JD v. MBA v. PhD/MA

Greg over at Law is Fun, who recently finished 2L finals, offers up a detailed comparison of life as an MBA student vs. life as a law student. I know next to nothing about what business grad school is like, but I can tell you how law school differs from my experience in English grad school:

Reading: I've found the reading in law school to be generally much more tedious, especially in CivPro and Contracts, but less so in Crim Law and Constitutional Law. I'm sure that varies by person.

Class: Law school classes are a complete waste of time compared to English grad classes. In my first year of law school, I've spent 15 hours/week in class. A typical week in grad school included about half that. Of course, I was always teaching 6-8 hours/week, as well, but that's another story. My English grad classes were small—8-16 students each—and probably about 50-80% of class time was devoted to class discussion. My law school classes have been very large—100 or more in all but the first semester of CivPro (about 40 students) and my legal writing section (12 students). So far, I've seen almost no discussion in the larger classes; the so-called "Socratic method" is a sick joke that allows law schools to pretend they have a pedagogical model when really they've just become degree factories. (Ok, that may be an exaggeration, but you get the idea.)

Assessment: There is simply no comparison here. In English grad school I was evaluated on my class participation (meaning class attendance was basically just assumed; if you weren't there your Prof might be more offended than anything else), my ability to write short (2-10 pages) and long (15-30 pages) papers, and often my ability to present a short paper to the class. In law school I'm evaluated just as Greg says—everything basically rests on how you perform on one final exam. Like the huge class model, I think this method of assessment leaves a lot to be desired in terms of its accuracy, fairness, and value to learning, but there you go.

I might have more to say about this another day. Right now, I've got to do half a dozen practice property questions. At 5 p.m. my first year of law school will be over and I will be glad. Very.

Posted May 6, 2004 05:53 AM | law school