Law Schools: Harvard at 150

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Lights Out & On. Mr. Marcuss' thought process was doubtless properly sharpened. But sharp or not, most students do not shirk. Legal Aid Bureau President Deanne Siemer spends an irreducible six hours every day on studies outside of class—and outside of her voluminous extracurricular legal-aid work. "All of the kids work pretty hard, particularly in the first year," agrees Jay Becker, who compiled the school's first confidential critique of courses and professors (sample blasts: "Gave me an absurdly high grade. Disorganized. Wears white socks." "Lecturer is beneath the usual intellectual level of Harvard professors." "Zzzzzz."). Academic competition is so intense that stories abound of students who hang blankets on their windows so that neighbors will not suspect extra nocturnal studying or, conversely, students who sleep with eye guards and all the lights on to panic a classmate.

Getting a chance to clerk for a judge or work for one of the many law firms that pluck from Harvard each year provides a large carrot at the end of the stick. There is also the hope of getting into one of the three honor societies-law review, board of legal advisers, and legal aid. Admittance to the honoraries has long been strictly on the basis of grades. Now, in line with general dissatisfaction over the emphasis placed on marks, the Legal Aid Bureau has accepted a few members on the basis of other qualifications, and the law review and board of student advisers are studying the feasibility of doing the same.

Not the Only No. 1. Such changes come slowly. Harvard Law refused to accept women students until 1950. The school is still reluctant to concede that it failed to lead the most recent major movement in the law. Legal realism—the sociological observation that judges make law rather than find it—was nurtured at Columbia and Yale in the '30s. Though Harvard Law Dean Roscoe Pound was a leading sociological scholar, his colleagues did not follow. Griswold ("the Griz"), who has been in the dean's chair since 1946, has made a determined effort to press once again into the vanguard.

Along with other law schools, Harvard has been paying more attention to honing the writing skills of its students. The first full-time sociologist and economist have been added to the faculty. Former Defense Department Whiz Kid Adam Yarmolinsky is developing a program of urban studies. The Griz is proudest of the increased action in international legal studies, in which Harvard is pioneering. Milton Katz, who ran the Marshall Plan in Europe, heads the program, which now offers 24 courses (compared with one in 1946).

To some critics, however, the school's moves into new fields is still mere toe-dipping. Many feel that the traditional Harvard Law approach needs modification. Not surprisingly, the students themselves file many of the most damning complaints; last year their organized gripes sparked the forming of a student-faculty committee. It has still to submit specific proposals, but this year, in response to the committee, second-year students for the first time do not have any required courses.