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As if the law school class of 2023 didn’t have enough to worry about with a cratering job market and a literal plague out there, Harvard Law School is offering one more twist of the knife over the summer by reminding everyone that they didn’t get into Harvard.
Specifically, the school is opening up its “Zero-L” program — an online program designed to orient students to the law school vibe before physically arriving on campus. While designed to help incoming Harvard Law students, the school is offering it to the masses (through participating law schools) this year since the world is burning and there’s only so much original Netflix content. A nice gesture for everyone who didn’t need to be reminded that they’re going to Hollywood Upstairs Law School (an Infilaw company).
In all seriousness, the Zero-L initiative is a welcome recognition by a law school that students don’t necessarily come to the first day of class with the same set of experiences. Fourth-generation lawyers-to-be find their footing in lectures far faster than those coming to the law cold and for decades schools have acted like this is complete happenstance.
Harvard Law School Dean John F. Manning ’85, a first-generation college graduate and law school student, knows from personal experience the importance of what a program like Zero-L has to offer. “When I arrived at HLS as a first-year student, I felt very much out of my depth in those crucial first weeks. I didn’t know the differences between state and federal courts, what the common law was, or even what a ‘litigator’ does for a living. Like a lot of other new law students, I felt that everyone around me ‘got it,’ and I just didn’t. We launched Zero-L to give incoming students from day one a common baseline of knowledge about the American legal system and about the vocabulary of law and to give them the confidence that they can succeed.”
The course provides 12-14 hours of material and “optional comprehension checks” — definitely the term we should’ve used in lieu of “Pass/Fail” — and participating law schools can offer modules from the whole Zero-L catalog to tailor the course to their incoming class. It’s nice to see this opened up to more schools (Boston College, Northeastern University, Seton Hall University and the University of Baltimore were offering the program already) although one hopes this could inspire schools to make their own versions of the program rather than relying on presentations from professors the students are never going to see again. Not that I’m suggesting schools force faculty to take on extra work without additional compensation, but for a modest investment, every school could have their own programs modeled on Harvard’s.
Because as nice as this is, it definitely just reminds people that they aren’t good enough to go to Harvard.
Well, except the Yale folks.
Harvard makes online course for incoming students available to all law schools for free this summer [Harvard Law Today]
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.