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| | The new competitive and hierarchical society that the student is only being introduced to is suddenly being reinforced upon starting law school. This is where law school in many ways differentiates itself from many other types of graduate institutions. Law School of course creates elements of competition and hierarchy through its grading curve and doling out of titles, like Stone and Kent.
Law School...or Columbia Law School? |
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> | Was referring to Law Schools in general, though more specifically those in the same range as Columbia. |
| | But such elements run deeper than that. Students enter the law school with a concept of hierarchy due to the fact that their acceptance was based significantly on how they did in comparison to everyone else on a single test.
To me, this is dubious and based more on fiction than fact. For one, any concept of a hierarchy based on a test score would require knowing the test scores of their "colleagues." I know, maybe, a handful of test scores, including my own, and I do not think any hierarchy or concept of hierarchy formed based on that knowledge.
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> | My concept of hierarchy that I was trying to convey was a more general concept, rather than specifically within the school. I agree with your point about knowing other scores. My point was that the student is instilled with the idea of how the world is ordered in general, rather than just simply within the individual law class.
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| | And following the beginning of classes, students are asked to apply to a variety of programs and positions with limited seats, such as moot courts, fellowships, and board positions.
Is this unique to law school? I don't go to business school or medical school. I do agree, however, that these endeavors are competitive, and, the focus they achieve is sort of odd. We go to a professional school where we are learning a profession and yet an unhealthy amount of focus goes to moot court competitions and fellowships that will be dubiously helpful to most of us.
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> | I believe it is unique to law school. Med school at the beginning seems solely focused on the studies, students seem literally be 9-5 students or longer. I don't know specifically, but the sense I got from friends at other professional schools seems quite different. |
| | So from the first day the school creates an atmosphere that stratifies students on some level, and to ensure some sense of security in position, much like the members of the leisure class Veblen discusses, students who cannot for financial and cultural reasons demonstrate material wealth must look for other commodities to serve as a demonstration of their position in the micro-society of law school. First semester grades end up taking part of this role, and the lengths students go to try get top marks is similar to the investment people put into attaining material objects. In some sense, there is a similar fetishization of grades that one sees in certain material objects. And this process is continually renewed through new arenas, from summer job search to clinic/journal applications (law review serves a dominant role in this).
To paraphrase Eben on one of my past papers, the metaphrand is being stretched here. |
| | The problem the law student faces in her attempt to attain these titles and objects of status is the realization that they do not carry over after law school, let alone after the first year or two of law school.
Stone and Kent do not carry over after law school? Clerkships? (I agree, most extracurricular activities, moot court competitions, etc. will not. But I would not bunch them all together).
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> | You are correct. Stone and Kent do carry over. Was referring to extracurricular and others. Clerkships occur after law school, and seem to be increasingly dependent (for circuit court and Supreme Court) on working some time before the clerkship, usually at a firm. But I should have been more specific.
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| | So instead EIP becomes the gateway into a competition with a more lasting impact, as students compete to get into top law firms. Again, this decision is significantly colored by the ranking of the individual firm, with sights set on achieving the coveted title of associate at Sullivan or Wachtell, etc.
For some of us, it will be just to pay off the debt. I couldn't give half a shit about Sullivan or Wachtell.
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| | Just some initial comments for myself -mz
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> | Hope my comments will be helpful to you -dg
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