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Study: ‘Millennials’ More Collaborative, Private Law Schools More Challenging

Posted Jan 3, 2008 1:20 PM CST
By Molly McDonough

So-called millennial students who have opted for law school continue to be more collaborative, social and engaged in resumé-boosting activities than older students, a new study released today reveals.

Older students, however, reported doing more to prepare for class and participate in classroom discussions.

The 2007 Law School Survey of Student Engagement (PDF) is compiled with information about student behavior from more than 27,000 students at 79 law schools, Inside Higher Ed reports.

Inside Higher Ed notes that compared to other students, younger 1Ls were more likely to work with peers outside of class and spend time socializing.

TaxProf Blog summarizes additional findings, including that African-American students ask more questions and participate more often in class discussions; private schools are more academically challenging than public schools, and more than 33 percent of students will graduate with more than $100,000 in law school loans.

Yet more than 75 percent of those surveyed rated their law school experience as good or excellent.

Comments

1.

BIGLAW 1ST YEAR
Jan 4, 2008 7:41 AM CST

The TaxProf Blog makes a sneaky point:  affirmative action is hurting black students.  Asking numerous questions and participating a lot in class discussion is typically the sign of a student who is confused and not on the same page of other students.  Many “gunner” questions/rants are irrelevant, waste class time, and make the rest of the students a little dumber.  If only admission to law school was based on merit, this problem would be minimized.

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2.

BIGLAW 1ST YEAR
Jan 4, 2008 7:43 AM CST

The TaxProf Blog makes a sneaky point:  affirmative action is hurting black students.  Asking numerous questions and participating a lot in class discussions is typically the sign of a student who is confused and not on the same page of other students.  Many “gunner” questions/rants are irrelevant, waste class time, and make the rest of the students a little dumber.  If only admission to law school was based on merit, this problem would be minimized.

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3.

Re-Tread
Jan 4, 2008 8:59 AM CST

The so-called conclusions in this study are so broad as to be laughable.  The idea that older students are less social or engaged outside of class might just stem from the fact that older students may be working to support a family while going to school or have other obligations.  Younger students likely have the time to socialize because they are on “daddy’s dime.”  None of that makes one strata or the other more worthy or better attorneys. If someone is going to do a study, let’s get some data and conclusions that mean something!

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4.

Tom
Jan 4, 2008 9:20 AM CST

When did the ABA start censoring posts?  Isn’t this America?  Has anyone else’s message been called spam?

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5.

Molly McDonough
Jan 4, 2008 9:27 AM CST

Send the comment to me so that I can find out why it ended up in a spam filter. - Molly McDonough, AME/Online, ABA Journal
http://www.abajournal.com/authors/3#sendmessage

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6.

Simon
Jan 4, 2008 9:57 AM CST

BIGLAW 1ST YEAR… sadly your statement is exactly why affirmative action is needed.  TaxProf did not make the point you eluded to.  Black student participating in class does not equate to confusion.  I’d like to know how a first year student could know better than the actual professor making the observation.  You are just looking for anyway/anything to support your own prejudice….

Maybe Black students are actually INTERESTED in the class….

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7.

Elite Firm 4th Year
Jan 4, 2008 10:01 AM CST

To Big Law 1st Year - despite the first sentence of your post, it’s clear that you are in no way concerned about the success of black law students.  I find it astonishing how people on law blogs sieze upon any opportunity possible to attack affirmative action (read express their racist views).  If only people like you understood that acess to institutions of higher education in this country has never been solely about merit.

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8.

soljer
Jan 4, 2008 10:43 AM CST

Seriously, if the ABA is going to publish an article about a study containing such conclusive and controversial assertions, it could at the least provide the basis of such assertions.  Afterall, the ABA is part of the legal profession last I checked.  If I wanted an oversimplified 30 second discussion on complex issues with one-liner solutions I would watch the television news!  Get it together ABA.

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9.

BIGLAW 1ST YEAR
Jan 4, 2008 11:08 AM CST

To Elite Firm 4th Year, isn’t your statement a little overboard equating anyone who attacks affirmative action to being a racist?  Numerous studies have showed, as has my experience, that affirmative action actually hurts minorities because they are let into schools for which they are ill-equipped.  For example, at my school not a single black person made order of the coif?  Coincidence?  I don’t think so.

It makes me sad because but-for affirmative action, I believe many of the black students could have achieved this honor at lower-ranked schools.  It is people like you that continue this oppression and hold minorities down. 

Moreover, need I even mention the fact that affirmative action is inherently racist against non-preferred groups such as whites and to an ever-growing extent asians? 

To Simon, I am a first year at a law firm, not in law school.  Get it?  BIGLAW?

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10.

Jason Dickstein
Jan 4, 2008 11:17 AM CST

I agree that questions in law school are NOT irrelevant.  I taught as a law school adjunct for five years and I currently teach regulatory compliance classes for businesses in the aerospace industry.  I have found that most questions tend to be from either (1) students who do not understand a point (perhaps because I have poorly explained it), and there are usually a dozen others who do not understand but are too embarrassed to ask, or (2) students seeking to probe the issue deeper in order to gain further insight.  There are also students who make statements that are little more than regurgitations for the sake of hearing themselves speak, but while they tend to stick out in your mind, I find they are really a minority of the real questions in a well-run classroom setting.

I am not sure that the blog really made any point about affirmative action, but I am sure that I DISAGREE with the assessment that questions are “irrelevant, waste class time, and make the rest of the students a little dumber.”

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11.

Simon
Jan 4, 2008 11:55 AM CST

Biglaw…. Did you make order of the coif?  Does the fact that 90 PERCENT of the school does not make Order of the Coif mean that those 90 are unworthy for the school?  Also affirmative action is not just for Black people… it is for the under represented.. which in the legal field is every non white male person between the ages of 25 and 48.

They way YOU think and over generalize is the reason affirmative action is needed in this country

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12.

BIGLAW 1ST YEAR
Jan 4, 2008 12:30 PM CST

In response to Jason Dickstein’s post, I did not say all questions are irrelevant.  “Many ‘gunner’ questions/rants are irrelevant, waste class time, and make the rest of the students a little dumber.”  Quite obviously, “many” does not equal “all.”  Further, my statement only applies to gunners, defined in post #1.

To clarify, when a person has established himself/herself as a “gunner,” I would posit that most of the questions coming from him/her are irrelevant.  Again, this is speaking from experience.  In my first year contracts class we went over the mailbox rule for 5 class periods!  The professor technically finished it after day 1, but the next 4 days were nonstop questions/hypos from two 2 black students.  Because of these students, the whole class was responsible for the last few chapters of the book which we never got to go over in class due lack of time.  Thus, the whole class was hurt in an effort to improve the understanding of these two confused students. 

When 1 student (or a small gang) dominates class discussion, something is wrong.  At my school, we had 6 people like this—5 were minorities and 1 was a white girl of low intelligence who I believe got accepted because her father is the second largest donor to our school. 

And for the record, although I don’t see how it matters, I made order of the coif (actually a lot higher than top 10%).  Since I am a young white male who had to fight to get accepted to a good school, I don’t think this should come as a surprise.  Again, the point is, if minorities are generally doing poorly at all schools, isn’t it time to rethink affirmative action?

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13.

Anonymous Lawyer
Jan 4, 2008 2:49 PM CST

The problem with affirmative action at the law school and law firm hiring level is that it helps only those minority candidates who are already very, very privileged.  In my law school class (at a top 20 school), the only people who got the coveted big law summer associate positions the first summer were those who got “diversity fellowships” or some such thing.  The rest of us worked for nonprofits, etc.  The following summer, the vast majority of those students continued with the same diversity fellowship, or got another one, while very, very few white students got summer associate positions at big law firms in our city.  The trend continued after graduation, with the same minority candidates, who are not necessarily the top students, hardest workers, or best lawyers, getting the vast majority of the big law jobs in our graduating class.
Even as a woman who chose to go the nonprofit route after graduation, I can see how ridiculously unfair that is.

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14.

Anonymous Lawyer
Jan 4, 2008 2:50 PM CST

Also, I can attest to the fact that some of the obviously less-qualified affirmative action students struggled with the academic rigor during law school.

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15.

CENSORSHIP
Jan 4, 2008 5:50 PM CST

Why is the ABA screening select posts, calling them potentially “spam,” and then never posting them?  I would like some answers.  I, for one, want to know what my fellow lawyers think, regardless of whether I agree or disagree with their opinions.  I have never seen spam on here, which leads me to the conclusion that the ABA is trying to censor certain viewpoints.

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16.

Chauntel Bland
Jan 6, 2008 10:16 PM CST

This is to BIGLAW 1st Year. It is your arguments that actually underscore the need for affirmative action. This need is because African-American are still perceived as inferior despite the fact that the Thurgood Marshalls, the Johnny Cochrans, and the Barack Obamas of this world have proven that black are more than capable of being successful in the law profession.

You should really examine yourself when you make these anti-affirmative action statements. You obviously assume that all black students are in law school because of affirmative action or did not genuinely earn their spot. And you accuse others in this blog of overgeneralizing.
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!

Are you equally outraged about affluent, wealthy students (who are often white) who get into law school not on their academic success but because their parents contribute to the endowment fund? I seriously doubt! Of course in your world I am sure it is inconceivable that a white person would be in law school on anything less than merit!

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