re: It's time to stop putting Ivy League lawyers on the Supreme Court.

Why do you think Yale or Harvard lawyers are more elite? There are great law schools all across America, utilize them.

Know what they call a student graduating from medical school with a C average? A Doctor.

Know what they call a Yale or Harvard graduate of their law schools with a C average. An Attorney.

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Know what they call a Yale or Harvard graduate of their law schools with a C average. An Attorney.

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The cliche joke (which is said for a reason) is that A students become law professors. B students become judges. C students become millionaires.


Some of the best litigators I have ever seen have come from schools like Golden Gate or Southern.

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Yes. Is this some DEI rant?

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I'm not ranting, I'm just trying to understand when GPAs and standardized tests matter and when they don't

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My point was made.

If you didn’t hang with Johnny Hopkins or Sloan Kettering you can’t be a good doctor.

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Is that your point? I'm in good shape then.

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I have not seen someone state that should be the only qualifier.

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Hogwash

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I would imagine for colleges extracurriculars etc. would matter. For lawyers…ability to be engaging and persuasive are pretty important qualities that matter. For a judge the ability to be impartial is huge. That can’t be found on a resume of LSAT. You, of course, know this. Not sure why you are arguing otherwise.

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This is very reasoned perspective, and I am not arguing otherwise. I agree that everything cannot be distilled down to numbers on an application.

Flew right over my head

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Know what they call a student graduating from medical school with a C average? A Doctor. Know what they call a Yale or Harvard graduate of their law schools with a C average. An Attorney

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As far as a license goes that is the qualification, but what we would rarely call a T14 C student is a federal judicial clerk, big law white shoe lawyer, or other similar types of achievement that are the pre reqs for being a USSC judge. If we never call them those other things, their opportunity to be a federal judge etc will be limited

To your original point though— calling someone a federal clerk is also de facto limited not only be law school achievement but also law school choice. Reform at this stage could lead to more alumnus diversity at the next levels

One can be a very successful trial attorney with any choice of law school education. Certain careers just require certain achievements and those can be limited by law school choice

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Some of the best litigators I have ever seen have come from schools like Golden Gate or Southern.

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This is true, especially for the first few years, because Tier 4 schools put a high degree of emphasis on the practical. Tier 4 grads are usually better prepared to hang out a shingle on day 1 than the Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Law Journal. Tier 4s lean toward the practical of day-to-day practice. However, a great litigator doesn't mean they make a great justice, the skills are just different.

Students that are T-14 or Ivy or HYS grads just have the CV to get the jobs that provide the actual OJT needed to be an appellate ct judge. Using your med analogy the students that graduate from elite med schools get the best residencies and fellowships. That doesn't mean a Caribbean med school grad can't end up being the go to for a Whipple down the line but it makes it a lot less likely.

A lot is being made of the DEI practices of elite schools. One thing to keep in mind even at its height the applicants that fit those slots still had elite level CVs and would be courted at most second tier schools, even with a blind application. Even if someone did get in with less-than-stellar academic success they won't make it out of the first year. While I am not saying the system couldn't be gamed law school exams are generally graded anonymously and law schools are expecting a certain washout rate.

I understand the thought process behind SCOTUS justices that are "real people": someone who fixes their own plumbing or changes their oil. This makes no logical sense to me. While I might like the idea of a cardiologist doing a TAVR on me who can talk about the impact of cam overlap on dynamic compression, I really want the one that focused their entire educational life on heart surgery.