Law School Left Behind from University’s Rise

A quick glance around campus reveals countless impressive graduate buildings. From Hillman to Bauer, undergraduate students see newly renovated, state-of-theart structures sprinkled throughout our walks from class to class, serving to remind us of the nearly 6,000 graduate students that attend Washington University. Despite our ability to overlook them, the graduate institutions are what keep the whole Wash U machine running, and much of the national recognition of the undergraduate school is owed to the prestige built into establishments like Wash U’s medical school.

One of these graduate buildings, hidden in the corner of campus, houses the Wash U Law School. More than just a pretty place to eat fresh carvery salads and wraps, the law school as an institution has been on this campus since 1874, and was actually established before the medical school, just fourteen years after the University itself was founded.

Our aptness to forget its very existence speaks to the problem of the law school’s name recognition as compared to the other institutions on campus. The school is ranked at #18 according to the U.S. News & World Report, a position it has consistently held over the last decade despite the upward movements of other Wash U programs. Over the years, the Law School’s admissions department has tried various tactics to boost its ranking, such as allowing applicants with a certain GPA and LSAT score to only have to fill out one sheet in order to apply, and discussing the possibility of allowing Wash U undergrads to apply without ever taking the LSAT. These strategies have been met with very limited results.

An alumnus of the law program and current professor of political science, Jeremy Caddel, shared why this might be the case. Law schools, he says, are different from other specialized institutions and provide a relatively uniform education that does not differ that greatly based on location. Though there is some diversity in law specialization, there is nowhere near the variety of distinct areas of pursuit as in medicine or dentistry. All law schools follow an entrenched first-year curriculum that includes an overview of constitutional, criminal, contract, property, and tort law, criminal procedure, and legal writing. The next two years of a law program are less formatted but often involve a basic law specialty and career integration program. And though the legal landscape and certain practices have shifted over time, the general practice of the law itself is venerated as an ancient and immutable art form. This leaves future employers and clients with few ways to assess a young lawyer’s talent; the most important way becomes the reputation of the candidate’s alma mater. The hierarchical establishment of top law schools like Harvard and Yale will perhaps never be rivaled because there is no way to combat their historical reputations.

Due to the nature of the study of law, “throwing money at the issue” (as Caddel phrases it) does very little. Attracting a few big names or building new facilities can’t really change the reputation of a law school because there is very little a law school is able to quantify amongst its graduates besides bar exam passage rates and future employment statistics. And because getting things like clerkships and positions at well-known law firms is really just a product of law school reputation, Caddel explains, the recognition of a certain school over the other becomes a selfreinforcing cycle. This, amongst the many other name recognition struggles Wash U faces, puts the law school in a particularly tough position. Areas like medicine, engineering, and business can often show quantifiable employment and concrete professional outcomes based on how much funding can be funneled to hiring good professors, investing in new facilities and technology, and sponsoring groundbreaking research. A form of study as entrenched and straightforward as law cannot be frilled-up in the same way.

This is not to say, however, that what goes on within the walls of the Wash U Law School is not of top-tier caliber. The faculty is impressive and the student body still benefits from the many educational resources that come with being a part of Wash U. Caddel mentions that peers in his graduating class easily got jobs at big-name St. Louis law firms, and have spread their influence to law practices around the country, becoming federal prosecutors and judges and practicing in firms in New York and Washington. As every Wash U student knows, the quality of the education we receive is never the issue. It is always being able to effectively communicate this quality to the outside world that proves to be difficult.

So next time you walk past the Anheuser- Busch Hall (yes, that’s what it’s called) on your way to get Starbucks or to visit the Olin Library, remember that it houses an important element of the Wash U brand–it is worthy of our attention.