wrote on their own exams. I also find it amusing that people who have not gone through law school are lodging these criticisms of law school exams, the likes of which are almost universally seen as inaccurate, yet still followed. -- DavidShankBone 20:09, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
Someone has suggested merging this article with Legal education in the United States.
Can someone expand this page with a section on the oldest law schools in the US? I have had no luck in finding that information. Thank you! Mattnt 15:14, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
I have tried to construct as much as I know, but I am missing the fourth oldest. I know PSU-Dickinson is fifth, and the rest I looked up on websites of the law schools as well as wikipedia. NYU is 1835, perhaps there is a defunct law school that is fourth? Any help would be appreciated. Kilroy55 Nevermind, I found my answer. Maryland is the fourth oldest law school. But it is interesting to note that Louis D. Brandeis School of Law of the University of Louisville attempts to claim they are the fifth oldest, according to [ [1]], but they explain this away by saying "the fifth oldest law in the country in continuous operation." Dickinson folks should call them out on this.
University of California Hastings College of the Law established 1878 (California's First Law School) is not the 11th oldest law school. GW enrolled class in 1865. Please only put the law schools in their actual order.
Somewhere a law school is lying. PSU-Dickinson says they are the fifth oldest, Cincy says they are the Fourth, but somewhere the dates are not working out.
Why isnt washington and lee on the list? its website even says it was founded in 1849
All is right now, no one was lying except Maryland. Maryland law reports to US News and world Reports that their law school was founded in 1870.
http://www.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/schoolarchives/index.asp The university of Maryland law school may have had its inception in 1816, it didn't last long. The law school didn't start full operation as a law school until 1870. Hints why the law library has an article on the first 50 years from 1869 to 1919. We should use the 1870 date.
First of all, please do not use run-on sentences ("Hints why the law library has an article on the first 50 years from 1869 to 1919") when having a discussion on Wikipedia, especially on law schools. It undermines your authority and makes your logic difficult to follow. Having said that, I have to respectfully disagree. Unless you show me any evidence of why the law school cannot be considered a law school until 1870. The school was established in 1816 and the first classes started in 1823. The criterion we are using is the establishment of a law school, which clearly was in 1816 and not in 1870 as you claim. I have decided to use the 1816 date, since there are records in the library that also point to this date, proving that the school was established way before 1870. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.13.250.75 ( talk) 14:22, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
I've arbitrarily left only the 10 oldest schools on the list, the rest are here. Really, do we need a crufty list that, when I trimmed it, was up to 67 schools??? If anybody cares about founding dates, the List of law schools in the United States article now has them. Wl219 10:20, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
I propose merging the subsection on "legal journals" into "law review," as the law review WP article discusses both. Also, the "prestige" of law review vs. "legal journals" is better explained in the law review article, I think. Wl219 07:25, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
This is the second place this disagreement has occurred, please see article on Stanford Law School. User 69.215.136.98 believes that GPA curves for law schools are relevant to include on wikipedia. Though I personally disagree, I see no real problem with this. However, this appears to be a strangely singular attack on Stanford Law School. 69.215.136.98 claims Stanford has the highest mean in the country, but I have not seen this cited anywhere and is contrary to what I've heard individually. The wording reverted here is especially obvious in indicating his believe that Stanford grade inflates, but for some reason he is not listing any other schools as engaging in the practice. With a blip here or there, it is my understanding that as a school's ranking or general quality goes up, so does its mean GPA. I think it's unfair to single out Stanford for this practice. Please, thoughts? I'm hoping I'm not being overly defensive but I really think it has to be more thorough than this. As is I think it's a thinly-veiled attack at Stanford for what is far from unique behavior. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.44.212.48 ( talk • contribs) on 28 December 2006.
{{ histinfo}}
This article badly needs a lot of historical background! For instance, the way that law was taught prior to the creation of separate professional "law schools" ... -- lquilter 18:05, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
I removed a section about Illinois schools being included in state accredited law schools. Every law school in Illinois, as far as I know, is fully ABA accredited. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.194.130.70 ( talk) 04:12, 18 April 2007 (UTC).
Which undergrad degrees are typically held by students entering law school? Is there a statistic? Are there special undergrad degrees that specifically prepare for law school? Please add this information. -- 212.63.43.180 ( talk) 16:11, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
Any liberal arts degree will do. It doesn't really matter. My degree was in economics, as was my father's and sister's (both attorneys too).-- Davidwiz ( talk) 15:58, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
There are a growing number of science and engineering majors going to law schools as well. These people are usually eligible to sit for the USPTO registration examination (a/k/a the "patent bar"). -- Eastlaw ( talk) 08:02, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
I think it's a stretch to call William and Mary the oldest based on the lone undergraduate law professor that they had from 1779 on. Not sure when the real program got established, but that is not a conventional "law school" by any standard. bd2412 T 08:58, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
I have removed the Charleston Law School from the list of oldest active law schools, as it clearly does not belong there. Its public relations materials state: "The Charleston School of Law is rooted in tradition. In fact, its origins predate the formation of the oldest law school in the country." [3] However, this is not a statement that the schools itself predates anything at all. Hawaii's origins predate the American Revolution, but that doesn't make it the oldest state. bd2412 T 05:40, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
There are several reasons noted for why top law schools decline to teach doctrine as extensively as other law schools and instead focus on theory and analysis. The list is highly incomplete. All of the reasons focus on the academically-oriented nature of top schools, but that is one small part of the story.
Other reasons should be added because it is an important distinction between law schools and a big reason why higher ranked law schools are higher ranked.
Some to get started: top law schools don’t teach doctrine as much because they perhaps have less faith in doctrine as being useful. Being able to do the analysis is far more useful to legal professionals. The law changes all the time and being able to adapt to those changes and understand them is much more important than knowing what the law is at any given time. Moreover, even the clearest doctrine is a tenuous concept, so understanding how to do the analysis is useful for attacking a doctrine that on its face seems against you.
There are more reasons out there too; I just thought the section was misleading because of how limited it was. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.247.205.107 ( talk) 20:35, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
It's cited for five propositions but appears nowhere in the references. Great. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.253.90.111 ( talk) 04:06, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
He qualifies as WP:RS. While the particular material is WP:SPS, Vitiello is a professor at an ABA school (McGeorge) [4] and has published texts with West Publishing. See: OCLC 800041220 for just one. Thus he is a "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." The particular deleted material needs to be reconciled with what his particular article says, and cleaned up for citation format. -- S. Rich ( talk) 06:22, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
The section on criticism of law schools violates several Wikipedia policies, including: (1) Information must be verifiable -Many of the cites are to blogs and other unreliable sources. Much of the objective information (i.e., numbers, percentages) is inaccurate. (2) No disproportionate criticism -The criticism of law schools is longer than the description of law schools. (3) No original research Again, lots of stringing material together here. (4) Information must be noteworthy Off the cuff remarks and this one guy I knows blog or horror story are not noteworthy. Peer reviewed Empirical research in noteworthy.
I've tried to fix some of these problems, but it's a mess. Wikipedia is not supposed to be a blog. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 100.2.189.16 ( talk) 13:36, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
edited Controversy section to match generic "law school" search results and removed irrelevant and derogatory ad hominem Berknyc81 ( talk) 22:58, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
An editor removed references to an article called "The Economic Value of a Law Degree" on the grounds that draft articles should not be cited in wikipedia. This not the correct interpretation of Wikipedia policy on reliable sources in this case.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOURCES#Reliable_sources
Under Wikipedia policy, posting to SSRN constitutes publication. The article is authored by two well regarded, university based empirical researchers, and it has been widely covered in the national press.
Therefore, inclusion in Wikipedia is appropriate under Wikipedia policy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.190.187.213 ( talk) 16:16, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
It seems to me that section 7 on post-law school employment and section 10.1 on employment statistics and salary information should probably be consolidated as they sufficiently overlap in subject matter (including many citations to the same sources). I propose consolidating both under the latter heading because, as the citations in the article already show pretty well, and has been noted elsewhere, [1] the subject is a matter still under debate in the legal community. Sneekypat ( talk) 20:51, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
References
There seems to be some dispute as to how the finding of the Economic Value of a Law Degree source, and it's derivative sources (i.e., articles discussing it and relying on it) should be described. I changed the sentence "More recent press coverage by some higher education reporters has noted that peer reviewed studies and comprehensive data suggests that law graduates are still typically better off financially than they would be had they not attended law school, notwithstanding challenges facing recent graduates." to read "More recent press coverage by some higher education reporters has noted that peer reviewed studies and comprehensive data suggests that law graduates are still typically better off financially than they would be had they not attended a post-college graduate program, notwithstanding challenges facing recent graduates." (Emphasis mine). I did so because the study compared lifetime earnings of JD holders to lifetime earnings of those who obtained only a college degree and calculated a premium for the JD holders over the college degree holders. The study explicitly did not compare the lifetime earnings of JD holders to holders of all other degrees, such as medical degrees, doctoral degrees, or masters degrees. See 43 J. of Leg. Studies at 256 ("Below we report both OLS and quantile regression coefficients. To estimate the law degree earnings premium, we compare law degree holders to bachelor’s degree holders who are similar to law degree holders on many observable dimensions that predict earnings. We defer to later research the differences in earnings associated with law degrees compared with alternate graduate degrees." (emphasis mine)).
Another editor has reverted the change (in addition to moving a section currently under discussion for a different move on a different section of this talk page). I believe that the original language is potentially confusing as to the study's finding and seek consensus on how the description should be phrased. Sneekypat ( talk) 12:18, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
Am I the only one who thinks that the "oldest active law schools" section doesn't belong here? It's totally unsourced (as it would pretty much have to be), and it doesn't really serve a purpose in the article. I think we should delete it. agtx 22:22, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
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