Law school vs. grad school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP - I'll step back to the "generic" PhD vs Law school comparison. Going to Law school, like undergrad, like business school, like high school (and like the masters portion of a PhD program or a stand alone masters program) - where you go to class and are expected to learn something and then show you learned it by taking tests or applying a technique. Getting a Phd - you learn the basics but the entire goal is to produce NEW material that is a contribution to the literature (or whatever) in your field. It's not regurgitation of some other stuff people have told you - it's taking what is already out there and finding some thing new.

Hopefully this explains how it is different. If you want to practice law, go to law school. If you want to go into business consider business school. If you want to be a research scientist...go to grad school in a lab science.... But if you were to go to grad school in the lab science, you'd probably find the universities with the top researchers in the specific sub field you want to eventually work in. It's not some generic lab science PHD....who your dissertation advisor is and their lab work will guide what you specialize in. You need to know what you are interested in achieving when you go to grad school.

A 50 page law paper, say, goes pretty much into the recycle bin after it's graded. The Ph.D. dissertation is archived and indexed as it advances knowledge in the field.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP - I'll step back to the "generic" PhD vs Law school comparison. Going to Law school, like undergrad, like business school, like high school (and like the masters portion of a PhD program or a stand alone masters program) - where you go to class and are expected to learn something and then show you learned it by taking tests or applying a technique. Getting a Phd - you learn the basics but the entire goal is to produce NEW material that is a contribution to the literature (or whatever) in your field. It's not regurgitation of some other stuff people have told you - it's taking what is already out there and finding some thing new.

Hopefully this explains how it is different. If you want to practice law, go to law school. If you want to go into business consider business school. If you want to be a research scientist...go to grad school in a lab science.... But if you were to go to grad school in the lab science, you'd probably find the universities with the top researchers in the specific sub field you want to eventually work in. It's not some generic lab science PHD....who your dissertation advisor is and their lab work will guide what you specialize in. You need to know what you are interested in achieving when you go to grad school.

A 50 page law paper, say, goes pretty much into the recycle bin after it's graded. The Ph.D. dissertation is archived and indexed as it advances knowledge in the field.

Yes it’s archived, & is SUPPOSED to advance the field. But a lot of those dissertations are about education, & schools have only gotten worse. And some are about psychology, & people have only gotten more screwed up. Some are about sociology but society has only gotten more cruel. Poli Sci>>more division.

Granted, the gaming scholars have managed to devise more addictive games, & pharmaceutical scholars have devised more addictive drugs. And AI scholars have probably doomed us all. So hurray for being a zoned-out 20 year old playing video games in your parents’ basement, waiting for AI to take over your life: you are the culmination of thousands of years of human struggle!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Law school is essentially the same as an undergrad degree, but USA determines social status by how many years of school you can afford, so they add extra years to professional degrees.

This is a completely uninformed opinion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You don’t decide based upon the relatively short training experience. They lead to entirely different careers, salaries, lifestyles.

Focus on what future you want, not the grad school experience!

Right, I find the question so strange. Figure out what you want to be, then apply to the program that gets you there.

I actually loved law school, but I didn't go for the experience. I went because I wanted to be an attorney.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP - I'll step back to the "generic" PhD vs Law school comparison. Going to Law school, like undergrad, like business school, like high school (and like the masters portion of a PhD program or a stand alone masters program) - where you go to class and are expected to learn something and then show you learned it by taking tests or applying a technique. Getting a Phd - you learn the basics but the entire goal is to produce NEW material that is a contribution to the literature (or whatever) in your field. It's not regurgitation of some other stuff people have told you - it's taking what is already out there and finding some thing new.

Hopefully this explains how it is different. If you want to practice law, go to law school. If you want to go into business consider business school. If you want to be a research scientist...go to grad school in a lab science.... But if you were to go to grad school in the lab science, you'd probably find the universities with the top researchers in the specific sub field you want to eventually work in. It's not some generic lab science PHD....who your dissertation advisor is and their lab work will guide what you specialize in. You need to know what you are interested in achieving when you go to grad school.

A 50 page law paper, say, goes pretty much into the recycle bin after it's graded. The Ph.D. dissertation is archived and indexed as it advances knowledge in the field.

Yes it’s archived, & is SUPPOSED to advance the field. But a lot of those dissertations are about education, & schools have only gotten worse. And some are about psychology, & people have only gotten more screwed up. Some are about sociology but society has only gotten more cruel. Poli Sci>>more division.

Granted, the gaming scholars have managed to devise more addictive games, & pharmaceutical scholars have devised more addictive drugs. And AI scholars have probably doomed us all. So hurray for being a zoned-out 20 year old playing video games in your parents’ basement, waiting for AI to take over your life: you are the culmination of thousands of years of human struggle!!

Great rebuttal.

[Anonymous]

Law school is not conceptually difficult. A middling college graduate can easy grasp them. The main challenge is the sheer weight - and the grading curve if one is gunning for big law, clerkships etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These are very different environments that lead to very different paths. I would not focus so much on what the school experience itself entails, but where it leads. Do you want to be a lawyer? A research scientist/academic? Start there. If you don't know I would pursue neither for now.

This! I find it odd that someone would be considering these two very different paths and base the decision on what the “school experience” will be like.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Law school is not conceptually difficult. A middling college graduate can easy grasp them. The main challenge is the sheer weight - and the grading curve if one is gunning for big law, clerkships etc.

Aside from that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

[Anonymous]

Is the Socratic Method really as "scary" as it looks in The Paper Chase?

[Anonymous]

Interesting reddit post on the (alleged) use of the Socratic Method in law school:

You've all heard it, it's one of the legal community's favorite buzz phrases. But I get sick of hearing faculty and others constantly refer to the Socratic Method when in reality what most professors do is just ask questions that verify if you did the reading, usually with little follow up. This is stupid, I had undergrad professors who did the exact same thing.

The real Socratic Method uses questions posed in an argumentative dialogue to make the student logically defend and think through their position on a specific topic. Essentially playing the devil's advocate. This is often hard to accomplish in a law school context since most classes deal with the law as is and not the law as it should be. The Socratic Method typically works best in philosophical discussions. As a result, it's not actually always that useful in legal classes where the goal is to learn the case law, not debate about its merits.

I guess the reason this grinds my gears is that it sounds both pretentious and scary, and it's misleading. People assume that the Socratic Method and getting cold called are the same thing. Just remember the next time your professor asks you "what did Justice Black say in his concurrence" that is not the Socratic Method. Your professor is just checking to see whether you read.

https://www.reddit.com/r/LawSchool/comments/16vf5px/law_schools_suck_at_the_socratic_method/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesting reddit post on the (alleged) use of the Socratic Method in law school:

You've all heard it, it's one of the legal community's favorite buzz phrases. But I get sick of hearing faculty and others constantly refer to the Socratic Method when in reality what most professors do is just ask questions that verify if you did the reading, usually with little follow up. This is stupid, I had undergrad professors who did the exact same thing.

The real Socratic Method uses questions posed in an argumentative dialogue to make the student logically defend and think through their position on a specific topic. Essentially playing the devil's advocate. This is often hard to accomplish in a law school context since most classes deal with the law as is and not the law as it should be. The Socratic Method typically works best in philosophical discussions. As a result, it's not actually always that useful in legal classes where the goal is to learn the case law, not debate about its merits.

I guess the reason this grinds my gears is that it sounds both pretentious and scary, and it's misleading. People assume that the Socratic Method and getting cold called are the same thing. Just remember the next time your professor asks you "what did Justice Black say in his concurrence" that is not the Socratic Method. Your professor is just checking to see whether you read.

https://www.reddit.com/r/LawSchool/comments/16vf5px/law_schools_suck_at_the_socratic_method/

That reddit post is weird. I don't know where that poster went to law school, but as far as learning the law goes our professors absolutely did have us "debate about its merits." We were all expected to "deal with the law ... as it should be" as opposed to simply "as is." Understanding the issue/rule/holding/reasoning in any given case was necessary but not sufficient. Our professors asked a lot more than "what did Justice Black say in his concurrence." I suspect that whomever posted that went to a bottom tier school (or maybe hasn't really gone at all?) where they weren't really using the Socratic Method in a real way (either because they didn't want to or because the students just couldn't handle it so it wasn't worth it--who knows what goes on at the bottom tier).

To PP who asked about The Paper Chase -- no, it's not like that at all. Well, not with most professors. I had one that verged on it, but we actually kind of enjoyed him; it was entertaining. Any time he thought a student didn't make sense he would yell "banana!" at them.

[Anonymous]

Lawyers can argue but innovators invent, artists creat, scientists discover, doctors treat, administrators manage, engineers fix, architects build .... everyone is needed and does what they are trained to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting reddit post on the (alleged) use of the Socratic Method in law school:

You've all heard it, it's one of the legal community's favorite buzz phrases. But I get sick of hearing faculty and others constantly refer to the Socratic Method when in reality what most professors do is just ask questions that verify if you did the reading, usually with little follow up. This is stupid, I had undergrad professors who did the exact same thing.

The real Socratic Method uses questions posed in an argumentative dialogue to make the student logically defend and think through their position on a specific topic. Essentially playing the devil's advocate. This is often hard to accomplish in a law school context since most classes deal with the law as is and not the law as it should be. The Socratic Method typically works best in philosophical discussions. As a result, it's not actually always that useful in legal classes where the goal is to learn the case law, not debate about its merits.

I guess the reason this grinds my gears is that it sounds both pretentious and scary, and it's misleading. People assume that the Socratic Method and getting cold called are the same thing. Just remember the next time your professor asks you "what did Justice Black say in his concurrence" that is not the Socratic Method. Your professor is just checking to see whether you read.

https://www.reddit.com/r/LawSchool/comments/16vf5px/law_schools_suck_at_the_socratic_method/

That reddit post is weird. I don't know where that poster went to law school, but as far as learning the law goes our professors absolutely did have us "debate about its merits." We were all expected to "deal with the law ... as it should be" as opposed to simply "as is." Understanding the issue/rule/holding/reasoning in any given case was necessary but not sufficient. Our professors asked a lot more than "what did Justice Black say in his concurrence." I suspect that whomever posted that went to a bottom tier school (or maybe hasn't really gone at all?) where they weren't really using the Socratic Method in a real way (either because they didn't want to or because the students just couldn't handle it so it wasn't worth it--who knows what goes on at the bottom tier).

To PP who asked about The Paper Chase -- no, it's not like that at all. Well, not with most professors. I had one that verged on it, but we actually kind of enjoyed him; it was entertaining. Any time he thought a student didn't make sense he would yell "banana!" at them.

I'm guessing there probably is quite a variation between higher and lower tier law schools. You probably don't have serious courses in legal philosophy at Thomas Cooley or Florida Coastal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesting reddit post on the (alleged) use of the Socratic Method in law school:

You've all heard it, it's one of the legal community's favorite buzz phrases. But I get sick of hearing faculty and others constantly refer to the Socratic Method when in reality what most professors do is just ask questions that verify if you did the reading, usually with little follow up. This is stupid, I had undergrad professors who did the exact same thing.

The real Socratic Method uses questions posed in an argumentative dialogue to make the student logically defend and think through their position on a specific topic. Essentially playing the devil's advocate. This is often hard to accomplish in a law school context since most classes deal with the law as is and not the law as it should be. The Socratic Method typically works best in philosophical discussions. As a result, it's not actually always that useful in legal classes where the goal is to learn the case law, not debate about its merits.

I guess the reason this grinds my gears is that it sounds both pretentious and scary, and it's misleading. People assume that the Socratic Method and getting cold called are the same thing. Just remember the next time your professor asks you "what did Justice Black say in his concurrence" that is not the Socratic Method. Your professor is just checking to see whether you read.

https://www.reddit.com/r/LawSchool/comments/16vf5px/law_schools_suck_at_the_socratic_method/

Well lawyers aren't philosophers, not surprising to see they've butchered the Socratic Method.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting reddit post on the (alleged) use of the Socratic Method in law school:

You've all heard it, it's one of the legal community's favorite buzz phrases. But I get sick of hearing faculty and others constantly refer to the Socratic Method when in reality what most professors do is just ask questions that verify if you did the reading, usually with little follow up. This is stupid, I had undergrad professors who did the exact same thing.

The real Socratic Method uses questions posed in an argumentative dialogue to make the student logically defend and think through their position on a specific topic. Essentially playing the devil's advocate. This is often hard to accomplish in a law school context since most classes deal with the law as is and not the law as it should be. The Socratic Method typically works best in philosophical discussions. As a result, it's not actually always that useful in legal classes where the goal is to learn the case law, not debate about its merits.

I guess the reason this grinds my gears is that it sounds both pretentious and scary, and it's misleading. People assume that the Socratic Method and getting cold called are the same thing. Just remember the next time your professor asks you "what did Justice Black say in his concurrence" that is not the Socratic Method. Your professor is just checking to see whether you read.

https://www.reddit.com/r/LawSchool/comments/16vf5px/law_schools_suck_at_the_socratic_method/

That reddit post is weird. I don't know where that poster went to law school, but as far as learning the law goes our professors absolutely did have us "debate about its merits." We were all expected to "deal with the law ... as it should be" as opposed to simply "as is." Understanding the issue/rule/holding/reasoning in any given case was necessary but not sufficient. Our professors asked a lot more than "what did Justice Black say in his concurrence." I suspect that whomever posted that went to a bottom tier school (or maybe hasn't really gone at all?) where they weren't really using the Socratic Method in a real way (either because they didn't want to or because the students just couldn't handle it so it wasn't worth it--who knows what goes on at the bottom tier).

To PP who asked about The Paper Chase -- no, it's not like that at all. Well, not with most professors. I had one that verged on it, but we actually kind of enjoyed him; it was entertaining. Any time he thought a student didn't make sense he would yell "banana!" at them.

I'm guessing there probably is quite a variation between higher and lower tier law schools. You probably don't have serious courses in legal philosophy at Thomas Cooley or Florida Coastal.

I went to a first tier law school and we didn't have a "serious course in legal philosophy" there either; it was all a part of torts, contracts, property, con law, civ pro, etc. We were expected to discuss every side of almost everything.