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1. Posted by Ellen Barshevsky - 1 month, 4 weeks, 1 day, 9 hours, 17 minutes ago

   Not a good idea. 

   In college I got good grades, but when it came to applying to law school, I did NOT apply to Harvard, Yale or Princeton.

   Why?  Because I knew it would be difficult to be at the top.

   Now, if there are no grades, how can you distinguish between someone smart and a dummy?

   I know a person who graduated Yale law, and he was so dumb that he could NOT stay past the 2nd year.  He failed the bar twice, was lazy and thought he was all that.

   Well, I figured him out right away, but the partners always treated him very specially.  I think I know why, but when he didn’t do work, did NOT come in early or stay late and failed the bar 2x, even the partner agreed he should not stay.

   In college, I took a course pass/fail, and did well.  But no one knows that now. But the Men did nothing in class.  The professor liked me, and that is because I cared.  Others didn’t.  They were lazy because of the pass/fail, and would be very stupid if they did not AT LEAST pass.

   
   So without grades, can this go on even more?  I say yes.  Do we really want dummies at work to have to be caried by us?  No.

   I know that other people share my views on this.

2. Posted by Michael Huerta - 1 month, 4 weeks, 1 day, 8 hours, 28 minutes ago

   I disagree, I think it is a great idea for Harvard grads. This move by Harvard will give the bottom 50 percent of the class who were having difficulties securing jobs at large law firms the edge they need to get hired in this tough economy. Most people shouldn’t worry about this anyway, the only folks who will suffer are those who end up at the bottom 50 percent of other top tier schools or those at the top of their class in second tier schools. The majority of law students don’t fall into either category, further the informal alumni hiring opportunities will probably help a large portion of the people who might be affected otherwise. So, this is not a big deal in my opinion.

3. Posted by LaBette - 1 month, 4 weeks, 1 day, 8 hours, 16 minutes ago

   If they can prove that a C from Harvard is as good or better than any higher grade from any other school then I think the change will be meaningful and good. I am not familiar with the competitive culture at Harvard, but maybe it will be a better experience for everyone who attends.

4. Posted by Jimmy - 1 month, 4 weeks, 1 day, 7 hours, 53 minutes ago

   This is yet another example of the dumbing down of the United States and the championing of mediocrity.  For years liberal educational theory has advocated that giving grades saps the confidence of those students who are “less academically gifted.“  Here is a news flash: intelligence varies from person to person.  Like it or not, some people are smarter than others.  This decision by Harvard is to create the illusion that those in the bottom of the class are just as intelligent and/or driven as those at the top of the class.  Do you not think that an employer would rather have someone in the top 5% of the class than in the bottom 5%?  With no grades, how is that evaluation to be made?

   Congratulations to the liberal pinheads at Harvard Law for taking our country farther down the slippery slope of mediocrity.

5. Posted by Duke - 1 month, 4 weeks, 1 day, 7 hours, 42 minutes ago

   I’m a law professor.  I can tell you from experience that grading improves performance.  It increases the level of class interest and class discussion.  It’s good for everyone (except law professors,  who have to write and grade exams.)

6. Posted by GM - 1 month, 4 weeks, 1 day, 7 hours, 29 minutes ago

   What grading more importantly improves is learning.  Law students are serious and motivated, but they are still young and unaware.  Without the added incentive of the grading system, they generally will not make the extraordinary effort needed to learn everything they ought to learn.  There is a big difference between the top and the bottom of any class.  That’s a fact of life, and shielding students from it only stores up the greater pain of later failure.

7. Posted by Justin - 1 month, 4 weeks, 1 day, 7 hours, 6 minutes ago

   I have mixed feelings.  I do believe that grades boost performance and motivation, however, grades are NOT indicative of the ability to be a lawyer.  I know people who were at the top of the class but have no idea how to practice law.  Book smarts do not equate being good at something other than studying and taking tests.  I’m not sure if eliminating grades altogether is the right approach, but less attention needs to be placed with grades by potential employers and schools so that the bottom portion of the class has more opportunities.

8. Posted by J. Williams - 1 month, 4 weeks, 1 day, 6 hours, 55 minutes ago

   I am a law student at a second tier school in Boston and from my perspective I have been passed over for interview because of the school that I attend although I’m just as smart, I worked harder (balancing a full-time job), and have the intellectual capacity to give an exceptional performance at any firm. But I find that people automatically categorize how well you will do in a firm or other legal position based on performance at your school and what school you attend. I feel that Harvard Students at the bottom of their class will definitely benefit from from this change and it does not mean that all students in the bottom are dumb. I am not familiar enough with Harvard grading policies before the change but most law schools have a grading curve based on the size of the class and you have to work extremely hard to rise about that curve which is the standard at your institution. Its been a topic of heavy debate at my school and with the elimination of grades it could put heavier emphasis on other aspects of your resume (law review, moot court, extracurriculars, leadership development) which I believe could be a double-edged sword because more firms could be focused on WHERE you go to school because they have nothing else to measure your potential level of success. Regardless, most people think that a degree from Harvard is a golden parachute anyway so the rest of us that work hard at our NON-Harvard schools and network even more aggressively to even have a chance to show our capabilities at a firm.

9. Posted by Boston Attorney - 1 month, 4 weeks, 1 day, 6 hours, 30 minutes ago

   I am a partner at a large Boston firm, and in my short 8 years of experience have generally been very under-whelmed by Harvard grads.  They tend to be elitist, think they deserve everything, and think they know more than other associates who went to non-ivy league schools, even if those associates have been out of law school for a few years.  But when the pressure is on, the Harvard grads aren’t the shinning star they think they are.  Give me a hard worker from BC, BU, UConn, Suffolk or pretty much any other school, and I’ll usually have a very appreciative associate who will work hard and pump out good work.  Yes, and before everyone screams at me about generalizations, I have gotten some duds from these other schools, but not as many as Harvard.  I’ve also attended classes at Harvard (mostly undergrad) and am not impressed with anything there.  It’s all about getting in - but once your in, pretty much everyone gets good grades.  But now without the grades, I can’t even tell the good mediocre from the bad mediocre.  But hey, now a bunch of liberals feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

10. Posted by Dan - 1 month, 4 weeks, 1 day, 6 hours, 21 minutes ago

    “But hey, now a bunch of liberals feel all warm and fuzzy inside.“

    We are talking about an Ivy League institution, one of the most expensive universities in the world, right? Don’t be mislead by the fact that it resides in the People’s Republic of Cambridge.

11. Posted by Bill - 1 month, 4 weeks, 1 day, 6 hours, 17 minutes ago

    #9 pretty much has it nailed (except for the gratuitous anti-liberal gobbledygook at the end). Schools like Harvard are all about getting in. I doubt that the lowest ranked student at HLS really has a difficult time getting a job. I think this move is, just like their refusal to disclose incoming LSAT and GPA stats, just another method to preserve Harvard’s perhaps largely unjustified prestigious image.

12. Posted by Dan C. - 1 month, 4 weeks, 1 day, 6 hours, 14 minutes ago

    Ellen,
    It is a good thing you did not apply to Princeton for law school.  If you had, I don’t think you would have gotten in.  I’ll let you figure out why.

13. Posted by silencedogood - 1 month, 4 weeks, 1 day, 6 hours, 13 minutes ago

    Every one gets a ribbon…

    I agree, this is more of the same in dumbing things down.  I’m no fan of the curve in every class—example was PR where the difference between A+ and C was 100% vs 97%—but there needs to be some way to evaluate how well a student absorbed the material.  This system just proves they showed up and didn’t sustain a head injury that semester.

14. Posted by Princeton Law Grad - 1 month, 4 weeks, 1 day, 6 hours, 8 minutes ago

    Hey I got into Princeton Law, as well as MIT and Dartmouth Law Schools!

15. Posted by Not Surprised - 1 month, 4 weeks, 1 day, 5 hours, 49 minutes ago

    Prior to this shift, I’ve heard HLS students justify grade inflation (3.5 1L curve) as resulting from the quality of the students (competition).  I’m not going to bash HLS, I believe the quality of students surpasses 90+% of non-Yale, Stanford, or Columbia students.

    This is not to say that justifies grade inflation or no/pass grading systems.  Quite the contrary, the institution’s name on a diploma you receive reveals what prestige bracket you fit into.  A 3.0 curve system would encourage competition.

    As for making it easier to find a job… if you’re in the bottom half of HLS and can’t get a well-paying firm job, that speaks more to your social ineptitude than anything else, trust me.

16. Posted by clark - 1 month, 4 weeks, 1 day, 5 hours, 36 minutes ago

    As someone who ranked third from last year in my 1L class I have no faith in law school grades or curves.  My GPA is the product of a system that is working to create a 100% artificial ranking system so that lazy employers don’t have to figure out for themselves the worth of a perspective employee. Over the summer I volunteered for a lawyer who 1. never asked me for my grades, 2. went to Harvard btw and 3. thinks I’m amazing, since I almost single handedly won him a murder case.  Take that!

17. Posted by KM - 1 month, 4 weeks, 1 day, 5 hours, 34 minutes ago

    As a graduate of a 2nd tier school in Philadelphia, I know for a fact that students in the bottom half of HLS classes, don’t deserve any pity. I busted my hump in law school and was repeatedly passed over by big firms, whereas as my sister, who graduated from Harvard, had firms near and far tripping over themselves to recruit her despite her mediocre grades. As long as many big law firm hiring partners use pedigree as the main criteria for recruitment, many hardworking, deserving law students will be shut out. Unless and until all law schools eliminate grades and place all students on a level playing field, Harvard students will continue to have an unfair advantage and this will only widen the gap and make it harder for smart students everywhere to get job opportunities.

18. Posted by gw 1L - 1 month, 4 weeks, 1 day, 5 hours, 12 minutes ago

    To Ellen Barshevsky @ comment #1: Did Princeton ever have a law school? (I’m not being condescending; I’d just like to know.)

19. Posted by gw 1L - 1 month, 4 weeks, 1 day, 5 hours, 5 minutes ago

    Ellen Barshevsky, I get it now! You must be really really old. Like McCain old. #12 and #14 and just mean bullies. Shame on them.

20. Posted by Leslie Ballantyne - 1 month, 4 weeks, 1 day, 4 hours, 54 minutes ago

    At the end of the day, how is an “Honors/Pass/Low Pass/Fail” system all that different from A/B/C/F??  As an HLS grad, I can say that it was hard to get an A or a C, and most people ended up with some variant of a B (whether outright, plus or minus).  So now, most people will “Pass.“  When I was in law school I did hear some employers say that they preferred and understood a letter-grading system to the Yale/Stanford model, which they coudn’t quite figure out.

21. Posted by BC - 1 month, 4 weeks, 1 day, 4 hours, 42 minutes ago

    Everyone is so mean to Ellen all the time.  Ellen, sweety, Princeton doesn’t have a law school.  Be careful what you write.

    On a note on the Harvard dropping the grades, Dear Lord.  Do they really need anything else to give them an advantage.  I know a Harvard education will pretty much get you anywhere you want to go, but to flaunt it…wow.

22. Posted by sirgawain - 1 month, 4 weeks, 1 day, 4 hours, 41 minutes ago

    Who cares what the liberal pinheads at a leftist school like HLS do?  I’ve met plenty a moron from HLS (from all rungs of the class rank) and plenty a brilliant mind also, just like from any other law school.  From my personal experience, law school grades (like the LSAT) are generally not a good indicator of your ability as a lawyer but they are a convenient metric.  Employers who don’t bother to look under the hood of applicants and settle for high GPAs are often getting short changed.  A recommendation to second-tier law students: do something meaningful between college and law school so you have a good reason for employers to look under your hood.

23. Posted by Good Question - 1 month, 4 weeks, 1 day, 4 hours, 26 minutes ago

    People keep mentioning that GPAs aren’t a good metric; but, what would be a better one to go by?  Really, can you expect to glean what you really need to know about a candidate in a 20-30 minute interview or over a meal?  I think the GPA and school is the best indicater of future performance.  Anyone who says differently, please give me more than a few anomolous examples of poor performers who were great performers at highly ranked schools.  ‘Preciate it:-)

24. Posted by Dan - 1 month, 4 weeks, 1 day, 3 hours, 54 minutes ago

    Harvard has finally come out of the “easy” closet.  I think it’s pretty clear that with most Ivy League schools, the most difficult part is getting in.  Since everyone pretty much gets all A’s and B’s, why not just change it to a system where everybody passes?  Everyone does anyway.

    And regarding some of the comments below:  I find the “What about the bottom half at Harvard?  Give them a chance!“ comment laughable.  Give other schools a chance.

25. Posted by DCBarrister08 - 1 month, 4 weeks, 1 day, 3 hours, 50 minutes ago

    Princeton doesn’t have a law school. It only offers a co-op in criminal justice from John Jay. Really not a good idea to lie on an ABA blog…just sayin’

    As a 2008 law school graduate (Suffolk) it is surprising that law schools out of the ring of the top five don’t prepare law school students for the vicious, guerilla style networking it takes to land a job out here. Big law firms use placement offices consisting of decision makers who never spent a second in law school and have no way to fairly or fully measure talent or potential.

    When I was in my so-called mediocre law school I dominated in class discussions. I also dominated in class discussions when I took a course at Harvard sitting alongside Harvard law students. It comes down to skill and law school grades are the lamest way to measure what a person will do in the field. Some of the best lawyers I know out here don’t even talk about grades they just urged me to get through the bar and get out there and work.

26. Posted by Bill - 1 month, 4 weeks, 1 day, 3 hours, 44 minutes ago

    And now you’re dominating an online comments forum! Way to go!

27. Posted by Shade - 1 month, 4 weeks, 1 day, 3 hours, 41 minutes ago

    Bill, one comment out of 27 versus your post which I read as being “11 months, 4 weeks, 2 days, 9 hours, 59 minutes ago”...not a bad thing to infer that you’re not one of the top 50% in or from your law school or that you couldn’t get a return email from a major law school in New England. :)

28. Posted by Jodie - 1 month, 4 weeks, 1 day, 3 hours, 28 minutes ago

    As a current law student grades motivate me to study.  The desire to perform well and stay at the top of my class keeps me burning the midnight oil.  In a pass/fail system I would likely just go to bed or watch some TV.

29. Posted by Older Guy - 1 month, 4 weeks, 1 day, 3 hours, 19 minutes ago

    I am actually a mediocre HLS grad from back in the day. My grades were not horrible, just eh. (a little under a B+ average). So under this new system would not be distinguishable from the brainiacs who really grasped “the law”? That doesn’t make any sense. I agree that it would seem to help the lower echelons of HLS students, and penalize the superstars. And believe me, there are some people there who really do blow you away with their insights. The future law profs, that is.

    So what will the Law Review do now? Will it use a pure “write on” system?

30. Posted by OClawyer - 1 month, 4 weeks, 1 day, 3 hours, 6 minutes ago

    So no more grades at HLS?  Big deal.  My employers have never asked me about grades once.  The area that needs the most work in the entire law school process is not grading but admissions.  When more law schools across the east coast dominated tier system start putting less weight to LSATs and GPAs for admissions and more weight on other positive substance areas of their respective applicants the profession will actually start to receive dividends.

31. Posted by Mark Buchanan - 1 month, 4 weeks, 1 day, 2 hours, 49 minutes ago

    24. “Look under the hood of applicants?“  Hmm.  An unfortunate analogy.

32. Posted by David R. Brink - 1 month, 4 weeks, 1 day, 2 hours, 39 minutes ago

    The LSAT and other screening devices eliminated the worst misfits in law school applications. And we all know that grades aren’t everything.  But the increasing tendency to homogenize law school records will do two bad things. First, it will make the job of those hiring graduates for law firms, the courts, governmen, or even the law schools,  more difficault and hit-or-miss. Second, homogenization will increase dependence on the mere fact of what law school one graduated from.  (“The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.“)  We should remember that performance in the school is a better predicter than the mere identity of the law school one graduated from.  Dave Brink

33. Posted by checking in - 1 month, 4 weeks, 1 day, 2 hours, 31 minutes ago

    Hey Everyone….the “Ellen” character is joke. She posts the most retarded things to get a rise out of everyone. Exhibit A—> no law school at Princeton.

    As for the topic….let them go to a no grade system. Sure employers use it as a standard of hiring, and without it some other meaningless factor now attains a higher relevance. In the end….your success as a lawyer depends on how YOU are at practicing law and getting clients. Rainmaking is not taught at law school, so there’s only pass/fail in the real world, in that respect. (No A’s or B’s for good effort….just rich or broke)

34. Posted by IAgree - 1 month, 4 weeks, 1 day, 1 hour, 30 minutes ago

    We ALL know that law school grades are are worthless and meaningless.

    In professional practice, your ethics, industry, due diligence, and hardwork matter…  not your GPA from law school.

35. Posted by Bobby Guei - 1 month, 4 weeks, 1 day, 1 hour, 6 minutes ago

    Nobody cares about whether Princeton has a law school or not.  The question is: What does Ellen Barshevsky’s boyfriend think about this issue?

36. Posted by ivy league sucks - 1 month, 4 weeks, 23 hours, 35 minutes ago

    First crooked ivy league bankers screw wall street.  Now we won’t know if the worst person at Harvard is any better than the best student.  Are the students that stupid at Harvard these days?

    It isn’t worth hiring someone from Harvard.  You can get better qaulity from other schools.

37. Posted by Bobbie Ray - 1 month, 4 weeks, 23 hours, 32 minutes ago

    I agree with #9.  Give me a student from any state university in the top 20% over a Harvard, Yale, NYU grad.  Most Harvard lawyers cannot handle extreme pressure.

38. Posted by R - 1 month, 4 weeks, 23 hours, 22 minutes ago

    Another term for a “modified pass-fail” system is a GRADING SCALE.

    Only the names have been changed. Some schools grade A through F. Others (Columbia Law, for example) grade E (Excellent), VG (Very Good), G (Good), P (Pass) and F (Fail).

    It’s all the same.

    Was Yale pass-fail when George W. Bush went there? And Harvard Business School? That would explain a lot.

39. Posted by Gabriel J. - 1 month, 4 weeks, 23 hours, 4 minutes ago

    Who cares?  Grades, I mean.  The only time I really cared about grades was in college b/c I wanted to hve the option of going to a good law school.  And I did:  UCLA Law.  But once I was in law school, it was about taking interesting courses and learning as much as i could.  Yeah, I tried to get good grades (at least that first semester) , but after a while, you realize that grades don’t really matter.  Ten years later, I don’t have anybody asking me about my GPA.  It DOESN’T MATTER.  I know it matters to those who want to go into large law firms- and I suppose if that’s your goal, then I really can’t convince you otherwise.  I’m just thinking that one misses the point about “having to distinguish” between really, really smart and not-so-smart law students.  Once you begin practicing law, if you have the passion to be a good lawyer, then you will be one; if you don’t, no matter how good your grades were, you’ll never be that great.  Passion for the practice of law is really what matters, not the grades.

40. Posted by Southwestern 1L - 1 month, 4 weeks, 22 hours, 3 minutes ago

    As a 1L in a 3rd-4th tier law school (depending on the year), I’m constantly stressing about my GRADES.  Yes, I know I’m passing all my courses—even my writing course, but that won’t allow me to get a good summer job after my second year, nor will it allow me to transfer. 

    All we hear about in school forums these days is how impossible it is in this economy to get a job right out of law school.  “People are coming to my office asking to work for free,“ says a speaker at a Women in Entertainment Law panel. 

    What about us?  It may sound competitive or bitter, but I want those bottom 50% at Harvard to have a harder time getting a job, because the bottom 50% at my school may not get jobs right away at all. 

    Work hard and be in the top of your class or I think the world should know you didn’t and you weren’t.

41. Posted by R - 1 month, 4 weeks, 21 hours, 48 minutes ago

    Another example of political correctness and dumbing down to the least common denominator.  Having no “connections,“ I elected to go to Harvard Law School over Yale in part because the grading at Harvard, with what was then a very steep B/B+ peaked curve, would give me the opportunity to distinguish myself, whereas in Yale almost every grade for almost every student in almost every course was said to be likely to be the same generic “pass.“  I was not disappointed.  I came in third in my section and on that basis was one of the 20 1Ls who made Law Review on grades.  For a long time now, the standards for Law Review have also been muddied with non-objective criteria and the coin thereby considerably cheapened.  This change will serve to hurt the truly outstanding students far more than it might help the job prospects or egos of those in the bottom half of the class.

42. Posted by MW - 1 month, 4 weeks, 20 hours, 41 minutes ago

    Cambridge University (UK) provides a BA Law (Honours) (US JD Equivalent) unless a student achieves Third Class exam results.

43. Posted by Willem DeDonis - 1 month, 4 weeks, 3 hours, 19 minutes ago

    You have to be smart, or know someone, or be a mnority to get in to Harvard.  After you’re in, you have to be an imbecile not to graduate.  That’s why there are so many dilweeds out there with a HLS degree.  Only about 1/3 of them are any good.  Do the math for yourself.

44. Posted by littlelawyer - 1 month, 4 weeks, 2 hours, 59 minutes ago

    I thought Yale was always pass/fail or graduate with honors or graduate (same thing?).  I guess I know nothing.

45. Posted by Really? - 1 month, 4 weeks, 1 hour, 28 minutes ago

    Is this a very late April Fool’s joke?

46. Posted by Prof. P J GAMMARANO - 1 month, 4 weeks, 1 hour, 2 minutes ago

    I so relate to the Law professor (cite: #5, supra, Friday 3 October 2008) who mentioned how much work s/he works.  As a professor at the undergraduate level, I have been doing assignments on a pass / fail basis for years, which takes any fear of failure out of a course, but the aggregate is by (noted) college policy reflected in a grade.
    I would dissent on a move to Pass /Fail grading across the board on a course by course basis.
    The closest I got to Harvard was to do their walking tour, yet this opinion would probably reflect the pinions of many in the instructor’s position, so as to say that some differentiation other than pass & fail evaluation is not the worst thing.

47. Posted by orange country community college law school studen - 1 month, 3 weeks, 6 days, 18 hours, 35 minutes ago

    plz leave ellen and her boyfriend alone.

48. Posted by Chauntel - 1 month, 3 weeks, 6 days, 17 hours, 43 minutes ago

    Good for Harvard! Maybe some other law schools will follow suit. Law school grading is notoriously arbitrary. The difference between an “A” and a “C+“ in a particular class often is directly related to the professor rather than the quality of work. Then, the people who always get the “A” often have good connections where they can get access to good outlines. Moreover, grade normalization is terrible preparation for the practice of law. All it does is encourage an unhealthy competitive culture which often carries over the their professional career.

49. Posted by Anthony F. Akins, ESQ - 1 month, 3 weeks, 6 days, 6 hours, 40 minutes ago

    As a Senior Partner at a high Profile Intellectual Property Law Firm, I interview applicants every year, and I use grades as 50% of my process, Interview 20%, and 30% review of our in house designed testing. I have found good and bad from Ivy & Non Ivy. I believe that HLS is moving to this pass / fail approach to continue to justify the crazy prices they charge for tuition. If you were a parent footing the bill or were required to maintain a certain GPA to continue to receive government funds, etc; you can see why HLS is trying to get rid of grades. Colleges are nothing, but big businesses, and schools like Harvard and Yale, are places where the rich can send there children, so that they can be a part of a so called Elite group. There are also well qualified students at these Institutions. When I graduated from Law School 20+ years ago, being in the top 3-5% of your class was the key to the top firms; however the lower % did get jobs, but most had to work for the Government for a few years and prove themselves, worthy. Grades, and the right undergraduate degree, were the keys to my success, and I guess my Ivy League education did not hurt.

50. Posted by 2008 unemployed law grad - 1 month, 3 weeks, 5 days, 14 hours, 5 minutes ago

    I wish my law school (# 50 or 51 on the list) had used the high pass/pass/fail system like HLS is doing now, just as most medical schools I’ve ever heard of use for evaluating their students.  A law school should NOT bow to the big firms’ wishes alone, which they do by using rankings and letter grades with - and + details.  It is unfortunate that law schools do NOT prepare students to take the bar and do NOT come up with a better way to evaluate students than the pure bell curve model.  This market is tough, as evidenced by my own class, whose current employment rate, 2.5 months after the bar, is still only around 50-60% and that is counting temporary positions.  It is really sad how badly the public needs lawyers and yet how there are very very few jobs out there for new grads.  I already have over a year of substantive legal experience but still no job.  Truly, at this moment in time, the value of getting the JD in the first place seems to be very little, despite my $120,000 investment in it.

51. Posted by 2008 unemployed law grad - 1 month, 3 weeks, 5 days, 13 hours, 49 minutes ago

    The BIG BIG problem with this new move by HLS, however, upon second reading of the article, is that this year’s and last year’s 1Ls are totally and completely screwed compared to next year’s 1Ls.  Perhaps some current 1Ls should consider postponing until next year, or skipping next semester and working instead, just to get in on the new grading system!  This will be chaos, but they DO have to start somewhere, and like I wrote above, I think it’s a long overdue move by ALL law schools.

52. Posted by Harvard 1L - 1 month, 3 weeks, 4 days, 15 hours, 56 minutes ago

    #51- The dean has said the new pass-fail grading system is probably going to apply to the current 1Ls.  There is still some debate over what to do about 2Ls and 3Ls and there has been no official decision of any kind regarding current students.

    Personally, I think the move is a dumb idea.  But it is really bad to apply it to current students, who chose to come here understanding the current grading system.  I’m not very happy about possibly being the first pass/fail class from Harvard and having employers trying to figure out what exactly that means. 

    The only reason for the switch is competition between Yale, Stanford, and Harvard for law school applicants.  With both Yale and Stanford doing pass/fail grading now, Harvard thought it would be the odd duck out and be at a disadvantage for attracting law school applicants, possibly hurting its ranking.  And we know that is all they really care about.

    I just find the whole thing especially funny after Dean Kagan mocked Yale Law’s grading system at our admitted students weekend in the spring.  What a phony.

53. Posted by BigLawRecruiter - 1 month, 3 weeks, 3 days, 21 hours, 49 minutes ago

    Grades do matter.  Depends on where you want to work.

54. Posted by LawStudentInFL - 1 month, 3 weeks, 2 days, 20 hours, 46 minutes ago

    This should be adopted across the board so as to take the advantage away from the book smart academics that have limited or no practical ability, and force firms to focus on those that have the work ethic and practical ability, AND perhaps the book smarts too. (agreeing with #9).
    A majority of law school grads, be it Tier 1, Tier 4 or in between, come out of law school with no practical real world experience. They have been in school for all but about five years of their life. If all schools were on a pass/fail grading then the only discriminators would be pedigree and…c’mon…heaven forbid…EXPERIENCE AND MATURITY. Take away a GPA and you don’t think that firms can tell in an interview or from a resume who the barely made it through slackers are, compared to the hard workers that busted their butt? They most surely can. The discriminators like law review, moot court, mock trial, clinical work, clerkships, summer law jobs…THAT is the gal or guy that firms are looking for. In the current system those people don’t even get a chance because their GPA was not top 10 in the class. Whether because of the curve or because they were not as proficient in exams, for whatever reasons, both the firms and those individuals get the short end of the deal because it’s all about the GPA. There is also the minority of mature adults that bring years of real world experience…stuff that will make them a VERY valuable asset to a firm, that also get passed over because they didn’t end up in the top 10. If the schools make firms focus on something other than grades to determine whom they interview the true stars will get a chance and the firms will get more dedicated, hard working, proficient associates. How is that not good for everyone?