Wherein Harvard Law School Hits Itself Over the Head With a Silly Stick

We’ve always admired Harvard Law School. It struck us as a place of high seriousness. It didn’t succumb to the latest trends in legal education. It didn’t train philsopher-kings; it trained LAWYERS, dammit.
So what if its students were kinda miserable? They got the best, most rigorous legal education money could buy. In short, HLS was bad-ass.
But recent events call into question our veneration for Harvard Law School. The Law School seems to be getting squishy on us. They have revamped their 1L curriculum, to place greater emphasis on touchy-feely topics like “international law.” And now we learn this (from an HLS tipster):

HLS is considering renaming the sections, previously assigned numbers (Sections 1 through 7), with actual names. Just when I think people can’t get more ridiculous…

See attached PDF for a Student Government survey. I like how they would consider naming sections after prominent donors!

Here’s our favorite question from the survey:

Our tipster suggested “porn stars, Care-Bears, and favorite sections of the MPC.”
Not bad; but we have two more ideas. Section names should facilitate healthy inter-section rivalry, as well as “trash talking.” Here are our suggestions:
1. Feeder Judges: You might as well name the sections after things HLS students actually care about. That’s why naming them after random dead alumni (see option F) is so stupid. Who wants to be in the “Jonathan Witherspoon IV Section”?
Naming sections after feeder judges makes much more sense. It lends itself well to assertions of team spirit:

“I’m in the Boudin section. Judge Boudin sent all of his clerks to the Court this Term. He rules!!!”

“I’m in the Kozinski section. He sent all his clerks to the Court too. And the Ninth Circuit is way cooler than the First Circuit — what a backwater!”

2. Celebrities With Legal Problems: The beauty of this section-naming scheme is that the category is continually expanding. The well never runs dry. And it’s terribly fun. Who wouldn’t want to be in the “O.J. Simpson Section” or the “Winona Ryder Section”?
Once again, there’s excellent trash-talking potential:

“We’re in the Michael Jackson Section. We’re the Kings of Pop — and of Torts!”

“Too bad you can’t keep your hands off teenage boys. We’re the Anna Nicole Smith section. Sure, we sleep around. But at least the people we sleep with have undergone puberty!”

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If you’d like to see the HLS Student Government survey, we reprint it in full after the jump.


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