Harvard Law grad -- ask me anything

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok Mr/Ms. Harvard Law Grad...I'll bite on this one.....tell us what you recommend that an entering college freshman next fall (i.e., class of 2019) should do then and over their next four years in order to get into Harvard Law....(obviously my question is premised on the fact that the student wants law as a career).

Tell us what you think!

'97 here. I really don't think there is anything you can do, other than get good grades and crush the LSATs.

How "hard" are the LSATs? The bar exam?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Harvard is a fine law school. Don't feel bad you didn't go to Yale.

Signed,
YLS grad

Big law partner here (who didn't go to either law school but was a Yale undergrad.) We don't recruit from Yale anymore because we have had so many summers from there flame out. We have had pretty good luck with our summers from Harvard, with a few mistakes along the way.

Yeah, we're really hurting as a result of that. Guess I'll just go take an appellate clerkship instead, pardon me while I cry into my DOJ Honors Program lanyard.

--YLS

Glad you did well. Many from YLS do, but not often at law firms. YLS and HLS take different students and then train them differently. I have friends who went to YLS and are doing great in law academia. But, HLS is much better at producing practicing lawyers who can thrive in law as a business. I am not sure why YLS has trouble producing students who excel at the business side of law, but it definitely does. I was simply pointing out to the first YLS poster that the snippy comparison was unwarranted. If you want to be a law professor, go to Yale. If you want to be a big law managing partner, go to Harvard. Both are nice dreams, but the best path to each goes through a different school.

[Anonymous]

On a scale of 1 to 10 how upset are you that people weren't feeding your ego when you were incessantly posting about how you went to HLS in other threads?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:do you know Matt Damon?

No but I saw them filming Good Will Hunting when I was there. -- HLS '97

Ben went to UVM in 1990 and lived on my floor.

[Anonymous]

Do you know how to work a Xerox machine?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:My cousin went to UCLA and is admitted in California and Washington State. She is known to be a prima Donna and from what we hear, has quit a job already with a small firm in CA because she didn't like the other workers and is inflating her current job which we think is actually document review.

She graduated in 2012 and has a ton of student loan debt, is living with a boyfriend who pays her bills and is trying to get more $$ out of her grandparents.

Is it really that hard to get a job?

If you graduated from ucla law in 2012, yes, it is hard to get a job.

Harvard, they mostly have jobs.

Thank you. It is bizarre to us hearing about her struggles since her family exaggerates her jobs (she was what sounded like an intern for a judge after graduation and they told everyone she was an assistant Judge, not an assistant to a judge).
Is she totally screwed and is document review an actual lawyer job?

Not OP, but it sounds like she was a law clerk for a judge, which typically is a 1-2 year job you have after law school. Document review is definitely a lawyer job, although a second-tier rather uninteresting one.

m
Thank you again. She only did the assistant to the judge thing for a couple months. One more thing, does a document review lawyer get paid more than, say, a paralegal?

The judge fired her. Or she quit. But either way, THAT is what's happening her ability to get another real job. And yes, a doc review lawyer is paid more than a paralegal.

She probably interned for the judge.

Are you this mean and judgmental about all of your relatives?

[Anonymous]

I went to Cornell Law School. I recently retired from DOJ Civil Tax. It's hard finding a job out there and my recommendation is that if you don't get in to a top 14 law school, don't bother. You can Google the top 14.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you know how to work a Xerox machine?

I'm going to answer no. The copy machines at my firm are ridiculously complicated! Entering billing codes is a multi-step process. Typically the paralegals or admin assistants deal with that. They do it much more efficiently than the lawyers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My cousin went to UCLA and is admitted in California and Washington State. She is known to be a prima Donna and from what we hear, has quit a job already with a small firm in CA because she didn't like the other workers and is inflating her current job which we think is actually document review.

She graduated in 2012 and has a ton of student loan debt, is living with a boyfriend who pays her bills and is trying to get more $$ out of her grandparents.

Is it really that hard to get a job?

If you graduated from ucla law in 2012, yes, it is hard to get a job.

Harvard, they mostly have jobs.

Thank you. It is bizarre to us hearing about her struggles since her family exaggerates her jobs (she was what sounded like an intern for a judge after graduation and they told everyone she was an assistant Judge, not an assistant to a judge).
Is she totally screwed and is document review an actual lawyer job?

Not OP, but it sounds like she was a law clerk for a judge, which typically is a 1-2 year job you have after law school. Document review is definitely a lawyer job, although a second-tier rather uninteresting one.

m
Thank you again. She only did the assistant to the judge thing for a couple months. One more thing, does a document review lawyer get paid more than, say, a paralegal?

The judge fired her. Or she quit. But either way, THAT is what's happening her ability to get another real job. And yes, a doc review lawyer is paid more than a paralegal.

She probably interned for the judge.

Are you this mean and judgmental about all of your relatives?

No, she is the only one trying to get $$ from my elderly grandparents who have a chronically ill (physically and mentally) daughter they have to support in addition to themselves. Our family is trying to intervene and make sense of what is going on for their sake. It is actually a really sad situation watching someone who has a law degree and is employed ( and has quit a law job) essentially coerce a couple 80 year olds for over $200k when they came afford it in any way

[Anonymous]

Came =can't

[Anonymous]

Who wrote your letters of recommendation? How did you know them? Who paid your tuition?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I went to HLS as well, so what? I bet there are a number of us on here.

+1 Most people in my social circle don't even know.

[Anonymous]

What are you paid annually?

[Anonymous]

Do you think anyone outside of the law field cares? (fyi we don't)

[Anonymous]

Why do you think anyone cares? Why DOES anyone care? I don't get it.