Harvard Law School

===20th century===
[[File:Harvard Law School Library in Langdell Hall at night.jpg|thumb|[[Langdell Hall]]]]
During the 20th century, Harvard Law School was known for its competitiveness. For example, [[Bob Berring]] called it "a samurai ring where you can test your swordsmanship against the swordsmanship of the strongest intellectual warriors from around the nation."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.top-law-schools.com/berring-interview.html |title=Interview with Former Dean Robert Berring of U.C. Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law |publisher=Top-law-schools.com |access-date=March 10, 2015 |archive-date=March 15, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150315185015/http://www.top-law-schools.com/berring-interview.html |url-status=live }}</ref> When Langdell developed the original law school curriculum, Harvard President [[Charles William Eliot|Charles Eliot]] told him to make it "hard and long."<ref name="autogenerated2">{{Cite web|url=http://paulcarrington.com/Harvard%20Law%20School%20Oral%20History.htm|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120218062635/http://paulcarrington.com/Harvard%20Law%20School%20Oral%20History.htm|title=Harvard Law School Oral History|archivedate=February 18, 2012}}</ref><ref name="autogenerated3">{{Cite web|url=http://paulcarrington.com/Learning%20Law%20in%20New%20Haven.htm|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120218062629/http://paulcarrington.com/Learning%20Law%20in%20New%20Haven.htm|title=Learning Law in New Haven|archivedate=February 18, 2012}}</ref> An urban legend holds that incoming students are told to "Look to your left, look to your right, because one of you won't be here by the end of the year."<ref>{{Citation |first=Richard D. |last=Kahlenberg |title=Broken Contract: A Memoir of Harvard Law School |year=1992 |location=New York |publisher=Hill and Wang |isbn=978-0-8090-3165-8 |page=6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aQeEOnWFuqUC&pg=PA6}}</ref> [[Scott Turow]]'s memoir ''[[One L]]'' and [[John Jay Osborn, Jr.|John Jay Osborn]]'s novel ''[[The Paper Chase (Osborn novel)|The Paper Chase]]'' describe such an environment. Trailing many of its peers, Harvard Law did not admit women as students until 1950, for the class of 1953.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://asklib.law.harvard.edu/faq/115324 | title=When were women first admitted to Harvard Law School? - Ask a Librarian! }}</ref>

Eleanor Kerlow's book ''Poisoned Ivy: How Egos, Ideology, and Power Politics Almost Ruined Harvard Law School'' criticized the school for a 1980s political dispute between newer and older faculty members over accusations of insensitivity to minority and feminist issues. Divisiveness over such issues as [[political correctness]] lent the school the title "Beirut on the Charles."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.legaled.com/revolution.htm|title=Legaled.com » Revolution|website=legaled.com|access-date=December 17, 2017|archive-date=December 5, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181205003258/http://www.legaled.com/revolution.htm|url-status=live}}</ref>

In ''Broken Contract: A Memoir of Harvard Law School'', Richard Kahlenberg criticized the school for driving students away from public interest and toward work in high-paying law firms. Kahlenberg's criticisms are supported by Granfield and Koenig's study, which found that "students [are directed] toward service in the most prestigious law firms, both because they learn that such positions are their destiny and because the recruitment network that results from collective eminence makes these jobs extremely easy to obtain."<ref name="autogenerated1" /> The school has also been criticized for its large first year class sizes (at one point there were 140 students per classroom; in 2001 there were 80), a cold and aloof administration,<ref>{{cite news | url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE4D71131F935A25757C0A9679C8B63 | work=The New York Times | title=Harvard Law Tries to Increase Appeal | first=Jonathan D. | last=Glater | date=April 16, 2001 | access-date=May 4, 2010 | archive-date=January 29, 2022 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220129220459/https://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/16/us/harvard-law-tries-to-increase-appeal.html | url-status=live }}</ref> and an inaccessible faculty. The latter stereotype is a central plot element of ''[[The Paper Chase (film)|The Paper Chase]]'' and appears in ''[[Legally Blonde]]''.

In response to the above criticisms, HLS eventually implemented the once-criticized<ref name="autogenerated3" /> but now dominant approach pioneered by Dean [[Robert Maynard Hutchins|Robert Hutchins]] at [[Yale Law School]], of shifting the competitiveness to the admissions process while making law school itself a more cooperative experience. Robert Granfield and Thomas Koenig's 1992 study of Harvard Law students that appeared in ''The Sociological Quarterly'' found that students "learn to cooperate with rather than compete against classmates," and that contrary to "less eminent" law schools, students "learn that professional success is available for all who attend, and that therefore, only neurotic 'gunners' try to outdo peers."<ref name="autogenerated1">{{Citation |first1=Robert |last1=Granfield |first2=Thomas |last2=Koenig |year=2005 |title=Learning Collective Eminence: Harvard Law School and the Social Production of Elite Lawyers |journal=Sociological Quarterly |volume=33 |issue=4 |pages=503–20 |doi=10.1111/j.1533-8525.1992.tb00140.x }}</ref>