The Volokh Conspiracy - How Will Harvard and Stanford Grades Affect the Clerkship Market?:

The announcement that both Harvard and Stanford Law Schools are dropping letter grades and moving to a H/P/LP/F system raises a really interesting question: How will the switch impact the market for law clerks? Harvard and Stanford students are often major players for very competitive clerkships. How will the judges who are evaluating applicants respond to having less information about candidates from these top schools?

  I think the the answer depends in large part on where the schools draw the cut offs. What percentage of students will get Honors? Will it be 30% or so, like at Yale? Or will it be only 10%? Or 20%? Put another way, will the line between H and P be like the old line between A and A-, or A- and B+, or something else?

  I would think that where the line is drawn is going to have a major impact on the clerkship hiring process. Here's my thinking. When I was a student at Harvard in the mid-1990s, the common wisdom I heard was that a B+ average was usually needed to be competitive for district court clerkships; an A-/B+ average (that is, the midpoint between the two) was usually needed to be competitive for the less sought-after circuit court clerkships; and an A- average was needed to be competitive for the more prestigious circuits (like the DC Circuit). If you wanted to clerk for a feeder and be in the running for a Supreme Court clerkship, you needed between an A- and an A. Of course, actual results varied based on the judge and the candidate, sometimes a lot. But that was the rule of thumb I heard at the time.

  Now let's assume that the "H" of "High" grade is given to only 10% of the class, making it roughly equivalent to a straight "A." Under this system, a lot of judges are going to have a hard time figuring out who to hire. Imagine a student with all A- grades under the old system. In the old days, that student would be interviewing with top judges. But under the new system, that student will have a transcript with all P's, exactly the same transcript as a total slacker who never went to class and went through the semester mostly drunk and high. If the only information judges have is who had a top 10% grade and who was in the rest of the class, they won't have the information they used to use to find clerks.

To read the rest of this post, click here.

  On the other hand, imagine that the H grade is given to the top third of the class, more like A- and A grades together, which I understand (based on what I have been told) is pretty much what happens at Yale. This is still hard for District Court judges, because they have no way of distinguishing a straight B- student (who wouldn't get a clerkship) from a straight B+ student (who would be in the running). But this would give most judges more information they need, because now they have at least some capacity to distinguish the kinds of students with grade ranges they are more likely to see.

  At the same time, such a cutoff would make the clerkship process harder for the feeder Judges and Supreme Court Justices who are looking for the best students. They don't have any real way to distinguish the student who would have had all "A-" grades (good, but not a SCT clerk) from the the Sears Prize winner who was first in her class. The grades no longer tell them whether the candidate rocked law school or was just quite good, which is information that the feeder judges and Justices would want to have. All the Judges and Justices know is that students were consistently in the top third of the class. (This may in part be made up for with the "book awards" that the schools are planning; To the extent those book awards can tell the judges and Justices who the best students in the class are, that may be the new "A". I'm not sure.)

  What will the impact of the change be? Assuming Stanford and Harvard adopt the Yale model, which seems likely to me, I suspect the real difference will be a slight shift in focus from grades to recommendations. If grades tell judges less, professors need to make up the gap. I suspect the new system will make impressing a connected professor who knows the judges and Justices an increasingly important part of the clerkship process. The recommendation from the connected professor will help tell the judges and Justices that the student with all or mostly "H" grades is really top law clerk material.

  More broadly, I tentatively suspect that this shift will slightly favor Stanford over Harvard in the competition for top clerkships. Stanford is smaller, and the chances that a student will have a close relationship with a professor are greater than at Harvard. Harvard is large, and at least in the past has been infamously impersonal. Faculty enthusiasm for helping students has traditionally not been the school's forte; at least when I was there, the attitude was more than you were supposed to succeed on your own. Perhaps that has changed with Elena Kagan as Dean? I don't know. But in a wold in which personal relationships are the key to scoring a top clerkship, I would think the advantage goes to the smaller school with a better student/faculty ratio.

  Anyway, those are some general thoughts. It's really hard to tell the specifics without knowing what the cutoffs are and how many "book prizes" will be awarded. It's possible that those lines will provide most of the information that grades provided, in which case you would expect the switch wouldn't make much difference as soon as judges adjust to it.

  UPDATE: Stanford 1L Josh Patashnik writes in: "I thought I'd pass along what they've told us: That the 'honors' designation will be given to around 30-35 percent of students in each class, left to the professor's discretion within that range. Helpful to know."

	[Orin Kerr, October 7, 2008 at 8:35pm] Trackbacks How Will Harvard and Stanford Grades Affect the Clerkship Market?: The announcement that both Harvard and Stanford Law Schools are dropping letter grades and moving to a H/P/LP/F system raises a really interesting question: How will the switch impact the market for law clerks? Harvard and Stanford students are often major players for very competitive clerkships. How will the judges who are evaluating applicants respond to having less information about candidates from these top schools? I think the the answer depends in large part on where the schools draw the cut offs. What percentage of students will get Honors? Will it be 30% or so, like at Yale? Or will it be only 10%? Or 20%? Put another way, will the line between H and P be like the old line between A and A-, or A- and B+, or something else? I would think that where the line is drawn is going to have a major impact on the clerkship hiring process. Here's my thinking. When I was a student at Harvard in the mid-1990s, the common wisdom I heard was that a B+ average was usually needed to be competitive for district court clerkships; an A-/B+ average (that is, the midpoint between the two) was usually needed to be competitive for the less sought-after circuit court clerkships; and an A- average was needed to be competitive for the more prestigious circuits (like the DC Circuit). If you wanted to clerk for a feeder and be in the running for a Supreme Court clerkship, you needed between an A- and an A. Of course, actual results varied based on the judge and the candidate, sometimes a lot. But that was the rule of thumb I heard at the time. Now let's assume that the "H" of "High" grade is given to only 10% of the class, making it roughly equivalent to a straight "A." Under this system, a lot of judges are going to have a hard time figuring out who to hire. Imagine a student with all A- grades under the old system. In the old days, that student would be interviewing with top judges. But under the new system, that student will have a transcript with all P's, exactly the same transcript as a total slacker who never went to class and went through the semester mostly drunk and high. If the only information judges have is who had a top 10% grade and who was in the rest of the class, they won't have the information they used to use to find clerks. To read the rest of this post, click here. On the other hand, imagine that the H grade is given to the top third of the class, more like A- and A grades together, which I understand (based on what I have been told) is pretty much what happens at Yale. This is still hard for District Court judges, because they have no way of distinguishing a straight B- student (who wouldn't get a clerkship) from a straight B+ student (who would be in the running). But this would give most judges more information they need, because now they have at least some capacity to distinguish the kinds of students with grade ranges they are more likely to see. At the same time, such a cutoff would make the clerkship process harder for the feeder Judges and Supreme Court Justices who are looking for the best students. They don't have any real way to distinguish the student who would have had all "A-" grades (good, but not a SCT clerk) from the the Sears Prize winner who was first in her class. The grades no longer tell them whether the candidate rocked law school or was just quite good, which is information that the feeder judges and Justices would want to have. All the Judges and Justices know is that students were consistently in the top third of the class. (This may in part be made up for with the "book awards" that the schools are planning; To the extent those book awards can tell the judges and Justices who the best students in the class are, that may be the new "A". I'm not sure.) What will the impact of the change be? Assuming Stanford and Harvard adopt the Yale model, which seems likely to me, I suspect the real difference will be a slight shift in focus from grades to recommendations. If grades tell judges less, professors need to make up the gap. I suspect the new system will make impressing a connected professor who knows the judges and Justices an increasingly important part of the clerkship process. The recommendation from the connected professor will help tell the judges and Justices that the student with all or mostly "H" grades is really top law clerk material. More broadly, I tentatively suspect that this shift will slightly favor Stanford over Harvard in the competition for top clerkships. Stanford is smaller, and the chances that a student will have a close relationship with a professor are greater than at Harvard. Harvard is large, and at least in the past has been infamously impersonal. Faculty enthusiasm for helping students has traditionally not been the school's forte; at least when I was there, the attitude was more than you were supposed to succeed on your own. Perhaps that has changed with Elena Kagan as Dean? I don't know. But in a wold in which personal relationships are the key to scoring a top clerkship, I would think the advantage goes to the smaller school with a better student/faculty ratio. Anyway, those are some general thoughts. It's really hard to tell the specifics without knowing what the cutoffs are and how many "book prizes" will be awarded. It's possible that those lines will provide most of the information that grades provided, in which case you would expect the switch wouldn't make much difference as soon as judges adjust to it. UPDATE: Stanford 1L Josh Patashnik writes in: "I thought I'd pass along what they've told us: That the 'honors' designation will be given to around 30-35 percent of students in each class, left to the professor's discretion within that range. Helpful to know."