Three semesters later, though, I can honestly say that Socratic “cold-calling” defined my 1L experience much less than I expected. For one thing, not many of my professors applied it strictly. Some used systems to make it more predictable who they will call: two set up “panels,” meaning segments of the class eligible to be called on certain days of the week, and one worked backward through the alphabet so each student could see his or her time coming. Three others claimed to cold-call, but took so many volunteers that the real thing became a rarity.  

Only my Torts professor was Socratic in all the ways you’d expect: rarely lecturing, cold-calling regularly and sometimes on the same one or two people for entire class periods, using students’ last names, the whole bit. This was intimidating for a while, but only until I realized that correct recitations of facts were hardly the goal. Once the first few people answered wrongly and nothing bad happened at all, I realized the professor’s aim was not to embarrass us, or even really to check our reading comprehension, but to force us to explore issues together—sometimes by sheer process of elimination, making wrong answers as useful to the group as right ones.  

Yes, this system had me reading Ploof v. Putnam and Vosburg v. Putney with a lot more care, but it was out of a positive desire to impress far more than a negative fear of humiliation. Of course, it helped that the professor was funny and entertaining, genuinely enthusiastic, and clearly a reigning expert in the field. So—although I never would have believed it at one time—the most Socratic class I had also turned out to be the most fun. And when my section convened at the end of the first semester to watch The Paper Chase with our Contracts professor, some of the loudest laughter at the classroom scenes came from me.

- Lea

The test is a two-hour multiple choice.  It’s not hard, but conventional wisdom says you do have to be prepared.  The parts I like the best are the ones about who you can and can’t give legal advice to.  You will discover this next year, but starting approximately one week into law school, anyone you know who’s not a lawyer or a law student themselves—relatives, college roommates, high school friends, whatever—will present you with legal quandaries from their lives and ask for your opinion.  The bad news is you will have no idea what the answers to any of their questions are.  The good news is it’s illegal to practice law without a license!  So, you can just tell them that giving your opinion might constitute a false expectation of competent legal representation and/or a false expectation of an invocation of the attorney-client privilege, so for their protection, you’d prefer not to comment.  They will instantly understand you and will not think this is strange at all. 

So we’ve all been studying the rules for giving legal advice and all the other components of professional responsibility for the last few days.  As it turns out, planning the celebration for after the test is more fun than studying for test itself (who would have guessed?).  As a result, we already have an elaborately orchestrated scheme that commences directly after the test is over, starting with a matinee showing of the new Chris Rock movie, a stop by the official law school post-MPRE celebration for free drinks at a bar, and then on to some show in Boston one of my friends found that’s apparently a disco-themed Shakespeare play combined with a dance club.  I’m not clear about whether the play is in the middle of a dance club, or whether the theater turns into a dance club after the play is over, but either way, I’m sure it’s obvious how a disco-themed Shakespearian dance club is the proper celebration for the completion of an ethics test. 

Failing the MPRE is kind of embarrassing, both because it’s not considered particularly difficult and because it’s an ethics test, and it’s never good to flunk an ethics test.  So my main challenge this week is to keep my eyes on the prize instead of investigating an after-hours coffee place I heard about near the disco Shakespeare theater.  Having said that, you never know when a fourth break idea will come in handy.  MPRE advice applies to the celebrations, too—it’s best to be prepared.   

- Erin

Now this isn’t something that you can start to think about around the time you’re starting to fill out your law school applications.  It’s more about how you’ve spent the last few years.  Have you dedicated yourself to an extracurricular or cause?  Have you taken on a leadership role in a group or job that has allowed you to create significant change or have a meaningful impact?  There’s no one right answer here – the key is to use your application to let us know about situations where you’ve come in and changed things for the better. 

A big part of being at HLS is immersing yourself in a community of people who are dedicated to change and impact across a variety of fields.  A great way to convince us that you’ll be a positive addition to this community is to explain how you’re already doing this – I can’t wait to read about it. 

- Josh

I know that it can be easy to feel that you are somehow behind in the process, or that your results aren’t matching up with those of others. I figured that being a newly minted 1L, I am not that far removed from the process, and it might be helpful to talk about my experiences with the dreaded law school admissions cycle.

My trip to Harvard Law was pretty non-traditional. By May, I was still on the wait-list at HLS and had subsequently made arrangements to go to a different law school. I was quick to set up my housing and financial aid with that school because I knew that I was going to be be out of the country all summer doing volunteer work in South Africa. I left for my summer abroad in early June, assuming that there was little to no chance I was going to make it off the waitlist so late in the admissions game.

I arrived back in the US in late July and almost immediately received an email asking if I was still interested in a spot in the entering class at HLS. To put this in context, I had been in the country for less than a day and I was planning on leaving my home in less than a week to go to a different law school. Even if I were able to prepare for the phone interview, I would still need to divert all of my energies to going to a new law school, essentially accomplishing in a couple days the preparations that every other 1L had all summer to arrange. However, HLS was my dream school, and if I didn’t at least try to get in I would always wonder if I could have. I replied to the email and arranged to take my phone interview the following Monday.

I’m going to let you guys in on a secret about the HLS phone interviews. After your interview, you will feel that your performance was anywhere from “meh” to “terrible”. Personally, mine probably leaned towards terrible. I had planned on spending most of the time talking about my experiences that summer in South Africa. My rationale was that my application talked in detail about the things I had done while an undergraduate and my summer was something new that would add color to my application. However, when I got on the phone I think interview jitters seized me and I only spent about a minute talking about my summer before delving into the activities I had done in college. Every one of my answers seemed like an unhelpful rehash of things from my application. At the end, I was pretty certain that in an attempt to sound interested in the school (which I was) I asked too many questions and I came off as poorly researched about the school (which I wasn’t). When my mother called me that afternoon to ask how the interview went, I assured her that she didn’t need to worry about adding crimson to her wardrobe any time soon.

Assuming that whoever is reading this is aware of what website they are on, you probably also know how this story ends. The next morning I got a phone call offering me a spot in the entering class at HLS. In my excitement, I pumped my fists in the air so hard that I broke a ceiling tile in my basement.

I thought my story might be helpful for any potential applicants out there to hear. I know that it’s hard sometimes, but it is important not to stress about the process too much. I remember agonizing over what I was going to say in my phone interview, only to do something completely different in the actual interview. If you are relaxed and talk about yourself and your accomplishments honestly and openly, you will be fine. It is also important not to get freaked out if your application results aren’t matching up with the results you are hearing about from other people. I had heard all the message board chatter about how not getting off the waitlist by Date X was the death knell for my application. I also had a lot of friends and friends of friends that were getting into their dream schools (including HLS) while my application results were just trickling in. It’s easy to get discouraged with all of the activity going on around these applications. It is important to stay positive about your chances, because in the end you will almost certainly end up in a school that is a good fit for you.

- Anit

Our 1L year, a group of my friends dressed up like the characters from the famous tort case Ploof v. Putnam, a case that asks whether you are allowed to tether your boat to a stranger’s dock in the middle of a storm even though it will damage the dock.  Most people’s intuition about this is yes, even without permission you should be able to dock your boat in an emergency.  Then you learn that the people on the boat are pirates.  This makes for a much more interesting legal discussion, and a much more fun Halloween costume—what calls for festivities more than an eye patch, a swashbuckler’s hat, and a question of legal trespass for private necessity?

I’ve also seen three guys dressed up like the fox and the two hunters from Pierson v. Post, which is the first property case almost every law student in the country learns. The legal question there is who owns the fox if you chase it around forever on a hunt and then another guy comes out of nowhere and shoots it, but for the purposes of Halloween parties it just means that whenever partygoers realize why the guy is dressed up like a fox, they chase him around for a minute. 

Last year at the HLS Halloween party I saw a guy who went as an eggshell plaintiff.  A funny costume, but as you might imagine, everyone kept kicking him in the shins.  Well, maybe you wouldn’t imagine that unless you know that the concept of an eggshell plaintiff is exemplified by Vosburg v. Putney, where one kid kicked another kid in the shin and the guy ended up losing his leg because the kick aggravated a previous injury.  Again, funny costume, but you’re kind of asking for it if you dress up as a guy who’s supposed to get kicked in the shin.  In normal world, it’s the bullies who go around kicking people.  In law school world, it’s the people who understand what you are if you come to a costume party dressed as an eggshell.

So if you do come to HLS and you get invited to a costume party, don’t worry, you are not getting Legally Blonded, there really is a big Halloween party every year and people really do dress up in costumes for it.  I say embrace your inner geek and look to your 1L casebooks for inspiration.  But if you’re thinking about going as Jonathan Vosburg, consider shin guards.          

- Erin

The summer turned out to be a great success. His placement in the civil division involved a lot of legal research and writing. Throughout the course of the summer, he was able to research several different topics including inmates’ rights to counsel and federal tort claims under the Medical Care Recovery Act. His first big lesson of the summer was that, “1L Civil Procedure does matter.” He realized this when his very first research assignment was all about international service of process and personal jurisdiction under New York’s long arm statute. I know all of this is gibberish unless you have taken civil procedure but after a semester in law school, you will understand how frightening those words can be and how great it is to see that you didn’t spend a week studying them for nothing. In addition to writing informal internal memos, he had the opportunity to write first drafts of motions for his supervising attorneys including a motion for summary judgment on employment discrimination under Title Seven.

The summer wasn’t restricted to just research and writing, the internship also came with trips to the courthouse to observe trials in the district court and oral arguments in the 2nd circuit. The office also offered a trial advocacy workshop for its small group of fifteen summer interns. The interns were able to participate in a mock trial at the end of the program and prepare segments of the oral arguments. Last summer there was even the opportunity to have a picture taken with U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder.

In the end, the internship was exactly what he expected. One of the greatest benefits of working in government is that they are often short on resources and really need help from interns. This means that you get real work that the attorneys often incorporate into their final briefs and presentations. There are so many different legal opportunities to take advantage of your 1L summer and I never get tired of hearing about them.

- Elizabeth

I met my “big sis,” a 2L from the Boston area, for lunch during the first week of school and a few more times each semester when events like exams, class registration, and summer job applications were approaching. From the very beginning, she was a wonderful source of frank advice about professors, classmates, and the ultimate 1L concern of how much a person should study.

She was also very geared toward public interest and happened to work with several activities that interested me, so it was terrific to have her perspective as I decided what to join. Her involvement on two journals allowed for comparisons that helped me choose mine, and her advice about different student practice groups was part of what led me to the Tenant Advocacy Project, a really defining part of my HLS experience. As time went on with that, she shared experiences from her work with the Legal Aid Bureau, helping me feel more confident and prepared as a student advocate.

It was great having so much in common with my “big sis,” but I think anyone who had made it through 1L year would have been a great resource as I found my niche here at Harvard. In a big school where connections beyond your assigned section can take effort, it was great to be paired with someone already eager to help out. That’s why I decided to pay the favor forward and take on a “little sis” of my own this year. It’s been easy to keep in touch so far through e- mails, a frozen yogurt date, a WLA wine and cupcakes party, and some chance encounters on campus. And it feels good to answer her questions about outlines, exams, and jobs, just trying to be the same helpful resource I had last year.

Meanwhile, WLA is not the only group with big siblings. I know the progressive American Constitution Society has mentors, for instance, and two friends of mine are big and little siblings with APALSA, the Asian Pacific American Law Students Association. So there are many opportunities for the same positive experience as mine.

- Lea

First off, we don’t have any shortcuts or thresholds.  We’ve found that there’s no substitute for a complete reading of your application including your transcript, recommendations, personal statement, resume, and application questions.  We only evaluate candidates once we’ve reviewed their entire file – this takes longer but we think it helps us build a better class. 

Further, no one individual’s opinion holds sway – both our admissions officers and our faculty admissions committee are highly involved in reading applications.  Each application has multiple readers – again, this takes a bit longer, but we think its worth it. 

So while we want to get you a decision as quickly as possible, we also want to make sure we’re giving your application the consideration it deserves.   Hang in there and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible. 

Have a great weekend!

Josh

I rode the Amtrak up from Connecticut for my admitted student tour. Getting to campus from South Station with the “T” (Cambridge’s subway) couldn’t have been easier. After my tour and lunch with an admissions fellow, I found myself starved for something to do because my train didn’t leave for hours. Sadly, my first instinct was to take the T back to south station and wait. Instead, I decided to ask the people in admissions for some suggestions. The woman in the office pulled out tons of materials on all the things I could do with my free evening. She gave me simple directions and I left happy and determined to make the most of the couple hours I had left. I ended up taking the red line to the Park Street station. When I exited the station I got really excited. To my right was a huge park called the Boston Common and to my left was a very large movie theater. I walked up the street slowly and stopped occasionally to check out all the monuments that surround the park. I was so happy that such interesting things were easily accessible from the law school. I was also very impressed with the movie theater and I still don’t think I have ever seen a nicer one. They have classic movie posters and famous movie quotes all over the walls. They even offer funnel cake! Getting back home on the train was just as easy as the trip in. The ease with which I got around that day was a huge relief for me. I left very satisfied with my one-day Harvard experience.

As a current student, I am very happy with the choice that I made. I don’t have a car or a bike so if I need to get somewhere I’m probably going to walk. It is really nice not to have to worry about how I am going to carve out enough travel time to run errands when I am busy with schoolwork and activities. Fortunately, I don’t have to. There are two grocery stores within a ten-minute walk of my Harvard-Affiliated apartment. I can walk to Target in twenty minutes. And of course if I want to go out to eat instead of cooking, there are at least 5 restaurants within two minutes of my apartment. I can get to Harvard Square for many of the HLS social events in no time. If it is too late to walk home alone, I can hop into one of the many cabs that make Harvard Square their base.

I no longer feel like I’m confined to the area around my classes and home. It’s great to have so many affordable ways to get around quickly and easily. I’m glad I gave so much thought to how I would get around in my every day life when choosing a law school. I may even go to the Boston Common this weekend…

- Elizabeth