Student Criticism, Debate Among Faculty Shake Harvard Law School

There is soul-searching going on within the quiet and hallowed halls of Harvard Law School, which since 1817 has produced generations of distinguished judges, scholars, politicians, legal eagles and Wall Street moguls.

A longstanding faculty dispute drove the first spikes of doubt. This year, a small minority of students has gone public with an array of complaints about the way the law school is run, the teaching quality and Harvard’s refusal to get rid of stock in firms doing business in South Africa.

These are complaints that find consensus even among students who stress that they are satisfied.

Many students also feel forced into corporate careers, either by expectations or huge debts. This last complaint is the core of growing criticism of law schools in general.

Bitter Faculty Debate

The student grumbling comes amid a continuing, bitter faculty debate about the way the law should be taught.

On one side, leftist professors espouse a “critical legal studies” theory, which contends that traditional law teaching is outmoded and preserves the status quo instead of serving society. On the other side, old-line professors say case-law study--the minute dissection of previous court decisions--is still the best approach.

The disagreement, which has broken repeatedly into the public press, has even chilled Harvard’s tenure decisions.

Advantage of Prestige

The school’s problems may seem surprising because of the Harvard Law mystique. The degree can mean instant entry to the megabucks world of corporate law.

Many students relish their advantage. Some say they have friends at second-tier law schools who work harder, learn more--and can’t even get in the door for job interviews.

The trickle of discontent surfaced when a group called NOPE--”Not One Penny Ever”--began circulating petitions pledging to withhold alumni donations to Harvard. Organizer Michael Christian claims that about 130 of Harvard Law’s 1,800 students have signed, even though the petition lists no specific gripes.

Teaching Quality Hit

Christian, a third-year student from San Diego, said his biggest personal concern is teaching quality.

“Teaching ability is no requirement for joining the faculty. If you happen to get a professor who can teach, it is sheer luck,” Christian said. “I know several students who are working full time in New York City who never go to class and fly in only for tests.”

Christian acknowledges that he should have shopped harder for career options.

“I never met a lawyer in my life. I knew nothing about the legal profession,” Christian said. “I was taken in by the Harvard myth. I came here by default. I did well in school and didn’t want to teach. This is a common story. Students in limbo like that are very easy to push around.”

Other students, and even some faculty members, argue that the kind of grousing heard from Christian reflects a truth about any law school: A student will get out of the experience only what he or she puts into it.

“The NOPE crowd does a disservice to Harvard students generally,” said third-year student Jamin R. Raskin, an editor of the prestigious Harvard Law Review. “The public is going to say: ‘Listen to these spoiled brats, all they can do is complain.’ ”

But not all of the concern comes from students.

Nader Critical

Consumer advocate Ralph Nader, a 1958 Harvard Law graduate, faults his alma mater for “tunnel vision” and “regression” at a time he said it should be working to improve America’s justice system.

Nader’s Washington-based Center for the Study of Responsive Law has begun a “Harvard Watch” project to monitor and critique the university. He is beginning with the law school.

“It’s a hard law school to get into. It’s (an easy) law school to graduate from. Professors’ remoteness leads to the student remoteness,” Nader complains.

“It’s reversed back to what it was when I was there--heavy emphasis on careerism. I think they need to define the purposes of the law school.

“You’ve got plenty of lawyers representing polluting corporations. How many represent victims? The function of law is to redress power. That’s not showing up at Harvard,” Nader said.

Dean James Vorenberg calls Nader’s claim just rhetoric.

“I think he simply doesn’t know what’s in the curriculum now,” the top administrator said. “There are courses where issues of power and control of institutions are considered.”

Justice System Ignored

But even Harvard President Derek Bok, a former dean of Harvard Law, has criticized law schools in general for doing little to improve the nation’s justice system.

In his annual report to the Harvard trustees four years ago, Bok said the drain by large corporate firms of America’s brightest law students represents “a massive diversion of exceptional talent into pursuits that often add little to the growth of the economy, the pursuit of culture or the enhancement of the human spirit.”

Ninety percent of the students still wind up in large corporate law firms or judicial clerkships.

Career counselors say corporate offers can be hard to resist when recruiters dangle $50,000 to $65,000 starting salaries in front of students who might like to take $15,000 to $35,000 public-interest law jobs but are saddled with upward of $40,000 in student loans.

“The cost of a legal education and the very high salaries offered by law firms create a strong incentive to reduce that debt and buy your freedom. If they feel like indentured servants, I can see how that would be,” said Mark Byers, Harvard Law’s career counseling director.

A Harvard law degree continues to hold great sway in the outside world.

“There is no question that that counts for something in the client’s eyes,” said Robert Hulteng, hiring partner at Littler, Mendelson, Falstaff & Tichy of San Francisco, the country’s largest firm specializing in labor and employment law.

Hulteng, a 1976 Harvard Law graduate, said he finds that Harvard students “are no better and no worse . . . than students at the top of their class at all of the major law schools.”

“I do find that the Harvard class is probably deeper. There are students throughout the class who compare favorably with those at other law schools,” he said.

Statistics for the 508-member 1986 Harvard Law graduating class show that 347 went into corporate law, 117 took clerkships--which often lead to even higher-paying corporate jobs--and 44 found public-interest law jobs.

“It is a matter of personal risk-taking,” Byers said. “Those who spent some time off from school before going to law school seem to have more of an anchor in reality. I don’t blame younger students for the risk dilemma. It involves a coming of age. Eventually, they will see their own goals.”

Pressure on Administrators

Harvard Law’s administrators are under increasing pressure to help provide career alternatives for people not interested in joining big law firms, which may have 100 to 200 staff attorneys.

Second-year student Darlene Kim and three classmates formed the Alliance for Public Interest Alternatives last fall to help publicize other options--environmental law, public defender’s offices and advocacy law for the poor.

The alliance also wants Harvard to provide more financial aid or loan forgiveness for students who take summer or permanent jobs in public-interest law.

“We want to make it easier for students who want information,” Kim said. “There are always some people who fall through the gaps and don’t get funding.”

Raskin, who also did his undergraduate work at Harvard, plans to join the Massachusetts attorney general’s office after graduation this spring.

“Everyone understands that life in corporate law is nasty, brutish and long. But that’s a fact. The people who manage to escape it feel good about their lives. People who don’t understand what they’re getting into feel bad about it,” Raskin said. “They lash out at the institution instead of taking control of their own lives.

“That’s not to say there shouldn’t be a lot more going on at Harvard Law School to seek alternative careers. But the people who are complaining don’t even exercise the limited options that we have.”

Raskin has one complaint of his own. It concerns the strong disciplinary action the administration is taking against law students--himself included--who participated in anti-apartheid demonstrations last fall. But he still is a Harvard Law booster.

“With all of its faults, there are the most brilliant and engaging legal thinkers and scholars in the world here,” Raskin said.

Susan Estrich, a 1977 law school graduate who is now a tenured faculty member, remembers her student days to put the current controversy into perspective.

“There isn’t a time in the life of this law school when you couldn’t find some grousing. We’re not perfect, and we constantly work to do what we do better.

“I’ve never been in an educational institution where I didn’t hear those kinds of complaints,” Estrich said. “You could find it about any law school in America.”

Outside Work Questioned

One of Nader’s chief complaints concerns the amount of time some professors spend on outside work, such as private law practices and consulting work. He contends that it distracts from their teaching responsibilities and reduces the time they can spend with students.

It is an area that is monitored by Vorenberg, who said he has very rarely had to pull in the reins.

“In general, this is an extremely good faculty, committed to teaching, committed to scholarship and, in a sense, committed to students,” Vorenberg said. “People do not go into teaching, and particularly law teaching, if they do not think the training of outstanding lawyers is satisfying and important work.”

Estrich said her own extracurricular work is valuable to her teaching.

“I do cases on the side,” she said. “I do politics on the side. I do public-interest work on the side. I try to bring what I’ve learned in the world into my classroom.”

One of seven women among a faculty of 75, Estrich argues that Harvard Law is a better school than it was when she was a student.

“It is less monolithic, less uniform,” she said. “There is real intellectual debate going on among the faculty, which makes our classes more interesting. There are different teaching styles and approaches to law.”