List of Undergrad Colleges for this year's 1L at Harvard Law

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People may want to reconsider law school in general...especially if you are a college freshman or HS senior today.

From an article on how Generative AI will transform law:

This first wave we are already beginning to see now, with widespread AI adoption and experimentation occurring in corporate legal departments and law firms of all sizes. Over the next one-to-three years, the legal industry will increasingly gain access to trusted Gen AI tools from both large technology companies and legal technology providers, letting legal departments and law firms move from pure experimentation to putting AI plans into action. Especially at the beginning, this work will be focused on back-office functions and support staff. Law firms and their clients will begin considering how they can optimize their labor costs, reducing numbers of new associate hires and non-fee-earning staff.

The focus on non-billable work will not last for long, however, particularly as Gen AI technology advances to perform more complex tasks. Looking three-to-five years out, we begin to see changes to the legal business model emerge. AI will allow legal work to be done more efficiently, and corporate legal departments will put increasing pressure on law firms and outside providers to deliver work faster. As less time is spent on legal tasks, the billable hour will no longer be the most cost-effective way to capture value, prompting firms to reimagine their billing models to better share in efficiency savings and capture the value that’s added through advanced technology.

In response, large law firms will seek to capture more revenue by deploying staff, including juniors, to higher value work. They may also use their new law or internal innovations teams to standardize repeatable work that might otherwise be unprofitable. Meanwhile, small- and midsize law firms will be able to use Gen AI to grow their practice without needing to hire more staff. Regardless of size, however, the point is that change is a must: The law firms that don’t adapt will not be able to keep up with the efficiencies gained by their peers.

Finally, extending the time horizon out five-to-ten years leads to greater automation of legal services — and, in some cases, partial or full disintermediation of the legal professional through AI. With Gen AI technology capable of tackling even more complex tasks, AI will be a primary driver of day-to-day legal tasks, with legal practitioners acting as supervisors and strategists. The result is a complete overhaul of not only how legal services are completed and billed, but also the mix of players in the legal arena that are most needed.

This may be true but at the end of the day, AI cannot analyze and synthesize information the way a lawyer can. It is just looking at things depending on what you feed into it.

You may be correct, however, it still means that firms will hire far fewer green associates because more experienced lawyers will be significantly more productive. Honestly, a new lawyer's ability to most productively understand and utilize LLMs will become their most important skill.

BTW, this is also happening with Investment Banks and all the analysts they hire (or more accurately, will no longer hire).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

This may be true but at the end of the day, AI cannot analyze and synthesize information the way a lawyer can. It is just looking at things depending on what you feed into it.

Give it a couple of years. It will start with lower-level (but certainly billable) tasks and grow from there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Notable absence of VA colleges, other than UVA and W&M.

W&L, Patrick Henry College

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People may want to reconsider law school in general...especially if you are a college freshman or HS senior today.

From an article on how Generative AI will transform law:

This first wave we are already beginning to see now, with widespread AI adoption and experimentation occurring in corporate legal departments and law firms of all sizes. Over the next one-to-three years, the legal industry will increasingly gain access to trusted Gen AI tools from both large technology companies and legal technology providers, letting legal departments and law firms move from pure experimentation to putting AI plans into action. Especially at the beginning, this work will be focused on back-office functions and support staff. Law firms and their clients will begin considering how they can optimize their labor costs, reducing numbers of new associate hires and non-fee-earning staff.

The focus on non-billable work will not last for long, however, particularly as Gen AI technology advances to perform more complex tasks. Looking three-to-five years out, we begin to see changes to the legal business model emerge. AI will allow legal work to be done more efficiently, and corporate legal departments will put increasing pressure on law firms and outside providers to deliver work faster. As less time is spent on legal tasks, the billable hour will no longer be the most cost-effective way to capture value, prompting firms to reimagine their billing models to better share in efficiency savings and capture the value that’s added through advanced technology.

In response, large law firms will seek to capture more revenue by deploying staff, including juniors, to higher value work. They may also use their new law or internal innovations teams to standardize repeatable work that might otherwise be unprofitable. Meanwhile, small- and midsize law firms will be able to use Gen AI to grow their practice without needing to hire more staff. Regardless of size, however, the point is that change is a must: The law firms that don’t adapt will not be able to keep up with the efficiencies gained by their peers.

Finally, extending the time horizon out five-to-ten years leads to greater automation of legal services — and, in some cases, partial or full disintermediation of the legal professional through AI. With Gen AI technology capable of tackling even more complex tasks, AI will be a primary driver of day-to-day legal tasks, with legal practitioners acting as supervisors and strategists. The result is a complete overhaul of not only how legal services are completed and billed, but also the mix of players in the legal arena that are most needed.

This may be true but at the end of the day, AI cannot analyze and synthesize information the way a lawyer can. It is just looking at things depending on what you feed into it.

That's pretty much what a lawyer does now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Notable absence of VA colleges, other than UVA and W&M.

Yale has W&M and UVA as well, but also GMU and VT (and W&L and Richmond for privates).

https://bulletin.yale.edu/sites/default/files/yale-law-school-2023-2024.pdf

[Anonymous]

Good post Op

[Anonymous]

I went to Yale some years ago. We definitely had students from schools that were t Ivy or comparable. But those kids were usually top of their class (or very close); had served in the military (YLS really likes military service); or had some other really interesting life experience (had founded a real non-profit or successful company, worked as a journalist of some repute, had a PhD from a good program in sleeting like philosophy, history or Econ, etc.). I went to an Ivy equivalent and had a 3.8 with a really good lsat and some moderately interesting work history — I don’t think that would have gotten me in from a lower tier college. It’s silly to say you need to go to a top college to get into these law schools but it’s also silly to say that it doesn’t make it somewhat easier.

At any rate, being a lawyer stinks so this should not be the goal for so many people.

[Anonymous]

There is causation and correlation. I think there is a high correlation between high SAT and high LSAT, and LSAT is one of the major stats along with GPA. Median LSAT at Yale is 175 and 75th percentile is 177. 75th is often cited as the "unhooked" target percentile. If you look at data from LSAC on LSAT by colleges, you will see that some schools don't have a max score that reaches the Yale 75th percentile. For instance, Max for Penn State from the 2017 data was 171, Arizona State 175, University of South Florida 175. None of those have any students at Yale in the class of 2026. (I recognize time periods differ, but it the most recent data and it still supports the point.) I think Harvard and Yale are largely taking students that can present the stats regardless of where they went, it just happens that those are disproportionately from the most selective colleges.

https://law.yale.edu/admissions/profiles-statistics

https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/legal_education_and_admissions_to_the_bar/council_reports_and_resolutions/May2018CouncilOpenSession/18_may_2015_2017_top_240_feeder_schools_for_aba_applicants.authcheckdam.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You'll see a wide variety here so don't despair if your future lawyer doesn't go to an Ivy:

https://hls.harvard.edu/jdadmissions/apply-to-harvard-law-school/jdapplicants/hls-profile-and-facts/undergraduate-institutions/

I’d love to know profiles of the Julliard student(s) in the class.

I work with lawyers/law firms and am always amazed how many have theater or other performing arts talents and backgrounds, particularly litigators.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Notable absence of VA colleges, other than UVA and W&M.

W&L, Patrick Henry College

I meant public, but left that out lol

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bc if you are interested in being a lawyer, there is literally no other way to do that unless you go to law school. (Not counting the oddball "baby bar" pathways in specific jurisdictions)

most people who go to law school aren't particularly interested in being a lawyer. it just felt like the next responsible step for a smart kid who doenst know what they actually do want to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People may want to reconsider law school in general...especially if you are a college freshman or HS senior today.

From an article on how Generative AI will transform law:

This first wave we are already beginning to see now, with widespread AI adoption and experimentation occurring in corporate legal departments and law firms of all sizes. Over the next one-to-three years, the legal industry will increasingly gain access to trusted Gen AI tools from both large technology companies and legal technology providers, letting legal departments and law firms move from pure experimentation to putting AI plans into action. Especially at the beginning, this work will be focused on back-office functions and support staff. Law firms and their clients will begin considering how they can optimize their labor costs, reducing numbers of new associate hires and non-fee-earning staff.

The focus on non-billable work will not last for long, however, particularly as Gen AI technology advances to perform more complex tasks. Looking three-to-five years out, we begin to see changes to the legal business model emerge. AI will allow legal work to be done more efficiently, and corporate legal departments will put increasing pressure on law firms and outside providers to deliver work faster. As less time is spent on legal tasks, the billable hour will no longer be the most cost-effective way to capture value, prompting firms to reimagine their billing models to better share in efficiency savings and capture the value that’s added through advanced technology.

In response, large law firms will seek to capture more revenue by deploying staff, including juniors, to higher value work. They may also use their new law or internal innovations teams to standardize repeatable work that might otherwise be unprofitable. Meanwhile, small- and midsize law firms will be able to use Gen AI to grow their practice without needing to hire more staff. Regardless of size, however, the point is that change is a must: The law firms that don’t adapt will not be able to keep up with the efficiencies gained by their peers.

Finally, extending the time horizon out five-to-ten years leads to greater automation of legal services — and, in some cases, partial or full disintermediation of the legal professional through AI. With Gen AI technology capable of tackling even more complex tasks, AI will be a primary driver of day-to-day legal tasks, with legal practitioners acting as supervisors and strategists. The result is a complete overhaul of not only how legal services are completed and billed, but also the mix of players in the legal arena that are most needed.

This will only happen with a base of sufficient training data and some sort of efficiency in hardware that drops the cost of running the models.

Honestly there is so much absurd hype around AI now, obviously written by people who don’t understand the actual extreme costs associated with running generative models.

Current Harvard 1Ls will be fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Notable absence of VA colleges, other than UVA and W&M.

Yale has W&M and UVA as well, but also GMU and VT (and W&L and Richmond for privates).

https://bulletin.yale.edu/sites/default/files/yale-law-school-2023-2024.pdf

Isn't Yale a much much larger cohort?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People may want to reconsider law school in general...especially if you are a college freshman or HS senior today.

From an article on how Generative AI will transform law:

This first wave we are already beginning to see now, with widespread AI adoption and experimentation occurring in corporate legal departments and law firms of all sizes. Over the next one-to-three years, the legal industry will increasingly gain access to trusted Gen AI tools from both large technology companies and legal technology providers, letting legal departments and law firms move from pure experimentation to putting AI plans into action. Especially at the beginning, this work will be focused on back-office functions and support staff. Law firms and their clients will begin considering how they can optimize their labor costs, reducing numbers of new associate hires and non-fee-earning staff.

The focus on non-billable work will not last for long, however, particularly as Gen AI technology advances to perform more complex tasks. Looking three-to-five years out, we begin to see changes to the legal business model emerge. AI will allow legal work to be done more efficiently, and corporate legal departments will put increasing pressure on law firms and outside providers to deliver work faster. As less time is spent on legal tasks, the billable hour will no longer be the most cost-effective way to capture value, prompting firms to reimagine their billing models to better share in efficiency savings and capture the value that’s added through advanced technology.

In response, large law firms will seek to capture more revenue by deploying staff, including juniors, to higher value work. They may also use their new law or internal innovations teams to standardize repeatable work that might otherwise be unprofitable. Meanwhile, small- and midsize law firms will be able to use Gen AI to grow their practice without needing to hire more staff. Regardless of size, however, the point is that change is a must: The law firms that don’t adapt will not be able to keep up with the efficiencies gained by their peers.

Finally, extending the time horizon out five-to-ten years leads to greater automation of legal services — and, in some cases, partial or full disintermediation of the legal professional through AI. With Gen AI technology capable of tackling even more complex tasks, AI will be a primary driver of day-to-day legal tasks, with legal practitioners acting as supervisors and strategists. The result is a complete overhaul of not only how legal services are completed and billed, but also the mix of players in the legal arena that are most needed.

This will only happen with a base of sufficient training data and some sort of efficiency in hardware that drops the cost of running the models.

Honestly there is so much absurd hype around AI now, obviously written by people who don’t understand the actual extreme costs associated with running generative models.

Current Harvard 1Ls will be fine.

Moore’s Law is alive and well and so of course the hardware costs will drop significantly over the next 5-10’years.

If you think that is a limiting factor then you need to rethink.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Notable absence of VA colleges, other than UVA and W&M.

Yale has W&M and UVA as well, but also GMU and VT (and W&L and Richmond for privates).

https://bulletin.yale.edu/sites/default/files/yale-law-school-2023-2024.pdf

Isn't Yale a much much larger cohort?

No. Harvard is huge. Yale has a pretty small class.