Law Students

Law School Survey of Student Engagement (LSSSE) + note on 3L

By AustinGroothuis

Law.com points us to the Law School Survey of Student Engagement. Here is the link to a .PDF roundup of the survey findings (which Law.com may have accidentally left out of their post).

I think the most interesting to future law students is the comparison of 1L's to 3L's (taken from the .pdf above).

This really highlights a problem that many note with the third year of law school (see this article as an example). Many of the best students have virtually locked up big firm jobs after graduation on the basis of their first year grades when they were hired as a summer associate in the fall of their second year. And successfully completing the summer associate position without messing up too bad in the summer between second and third year is a virtual guarantee of a job offer. So many are obviously less motivated.

Moreover, the classes are often not curved as harshly after the first year. And many students are just looking for the easiest classes to pad gpa or relax a little before going into the working world.

This is why many call for a more practical, skills-based upper level classes and some even call for the elimination of 3L entirely.

Full post as published by CALI's Pre-Law Blog on January 05, 2008 (boomark / email).