Does the 1L curriculum make a difference?

• Published date: 01 June 2024
• Author: David A. Hyman,Jing Liu,Joshua C. Teitelbaum
• Date: 01 June 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jels.12383

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Does the 1L curriculum make a difference?

David A. Hyman

1

| Jing Liu

2

| Joshua C. Teitelbaum

3

1

Scott K. Ginsburg Professor of Health Law & Policy, Georgetown University Law Center, Washington,

DC, USA

2

East China University of Political Science and Law, Shanghai, China

3

David Belding Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, DC, USA

Correspondence

David A. Hyman, Scott K. Ginsburg Professor of Health Law & Policy, Georgetown University Law Center,

600 New Jersey Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20001, USA.

Email: dah137@georgetown.edu

Abstract

Georgetown Law’s Curriculum B (also known as Section 3) offers a unique opportu-

nity to study an alternative 1L curriculum. The standard 1L curriculum has been

around for decades and is still offered at the vast majority of US law schools. Leaders

in the legal academy often talk about experimenting with the 1L curriculum, but

hardly anyone does it. Georgetown Law has. We study whether Georgetown’sCurricu-

lum B yields measurable differences in student outcomes. Our empirical design lever-

ages the fact that enrollment in Curriculum B is done by lottery when it is

oversubscribed—meaning our study is effectively a randomized controlled trial. We

measure treatment effects of Curriculum B by comparing outcomes of students who

received the treatment (Curriculum B) with outcomes of students who received the pla-

cebo (Curriculum A) but wanted the treatment. Because students in both the treatment

and control groups elected to enroll in Curriculum B, our empirical design overcomes

the issue of selection bias. We find that taking Curriculum B decreases students’perfor-

mance in two business law electives (Corporations and Securities Regulation) and

reduces the rate at which they graduate with Latin honors. In addition, we find that it

increases students’propensity to take certain public law electives and decreases their

propensity to take certain business law electives. We further find that taking Curricu-

lum B decreases students’likelihood of working in the private sector (law firm or busi-

ness/industry), increases their likelihood of working in the public sector (government

or public interest) or doing a judicial clerkship, and reduces their average annual sal-

ary. At the same, however, we find no statistically significant effects on other out-

comes, including students’cumulative grade point average, their chances of passing the

bar exam or being employed 10 months after graduation, or their rate or amount of

alumni giving.

DOI: 10.1111/jels.12383

©2024 Cornell Law School and Wiley Periodicals LLC.

J Empir Leg Stud. 2024;21:375–423. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/jels 375

INTRODUCTION

In the United States, the first year of law school (“1L”) is legendary. Indeed, the

1L year is notorious not only within the legal community but also among

the general public. It has been the subject of bestselling books,

1

blockbuster

movies,

2

and an award-winning television series.

3

A key element of the 1L mystique is its curriculum. The standard 1L curricu-

lum includes five core courses—Civil Procedure, Contracts, Criminal Law,

Property, and Torts—all taught using the case method, often in the Socratic

style.

4

The roots of the standard 1L curriculum trace back to Dean Christopher

Columbus Langdell and Harvard Law School in 1870.

5

By 1950, virtually every

US law school had adopted some version of the Langdellian curriculum,

6

and

today the vast majority of schools continue to require 1L students to take these

five core courses.

7

Leaders in the legal academy often talk about experimenting with the 1L

curriculum, but hardly anyone does it.

8

Since 1991, Georgetown University

Law Center (“Georgetown Law”or “GULC”) has offered an alternative 1L cur-

riculum (“Curriculum B") alongside its version of the standard 1L curriculum

(“Curriculum A”).

9

Curriculum B was designed to provide “critical”perspectives

on the law and respond to important changes in legal practice and theory in the

years since the standard 1L curriculum was first developed, including the emer-

gence of the regulatory state, the breakdown of conventional doctrinal bound-

aries, and the influence of other disciplines such as economics, history, and

philosophy.

10

The core courses in Curriculum B are Bargain, Exchange,

and Liability; Democracy and Coercion; Government Processes; Legal Justice;

Legal Process and Society; and Property in Time.

11

Georgetown Law’s Curriculum B offers a unique opportunity to study an

alternative 1L curriculum. We study whether Curriculum B yields measurable

differences in student outcomes in three categories: (A) academic performance

in law school; (B) bar passage and postgraduate employment; and (C) alumni

engagement. Our empirical design leverages the fact that enrollment in Curricu-

lum B is done by lottery when it is oversubscribed—meaning our study is effec-

tively a randomized controlled trial. We measure treatment effects of

1

For example, One L (Turow, 1977) and The Paper Chase (Osborn, 1971).

2

For example, Legally Blond (Luketic, 2001) and The Paper Chase (Bridges, 1973).

3

For example, The Paper Chase (Roth & Thompson, 1978–1979 & 1983–1986).

4

See Gordon (2007, pp. 340–341).

5

See Gordon (2007), Stevens (1983), and Chase (1979).

6

See Gordon (2007, p. 340).

7

See Carpenter (2012, p. 50).

8

See, for example, Rubin (2007).

9

See GULC (1990). Curriculum B is also known as Section 3, the 1L section in which Curriculum B is offered.

10

See Cassidy (2012).

11

See GULC (2021, p. 3). Descriptions of these courses are set forth in the Appendix.

376 1L CURRICULUM

Curriculum B by comparing outcomes of students who received the treatment

(Curriculum B) with outcomes of students who received the placebo (Curricu-

lum A) but wanted the treatment. Because students in both the treatment and

control groups elected to take Curriculum B, our empirical strategy overcomes

the issue of selection bias.

12

We find that Curriculum B has a number of interesting treatment effects. In

particular, we find that taking Curriculum B decreases students’performance

in two popular business law electives (Corporations and Securities Regulation)

and reduces the rate at which they graduate with Latin honors. In addition, we

find that it increases students’propensity to take certain public law electives and

decreases their propensity to take certain business law electives. We further find

that taking Curriculum B decreases the frequency with which students work in

the private sector (law firm or business/industry), increases the frequency with

which they work in the public sector (government or public interest) or do a

judicial clerkship, and reduces their average annual salary.

13

At the same, how-

ever, we find that taking Curriculum B has no statistically significant effect on

any of the other outcomes that we study, including students’cumulative grade

point average (GPA) and post-1L cumulative GPA,

14

their chances of passing

the bar exam on the first attempt or being employed 10 months after gradua-

tion, or their rate or amount of alumni giving.

We also demonstrate that selection effects would have biased our results had

we performed “naïve comparisons”between students who took Curriculum B

and students who took Curriculum A (including students who did not apply to

take Curriculum B). More specifically, we show that failing to account for selec-

tion effects would lead one to conclude that Curriculum B has positive effects

on academic performance (cumulative GPA and post-1L cumulative GPA) and

alumni engagement (rates of alumni giving and attendance at alumni events)

that we do not find in our main analysis. Finally, we report the results of a sur-

vey of Georgetown Law’s full-time faculty, which show that faculty perceptions

of Curriculum B do not always match reality—and sometimes track our naïve

findings.

The remainder of the Article proceeds as follows. The “1L Curriculum”

section provides a brief history of the standard 1L curriculum and an overview

of Georgetown Law’s Curriculum B. The “Strategy and Data”section describes

our empirical strategy and our dataset. The “Main Analysis”section compares

12

Selection bias occurs when the selection of subjects for treatment results in systemic differences (other than

treatment status) between the treatment and control groups that can explain differences in their outcomes. See, for

example, Johnson & DiNardo (1997, p. 447). Selection bias is a concern whenever the selection of subjects for

treatment is not random (e.g., self-selection). See, for example, Barnow et al. (1980).

13

The employment outcomes we study are all measured at 10 months after graduation.

14

For the avoidance of doubt, GPA stands for grade point average. We measure all grades on Georgetown Law ’s

4.0 scale, in which A+=4.33, A =4.00, A–=3.67, B+=3.33, B =3.00, B–=2.67, C+=2.33, C =2.00,

D=1.00, and F =0. See GULC (2021, p. 11).

1L CURRICULUM 377