Quote:
Originally Posted by KDCat
Respectfully, I've worked with judges and lawyers who have gone to schools from every level. I've known great judges and great lawyers from schools at every level. The quality of teaching is good at most schools. The quality of students isn't, however. There is a big difference between students at Cooley and students at a Tier 1 school. I'm sure there are good students at Cooley. On the whole, though, they're not as good as students at better schools.
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Respectfully, I too have worked with lawyers and judges who have gone to schools from every level. And I have also known great lawyers and judges and lousy lawyers and judges from schools at every level. One thing my experience has taught me is that I can't make any assumptions about a lawyer's ability, much less his or her "legal scholarship," based solely the name of the institution on that lawyer's diploma.
Low C Sharp has a point -- some schools do focus more on practice than on producing "scholars." That said, I have known more than a few "scholars" from so-called top 14 schools that have no clue how to be an effective lawyer (and who I would be horrified to see on the bench), and I know some
very competent scholars and jurists who came out of third tier schools that focus on the development of practitioners, not scholars.
But I guess some full disclosure is called for. I find the "tiers" for law schools about as meaningful as the "tiers" for sororities and fraternities -- which is to say, not very meaningful at all. Yes, it probably still matters if you want a seat at the US Supreme Court, and I'm sure it still matters for big firms in places like Washington and New York. But not being in either of those situations, I've never seen much value in the law school tiers beyond bragging rights. So, I tend to roll my eyes a bit when law schools start being compared by tiers and the like.
And just in the interests of full disclosure, my JD is from a so-called "Tier 1" (but not top 14) school.