Most Competitive/Cut throat students

[bigs5068]

Yea I never get the point of worrying about what other people are doing. I don't know even know how someone would be cutthroat in this day and age with computers hiding a book won't do much you could just find it online and if you are smart enough to shut the internet down then you are probably to smart to be in law school.

Honestly, I never worried about what anyone else did and helped people the entire time. Lawyers I worked for just said be nice to everybody, because you never know when someone in your class that you were male private part to will end up being a judge or have the decision to hire you somewhere. There really is no point to making enemies.

Yes that dialouge is awesome and yet so true.

[Morten Lund]

Lawyers I worked for just said be nice to everybody, because you never know when someone in your class that you were male private part to will end up being a judge or have the decision to hire you somewhere. There really is no point to making enemies.

That is excellent advice.  Sure, it can be tempting to be a jerk - but life is long, and so are negative impressions.  Your law school classmates are far more likely to be in positions of power down the road than the average citizen - and even if they don't become a judge or the President, you will face them in negotiations, or be their coworker.  Everything is more difficult when people dislike you.

"Cut-throat" behavior of this nature is incredibly short-sighted and counter-productive.

[Thane Messinger]

His comments and your comments are not inconsistent. You're just perhaps destined to be one of the "truly good people" he mentioned.  I think the main point is that a) most people don't know how they'll react, b) nobody says "I'm going to go to law school and be an obnoxious, competitive ubertool," c) some people inevitably do, and d) it's pretty much the same story at every school.

EDIT: I'll also add that many of the people who reach stage C have no idea they've done so. Some of the biggest gunners at our school have complained to me about the other gunners.

One variable that might be important as to the degree of bad behavior (especially in a market such as this) is the degree to which students must compete for jobs.  This is not rhetorical: someone from a "safe" school like Vermont or Hawaii is likely to have a much easier time in getting a job in that known, usually local market.  (The culture in those markets is also noticeably more aware of its small-town intimacy, and thus bad behavior is more frowned upon in addition to being unnecessary.)  Someone in a school such as Yale or Harvard or Stanford or such is, even now, in a comparatively good position--but even there there's probably a difference between Yale-Stanford and Harvard, because the absolute numbers make the relative competition for jobs higher at a larger school.  That leads to caveat 42, which is that for the top jobs, there is going to be intense competition, and because most students are very smart and have for their lives assumed that they will of course rise to the top, the world of law school in which others are just as smart (if not smarter) is jarring.  This is the reason that it's hard to know just how different law school will be, socially and emotionally, for most.

If there were a crucial aspect in this issue, it would be the law school that is itself fighting for a higher place (which is most, each in their own way).  So, someone who attends a bottom-of-the-T14 is going to feel twenty times the pressure than someone at Yale-Harvard.  And someone at a lower Tier 1 school that is intent on placing its students nationally is likely to be worse still.

For all, much of the answer is in understanding that this is likely to occur, in some way or form, and the better course is to rise above it.  Don't engage in bad behavior yourself--for one thing, it won't help, and for another, it will definitely hurt after law school, as Morten and others rightly point out--and try not to get sucked into that nasty world.

[barond]

Competitiveness and cut throat are 2 completely different things.   As far as competitiveness, understand that all students are looking out for their own best interests.  Most of these ballers have been getting great grades their entire life and they study ferociously for hours and hours every week just trying to get the pleasure arising out of A's.  Even in the lowly Tier 4 I attend- the students say that it is not competitive, but I don't buy that.  Law school is competitive no matter where you go.

Now cut throat implies a student engaging in improper conduct. That is certainly unethical and unwarranted no matter how badly someone wants the pleasure arising out of A's.  The dean said in his welcome ceremony that from this point on you are supposed to conduct yourself as attorneys. I think law school is more competitive and less cut throat.

[bigs5068]

That is true. Obviously every student wants to get goods grades and that will require you to be competitive and study your ass off. There is nothing wrong with being competitive, if you are in the legal profession you need to be since when you go to the real world the other side will be trying to beat you.  As you said being cut throat is wrong, but I don't even know how you could be cutthroat with the internet today.  You can find anything out there so what good would it do to rip the page of a book out, unless I am missing something I just don't how someone could do something cutthroat in a law school environment. Obviously, short of committing a crime like poisoning people or breaking laptops etc.

[barond]

I also don't know how you could be cut throat either.  We did very little 'book' research and the little bit we did do was not even graded.  I presume cutthroat would be not helping out a student who asks you a question or something to that effect. That may not even rise to the level of being considered 'cut throat'.  Maybe cut throat would be giving the false impression that you are barely doing any work where in reality you are studying more than anybody else.  Stealing someone elses supplements when they are in the bathroom?  That would be theft not being cut throat.

[bigs5068]

Yea there were a few people that were dicks to other people when they wanted help, but I was just cool to everybody and if someone wanted notes or something I was happy to give it to them. Being a male private part to two or three people is just going to make you enemies and odds are if they are asking for your help you don't need to worry about them doing better than you, it actually might help you understand the material better if you explain it to someone.  Honestly, even if the two-three people you help do end up doing better than you because of your absolute genius in being to explain the law to somebody else, but not on exam then you will drop maybe 2% in your ranking and you will in the 29% percentile instead of the 27% and that really wouldn't matter that much to anyone.

It really make absolutely no sense to be a male private part, but there were a few people that just isolated themselves and were mean to people that asked them for help.  Those three people did not even end up on the Dean's list so a lot of good it did them. Obviously, the competitive edge is and should be there for anyone considering law school, but if you think being a male private part will help you out in anyway well it won't.

[Thane Messinger]

* * *
It really make absolutely no sense to be a male private part, but there were a few people that just isolated themselves and were mean to people that asked them for help.  Those three people did not even end up on the Dean's list so a lot of good it did them. Obviously, the competitive edge is and should be there for anyone considering law school, but if you think being a male private part will help you out in anyway well it won't.

You're quite right about the low correlation between hyper-competitive behavior and grades.  This is one of those shocks that leads to even worse behavior. 

I would argue that competitiveness is correlated to cut-throat behavior, because the latter is to a large degree a psychological reaction, where law school "Goodies" seem suddenly and unfairly out of reach.  The truth is that this is true for many law students--such is the nature of the forced curve and of OCI. 

As to the specific games that are played, they can run the gamut, and most are petty and silly--but they do have an effect.  It's hard to take the high road when you see others taking the low road.

I fully agree, however, that the high road is the better one to take.  Better view.  = :  )

Thane.