Harvard Law School

As Dean Kagan used to say to incoming 1L’s, “The competition is over; you’ve won.” Harvard has top-notch professors and a broad array of classes, without the infighting and undermining you might see elsewhere. As such, it is a collegial and collaborative environment.

Alumni

It was great being around so many diverse points of view and engaging in discussions with such intellegent students. But you have to get out there and socialize. It is a large school so if you are shy, you could get lost, but one of the benefits of the school is its student population. You learn more from them than the books. The easiest way to integrate yourself into the school is to be involved in the social organizations, many of which also help to take your mind of the stress of law school.

Alumni

Despite the portrayal in the Paper Chase, IL, etc., what most impressed me about HLS was how genuinely interested and involved most professors were in their students education. As someone interested (and now practicing) in international law, I also found the LLM students to be an unexpected strength to the school given their extremely varied and remarkable experiences. For example, in a class on the WTO, we had an LLM student who was part of the South African delegation to the Uruguay rounds. I also strongly recommend the clinical programs – I learned more practical skills in the asylum clinical than any of my classes and it was the most rewarding thing I’ve done.

Alumni

Harvard is at the forefront of reorienting the education toward teaching more practical skills while still maintaining the deep theoretical learning tradition and it has made great strides in the last few years. However, as with all law schools, it still needs to make more progress in this area.

Alumni

It was a totally sink-or-swim place. No one impeded you, but no one helped you either. (Note: the financial aid counseling was not “very unsatisfactory,”; it did not exist.)

Alumni

It’s HLS. You may have expectations regarding your social life, but you will be disappointed.

Alumni

It’s not as competitive as you think, at least if you get in with the right crowd. It does nothing to prepare you for the practice of law, though you can fix that by participating in a clinical, but that still won’t teach you anything about the practice of law at a law firm. I suspect that the school would find it demeaning to teach classes on client management and client development, making partner, or networking. Honestly, those skills are far more important and useful than anything I learned after first year. Otherwise, it’s Harvard, you’ll get a law firm job if you want one with that degree.

Alumni

My father once told me, “There are two law schools in this country. Harvard, and all the others.” He was right. Harvard grads emerge knowing far more future leaders of the legal profession and world of politics than grads of any other school.

Alumni

The pedigree is worth the debt.

Alumni

Large law school which offers excellent academic and clinical instruction. Comes with internationally-valued brand name – and extensive alumni network – that will amaze you with how many doors they will open for you. It tends to be biglaw focused; while there is a decent public interest community, those students report sometimes feeling outnumbered or marginalized (though I have heard similar complaints from YLS/SLS public interest alums, too.) While I felt that both the weather and the social scene left something to be desired, I do not regret attending. I feel that I received a solid legal grounding coupled with the prestige I needed to achieve my clerkship, BigLaw/financial, and ultimately public interest goals.

Alumni

HLS has a diverse faculty and student body and lots of smart folks running around. I found it to be less of a “paper chase” than expected since if you do reasonably well you should be able to get a pretty darn good job coming out of there.

Alumni

Effectively unlimited opportunities if you’re not an idiot. Two V20 firms and a Fortune 500 in-house gig later, it is readily apparent I made the right choice – even aside from Harvard’s prestige and quality of education, the size and depth of its network has been a significant positive factor in my career trajectory. (Harvard’s size is decisively counted against it in some surveys, but this fails to account for its social benefits both during and after law school.)

Alumni

Harvard is a choose-your-own-adventure kind of school. There are so many activities that it’s easy to be overwhelmed, or overcommit. I would recommend Harvard to people that know what they want out of their law career.

Alumni

You go there knowing you’re paying a lot of money (unless you get financial aid); in return, your job prospects are just about the best they can be. The professors are all the big names, and they live up to the hype (for the most part), but some of your classmates will be insufferable–though that may just be a part of the legal profession.

Alumni

It’s not perfect, but it will make your life incalculably easier by opening doors. The Harvard degree brings a great deal of respect. Also, you will find many intelligent and interesting classmates. The variety of course offerings is great, too.

Alumni