Sorting

Howard Wasserman, following Dorf, offers some critical comments on Gladwell's podcast about the LSAT and law schools.  Wasserman takes exception to various information gas in the two podcasts.  Mostly the comments focus on how the LSAT is a time-constrained test, and that some do better at such tests than others, and law school exams might more often be with long time constraints.  That is what the podcasts discuss, and there are a number of information gaps -- what scores various characters received.  I don't want to defend Gladstone.  He is creating entertainment, not scholarship.  He tells stories, many quite interesting, but none are, even on the surface, complete or fair.  Neither dorf nor Wasserman note that one fo the episodes begins with Justice Scalia talking to law students from American University -- that is the source for the story about Sutton, one of Scalia's best clerks.  What Wassserman is exercised about is that Galdstone implies that Sutton is a tortoise and did poorly on the LSAT.  No notice at all that Sutton was a Scalia clerk because Scalia took over Powell clerks when Scalia was confirmed.  And Powell hired from OSU law school. I.e., Scalia would not otherwise have hired Sutton, or, to be frank, even considered him.  And no notice of the fact that Scalia tells the AU students that none of them will be hired by Scalia -- he does not consider graduates from a school like AU.  This all gets tied back to LSAT scores, but, for me, the scores are not the most interesting part of the series.  The bits just mentioned, and the discussion -- all too brief and vague -- about success in practice with someone who counsels law firms about partner development.  He suggests that law school record has not much to do with who makes a good partner or who develops business best.  (The discussion is too abbreviated and hedged to get any sense of what the information background to the suggests is, or what factors do seem to be relevant signals -- quite frustrating.)  The theme I saw in the podcasts is that the career is marked by more or less arbitrary gates, that there is selection on arbitrary grounds. 

LSAT scores remain pretty good predictors of 1L grades.  1L grades and school are predictors of clerkships, and a first clerkship is a predicator (if not actually a qualification for) an appellate clerkship, which is more or less a prerequisite for a Supreme Court clerkships, which guarantee a fine career in law.  LSATs favor some kinds of test takers over others.  I would suppose so, but what is the complaint really?  Is there some independent and objective stuff the exam is supposed to be measuring, is there is a deserved score?  I think the LSAT is just a means to rank applicants, and that it measures little beyond predicting grades, which it does reasonably well.  And grades sort students and sort their initial career moves.  But none of it tells you much about who will be a good lawyer.  (Of what kind?  There cannot even be such a thing as in general a good lawyer.  The whole area is too fragmented and specialized, and the skills necessary for one area do not transfer in any direct way to other areas, and so on.)  It does not tell you who will develop business, or advance through the civil service, or, well, the rest of a life in law.  IN light of the pervasive arbitrary selection processes, why does it matter much if time constrained exams are bad for some people?

A final point.  Aside from the general silliness of hare/tortoise, being able to work quickly does sometimes matter.  In court, for example, responding to evidence and arguments.  Efficient completion to work -- clients might care that attorney A takes twice as long to draft a motion than attorney B.  Or takes more effective and efficient depositions. 

A final final point, or, if you prefer, P.P.S.  I understand why we, including me, like to believe that merit should and does matter, but, to be frank, it is luck that matter, not merit.  So good luck.