Will BigLaw embrace grade-less, high-pedigree JDs?
Class rank is everything. It separates the future scholars from the posers; the potential Big Firm Partners from the 9-to-5 government slackers. If there were no grades, there’d be no way to differentiate among prospects and the entire legal hiring system would implode. Or maybe not. In the past year, Stanford and Harvard have adopted a pass/fail grading system similar to Yale’s. This means no more grades at three of the top five U.S. law schools. Does this make sense? Are the schools doing the “real world” a favor or a disfavor? Does the elimination of competition from a highly-competitive profession make any sense whatsoever? While Yale has a great reputation for minting legal scholars, it may not be the ideal training ground for Big Firm practitioners. At least that’s what an anonymous managing partner at a major national firm told me. “[Yale graduates] have the most difficulty adjusting to the real world, [and] I’ve often thought that it was because the school didn’t have grades,”
