Harvard Law School

Student Rating^? A Alumni Rating^? A ATL Top 50 Rank #4	Tuition $58,242 Total Investment ^? $319,308	Enrollment 1	Student/Faculty Ratio 10.9
LSAT (25/75) 170/175 GPA (25/75) 3.75/3.96	Region N State M	Dean Martha Minow
Applicants who are accepted 12.9 / 100 Admitted students who enroll 6.7 / 10	Top Biglaw Employers ^?	Talking Points Dean Langdell developed the case method study of law that is now the dominant model of study in US law schools Notable alumni include: Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Mitt Romney, John Roberts, Anthony Kennedy, Stephen Breyer, Antonin Scalia, Elena Kagan, Lloyd Blankfein, Rutherford B. Hayes, and most importantly Elie Mystal

Ratings & Rankings

Colored bars represent the range of average school ratings. Black line is this school's rating.

Academics

Students
vs. all schools

Minimum: 2.25
Mean: 3.60
Maximum: 4

Alumni
vs. all schools

Minimum: 2.4
Mean: 3.62
Maximum: 4

Practical/Clinical Training

Students
vs. all schools

Minimum: 2.14
Mean: 3.20
Maximum: 3.83

Alumni
vs. all schools

Minimum: 1.86
Mean: 3.13
Maximum: 3.8

Career Counseling

Students
vs. all schools

Minimum: 1.29
Mean: 3.34
Maximum: 3.56

Alumni
vs. all schools

Minimum: 1.17
Mean: 3.13
Maximum: 3.25

Financial Aid Advising

Students
vs. all schools

Minimum: 1.5
Mean: 2.99
Maximum: 3.29

Alumni
vs. all schools

Minimum: 1.25
Mean: 2.98
Maximum: 3.5

Social Life

Students
vs. all schools

Minimum: 1.8
Mean: 3.22
Maximum: 3.67

Alumni
vs. all schools

Minimum: 2.4
Mean: 3.22
Maximum: 3.86

More Ratings*

	Student	Alumni
	A-	A
	B+	B
	A+	A+
	A-	A
	B+	A-

US News Rank

What do these ratings mean?

from Brian Dalton, Breaking Media Director of Research

The ATL School and Firm Insiders Survey asks self-identified current students, alumni, and practicing lawyers to rate major aspects of life at their law school (academics, social life, clinical training, career services, financial aid advising) and/or law firm (compensation, hours, morale, culture, training). We then translate these ratings into letter grades, where the mean score for each particular ratings category is the equivalent of a “B.”

We require a minimum threshold of responses for each institution before we publish any survey-based ratings content. Using a standard formula for statistical validity, we adhere to a threshold that gives us an 85% confidence level and a 10% margin of error. The precise threshold number will of course vary depending on the size of the individual institution. For example, for a law firm of 1,000 attorneys, we would require 50 responses in order to publish ratings for the firm.

Sector	Anticipated	Actual
Source: ATL Insider Survey and the American Bar Association
Work for a firm	81%	46%
Work for government	6%	11%
Work in non-profit/public interest	10%	4%
Go solo	0%	0%

Insider Reviews

from students and alumni of Harvard Law School

Alumni

As Dean Kagan used to say to incoming 1L’s, “The competition is over; you’ve won.” Harvard has top-notch professors and a broad array of classes, without the infighting and undermining you might see elsewhere. As such, it is a collegial and collaborative environment.
Alumni

It was great being around so many diverse points of view and engaging in discussions with such intellegent students. But you have to get out there and socialize. It is a large school so if you are shy, you could get lost, but one of the benefits of the school is its student population. You learn more from them than the books. The easiest way to integrate yourself into the school is to be involved in the social organizations, many of which also help to take your mind of the stress of law school.
Alumni

Despite the portrayal in the Paper Chase, IL, etc., what most impressed me about HLS was how genuinely interested and involved most professors were in their students education. As someone interested (and now practicing) in international law, I also found the LLM students to be an unexpected strength to the school given their extremely varied and remarkable experiences. For example, in a class on the WTO, we had an LLM student who was part of the South African delegation to the Uruguay rounds. I also strongly recommend the clinical programs – I learned more practical skills in the asylum clinical than any of my classes and it was the most rewarding thing I’ve done.
Alumni

Harvard is at the forefront of reorienting the education toward teaching more practical skills while still maintaining the deep theoretical learning tradition and it has made great strides in the last few years. However, as with all law schools, it still needs to make more progress in this area.
Alumni

It was a totally sink-or-swim place. No one impeded you, but no one helped you either. (Note: the financial aid counseling was not “very unsatisfactory,”; it did not exist.)
Alumni

It’s HLS. You may have expectations regarding your social life, but you will be disappointed.
Alumni

It’s not as competitive as you think, at least if you get in with the right crowd. It does nothing to prepare you for the practice of law, though you can fix that by participating in a clinical, but that still won’t teach you anything about the practice of law at a law firm. I suspect that the school would find it demeaning to teach classes on client management and client development, making partner, or networking. Honestly, those skills are far more important and useful than anything I learned after first year. Otherwise, it’s Harvard, you’ll get a law firm job if you want one with that degree.
Alumni

My father once told me, “There are two law schools in this country. Harvard, and all the others.” He was right. Harvard grads emerge knowing far more future leaders of the legal profession and world of politics than grads of any other school.
Alumni

The pedigree is worth the debt.
Alumni

Large law school which offers excellent academic and clinical instruction. Comes with internationally-valued brand name – and extensive alumni network – that will amaze you with how many doors they will open for you. It tends to be biglaw focused; while there is a decent public interest community, those students report sometimes feeling outnumbered or marginalized (though I have heard similar complaints from YLS/SLS public interest alums, too.) While I felt that both the weather and the social scene left something to be desired, I do not regret attending. I feel that I received a solid legal grounding coupled with the prestige I needed to achieve my clerkship, BigLaw/financial, and ultimately public interest goals.
Alumni

HLS has a diverse faculty and student body and lots of smart folks running around. I found it to be less of a “paper chase” than expected since if you do reasonably well you should be able to get a pretty darn good job coming out of there.
Alumni

Effectively unlimited opportunities if you’re not an idiot. Two V20 firms and a Fortune 500 in-house gig later, it is readily apparent I made the right choice – even aside from Harvard’s prestige and quality of education, the size and depth of its network has been a significant positive factor in my career trajectory. (Harvard’s size is decisively counted against it in some surveys, but this fails to account for its social benefits both during and after law school.)
Alumni

Harvard is a choose-your-own-adventure kind of school. There are so many activities that it’s easy to be overwhelmed, or overcommit. I would recommend Harvard to people that know what they want out of their law career.
Alumni

You go there knowing you’re paying a lot of money (unless you get financial aid); in return, your job prospects are just about the best they can be. The professors are all the big names, and they live up to the hype (for the most part), but some of your classmates will be insufferable–though that may just be a part of the legal profession.
Alumni

It’s not perfect, but it will make your life incalculably easier by opening doors. The Harvard degree brings a great deal of respect. Also, you will find many intelligent and interesting classmates. The variety of course offerings is great, too.
Alumni

Students

The security of attending a top law school significantly decreases any anxiety over grades, finding work, etc., though being in a high-achieving environment also motivates me (the less-than-gunner, procrastinator type) to be a little more on top of things that I would otherwise be. And also, the social scene is actually exciting in comparison to the expectations I had.
1L

There is a wide range of opportunities. Once you get through 1L you can do pretty much whatever interests you.
3L

Make sure that you get what you want out of the school. First year will be awful, but after that there are lots of great opportunities if you go out and make them happen.
2L

Better than Yale… it has to be. Better campus, better facilities, better city, better faculty, better alumni network, more courses, more people with similar interests, more financial resources, same career opportunities, same prestige, same weather. Would I prefer not to have grades first semester 1L year? Sure. But I wouldn’t trade that plus three years at Yale for my experience at Harvard.
3L

It’s a biglaw factory that takes public-interest-minded social-justice types and gives them 100k+ in debt. Their only choice is to work for biglaw to pay it off. LIPP is a joke, and they terminated the public service initiative. If you want to change the world, don’t go to law school.
3L

The law school can feel big at times–this is a benefit at times because of the vast number of classes Harvard is able to offer, but can be extremely frustrated when it comes time to interview for jobs, clerkships, etc, and there are literally hundreds of Harvard students competing with you.
2L

Unique grading system (High Pass, Pass, and Low Pass). Some people like it, some hate it.
1L

We’re the best: we study the least, party the hardest, and still get the best jobs. It really is a great place; just don’t come if you’re straight-through.
1L

Not as douchey as people think, you don’t have to work so hard due to grading system and reputation, and there is something for everybody here. But it can be too big.
2L

The name is great. The professors are accomplished. The teaching is mediocre.
2L

Being a huge school (the “JD Factory”) provides some real advantages for Harvard Law students. There is critical mass for an astounding array of interests. It also has its downsides, which I wish I would have considered more carefully. With so many students, it can be nearly impossible to take all your classes with professors you want, and unfortunately there can be some real gaps in quality of instruction from the best to the 2nd or 3rd best professors. The size issue also can hurt your learning experience if you don’t do well in a vast sea of students, each of which might get called on once or twice over the course of the entire year. Some people would prefer to learn this way, but I personally need the motivation of required classroom participation to really learn my best. That has been a real drag on my experience at HLS.
2L