Do law school grades correlate to lawyering ability? Forum

[dudeknows]

judges are likely to prefer much higher ranked individuals from much lower ranked schools (though I personally don’t think they should, but that’s another story).

I'd like to hear that story.

[objctnyrhnr]

judges are likely to prefer much higher ranked individuals from much lower ranked schools (though I personally don’t think they should, but that’s another story).

I'd like to hear that story.

I’m not that far (somewhat less than a decade) out of law school, but I’ve had a relatively unusual path. As a result of that path, ive had the opportunity to work next to and against a ridiculous range of what TLS (and most of the legal world) would refer to as prestige-related classifications. I’ve worked with fed clerks and state appeals clerks and tttt grads and ttt grads and t2 grads and t25 grads and t14 grads and yhs grads. Of those subsets, I’ve worked with grads at the tippy top, top third, median, and sub median of those respective categories of schools.

If anything has struck me about my own perception of those individuals’ respective lawyering quality in the aggregate, it is that school level means a lot, from which it follows (for 0Ls) that gpa/Lsat means a lot. By contrast, %ile of graduating class means almost nothing as manifested by lawyering skill. Applied to practice, as a member of my v30 firm’s recruiting team (or a former fedclerk looking to hire future clerks or former govt atty assisting with hiring), I can tell you that I would recommend taking median of t6 over top of t20 all day every day. Moving on down the line, id recommend take 66%ile t30 before even interviewing the ttt valedictorian.

You can fill in the blanks in between, but the gist is that Lsat/gpa combo seem like they mean something (in my view and experience). I suppose they might reflect how hard you’re willing to work (just look at all the 0Ls who do not think tht Lsat study is worthwhile) and how well you grasp important concepts. The crapshoot that constitutes 1L exams that are differentiated by one tiny phrase resulting in the difference of a grade, on the other hand, do not have nearly the same predictive value in terms of lawyering ability, IME.

Anyway, there are also a ton of outliers and anomalies and amazing lawyers who graduated from tttts and weaker lawyers who graduated from t6’s, but in the aggregate and in my experience, what I’ve articulated above holds true.

So that’s the reason for my opinion. Feel like this will get some pushback, but that was the reason for my comment.

[nixy]

I’ll pushback and say that in my own experience of practice (5-10 years), with people from a similarly wide range of schools, I have not drawn the conclusions that objectnyrhr has drawn about school ranking and competence.

It may well be that this is simply a function of my anecdotal experience versus his anecdotal experience, which is fair as long as everyone remembers we’re comparing anecdotal experience.

[objctnyrhnr]

I’ll pushback and say that in my own experience of practice (5-10 years), with people from a similarly wide range of schools, I have not drawn the conclusions that objectnyrhr has drawn about school ranking and competence.

It may well be that this is simply a function of my anecdotal experience versus his anecdotal experience, which is fair as long as everyone remembers we’re comparing anecdotal experience.

Just to clarify, are you saying that in your experience, a great lawyer is literally just as likely to come from the top of a t6 as she is from the bottom of a tttt (meaning no correlation whatsoever within anything)? Or are you saying that in your experience, a given top 5% graduate from a ttt is just as likely as not to be a better lawyer than a median t6 grad?

[nixy]

Probably the latter more than the former, although mostly I don't have a lot of expectations based on school. In part lawyering successfully requires a lot of skills in handling people and time management that I don't think UGPA/LSAT (which tend to determine which school you go to) really measure. In that respect I think being at the top of your school probably shows more about your efficiency/ability than being in the mushy middle.

TBF, I would probably agree there's a little bit of a cliff that drops off when you get to really low-ranked schools; I mostly don't even see grads from the true bottom feeders. What I really disagree with is the idea that there's some kind of direct correlation between school rank and ability in the fine-grained way you described. In the same way that the bottom of the bottom stand out, I'd also probably agree there is a small layer of lawyers at the very top of the top who stand alone. But apart from those extremes I think it's very much about the individual and not the school. For instance, I very strongly disagree that a median T6 grad is, all else being equal, better than a top T20 grad - based on the aggregate of my experience, anyway.

[QContinuum]

Ah, one of TLS' finest traditions - an off-topic discussion. I've split this off into its own thread and tentatively located it in Legal Employment (objctnyrhnr, defer to your judgment about which board is most appropriate for this thread).

IMO, my fellow moderator is right. I think it's partially a function of T13/T20s' selection process, and partially a function of the education these law schools offer to their students.

As to the first part, I think it's entirely reasonable that, while imperfect, GPA and LSAT actually mean something quite important in the mine run of cases. GPA is a pretty good measure of whether one is able and willing to perform consistently at a high level over an extended period of time (marathon ability). LSAT is a pretty good measure of how much short-term pain one is willing to experience to achieve their goals (sprinting ability). Combined, it's not surprising to me that folks with terrific GPAs and LSAT scores make better lawyers than folks who performed unevenly in college or were unwilling to put in their best efforts on the LSAT.

As to the second part, as much as people pooh-pooh the quality of education offered at the T13/T20 relative to lower-ranked schools, the T13/T20 have never claimed to be focused on teaching their students the black-letter law. Their focus has always been on teaching students how to think. And I think there's also something of an effect from attending class with, and socializing with, fellow students who are also great marathoners and great sprinters.

Put it all together and it's not surprising at all that folks who're great marathoners and great sprinters who spend three years learning how to think like lawyers are predisposed to become great lawyers.

A few big caveats: Of course it's entirely possible to become a great lawyer out of a lower-ranked school. GPA and LSAT score aren't perfect measures of one's ability. And I don't think there are significant distinctions in student/graduate quality within the T13/T20. And I think objctnyrhnr would agree.

[objctnyrhnr]

Ah, one of TLS' finest traditions - an off-topic discussion. I've split this off into its own thread and tentatively located it in Legal Employment (objctnyrhnr, defer to your judgment about which board is most appropriate for this thread).

IMO, my fellow moderator is right. I think it's partially a function of T13/T20s' selection process, and partially a function of the education these law schools offer to their students.

As to the first part, I think it's entirely reasonable that, while imperfect, GPA and LSAT actually mean something quite important in the mine run of cases. GPA is a pretty good measure of whether one is able and willing to perform consistently at a high level over an extended period of time (marathon ability). LSAT is a pretty good measure of how much short-term pain one is willing to experience to achieve their goals (sprinting ability). Combined, it's not surprising to me that folks with terrific GPAs and LSAT scores make better lawyers than folks who performed unevenly in college or were unwilling to put in their best efforts on the LSAT.

As to the second part, as much as people pooh-pooh the quality of education offered at the T13/T20 relative to lower-ranked schools, the T13/T20 have never claimed to be focused on teaching their students the black-letter law. Their focus has always been on teaching students how to think. And I think there's also something of an effect from attending class with, and socializing with, fellow students who are also great marathoners and great sprinters.

Put it all together and it's not surprising at all that folks who're great marathoners and great sprinters who spend three years learning how to think like lawyers are predisposed to become great lawyers.

A few big caveats: Of course it's entirely possible to become a great lawyer out of a lower-ranked school. GPA and LSAT score aren't perfect measures of one's ability. And I don't think there are significant distinctions in student/graduate quality within the T13/T20. And I think objctnyrhnr would agree.

Well put all around. (And sorry—I think the off-topic sun-discussion was probably my fault.)

Particularly, I am a big fan of your “marathon” and “sprinting” abilities analogy. Makes perfect sense, but I’ve never heard it put that way.

I also think it was put well when described as a bit more of a couple tiny cliffs—such as one after yhscc (but then again maybe I’m just naming schools I didn’t get into...) then a huge one (again speaking very generally and in the aggregate) once you leave the usnwr t20 plus maybe BC Bu Fordham-ish.

So yes I agree with both posters here who mentioned that there’s probably not a significant difference in ability in the aggregate between an average median grad from gtown and one from Bu.

It’s also conceivable that the sentiment I expressed above stems primarily from experience with an enormous range from my practice in govt where you’d regularly see a tttt grad alongside or against t30 grad...and you’d see this a lot. And at least 7 or 8 times out of 10, it always seemed to me like the tttt grad was playing checkers while the t20 grad was playing chess (but 2 or 3 out of 10 times, of course, it didn’t feel that way).

But as other posters have said, it truly is all anecdotal and there’s no real way to measure it or do more than speculate, here.

[QContinuum]

Well put all around. (And sorry—I think the off-topic sun-discussion was probably my fault.)

Particularly, I am a big fan of your “marathon” and “sprinting” abilities analogy. Makes perfect sense, but I’ve never heard it put that way.

I also think it was put well when described as a bit more of a couple tiny cliffs—such as one after yhscc (but then again maybe I’m just naming schools I didn’t get into...) then a huge one (again speaking very generally and in the aggregate) once you leave the usnwr t20 plus maybe BC Bu Fordham-ish.

So yes I agree with both posters here who mentioned that there’s probably not a significant difference in ability in the aggregate between an average median grad from gtown and one from Bu.

It’s also conceivable that the sentiment I expressed above stems primarily from experience with an enormous range from my practice in govt where you’d regularly see a tttt grad alongside or against t30 grad...and you’d see this a lot. And at least 7 or 8 times out of 10, it always seemed to me like the tttt grad was playing checkers while the t20 grad was playing chess (but 2 or 3 out of 10 times, of course, it didn’t feel that way).

But as other posters have said, it truly is all anecdotal and there’s no real way to measure it or do more than speculate, here.

Thanks very much for your kind words. I also agree that there are a couple tiny cliffs (even within the T13; I think there is an actual difference, on net, between, say, Yale grads and CCN grads). And I agree that a few of the strongest T1s, like Fordham, should be recognized accordingly as on par with the traditional T20 schools.

[wishywashy]

As to the second part, as much as people pooh-pooh the quality of education offered at the T13/T20 relative to lower-ranked schools, the T13/T20 have never claimed to be focused on teaching their students the black-letter law. Their focus has always been on teaching students how to think. And I think there's also something of an effect from attending class with, and socializing with, fellow students who are also great marathoners and great sprinters.

I would say that the higher ranked schools do a better job of giving a lawyer the foundation they need to argue why the current black letter rules are wrong (as you say, teaching how to think). Like the saying goes: if you don't have the facts, argue the law; if you don't have the law argue the facts; if you have neither, pound the table and argue public policy (and for a new rule that just so happens to help your client).

The black letter/bar exam focused school graduates would then have to figure out on their own why the law is the way it is in the first place when they are later faced with needing to argue for a change in the law. I think you get a more complete set of tools when you understand the 'why' and 'how' of the current law instead of just the 'what'.

On the other hand, if you measure lawyering ability by $$$ then there are many a plaintiff's lawyer out there who can ride a strike suit all the way to the bank. Wait, I don't mean strike suit, I mean a colorable legal claim that is totally justified and only brought to get justice for their pocketbooks...wait did I say pocketbooks? I meant clients. Justice for their client$.

On a serious note, you can have lower grades and still help plenty of people and do yourself and your profession proud. Just like you can make great grades and end up a disbarred disgrace. You don't have to be the best, and even the best can't always turn a pile of dog-poop facts and a crazy client into a win.

Source: many folks in my family practice at the solo and small firm level in a variety of practice areas. Some of them had top grades, some made straight C's in 1L. They all do okay, even the more recent graduates (post 2007).

[nixy]

I just disagree on where the cliffs are, or how significant they are along the way. I think there are still enough exceedingly capable attorneys out of the T1 and a lot of the T2 that it's hard to identify cliffs or make presumptions in the aggregate. People point out that the rankings are meaningless when you're looking at regional schools, and I think that's also (to some extent - not the same extent) the case for ability. People looking at their regional schools because they want to work in that region aren't considering higher-ranked schools. Now statistically I get that the majority of students at, say, Wyoming law aren't competitive for a lot of T20 schools. But they also never had to be. (Many many people not in major coastal cities don't get/have never bought into the whole education rankings prestige rat-race. That's not a function of ability but of culture.)

I agree that there's often a difference between the black-letter-law approach and the "teach you to think" approach. I think the black letter law approach is often catering to the lowest common denominator and that there are still going be to students from those schools who will be amazing lawyers, but you do start to see the shift in the aggregate around those different approaches. (I just think the "teach you how to think" approach isn't a strict function of rankings, either. There are plenty of T1s with this approach and probably T2s as well.)

[lavarman84]

I'm not really sure what this conversation is supposed to be. If we're talking averages, I'm sure that the top schools will spit out better lawyers on average. They have better students on average. But if we're just talking great/elite lawyers, you're going to struggle to find any correlation. Obviously, though, it's going to depend on the area of the law.

I imagine appellate law is a lot heavier on top students from top law schools or top students from solid to good law schools. That's because you typically need a COA clerkship to practice high-level appellate law. On the other hand, I imagine that trial lawyers, especially personal injury and criminal defense, will be all over the map. Charisma and oratory skills have a lot more to do with success there.

As for the question of how the top students from T1, T2, and even TTT stack up with students from the top schools, I would strongly disagree with the earlier poster. Personally, that sort of snootiness is one of many reasons why I have no interest in working in biglaw. Working as an A3 clerk, I've worked with and spent a lot of time around people who graduated from schools all over the rankings, including HYS grads. I can tell you that I haven't noticed any real difference in intelligence between the HYS grads and the top students at T1, T2, and TTT schools.

Now, I imagine if I were clerking with a feeder, that might not be true. I think it's fair to say the top handful of students from HYS or CCN are on average brighter than the top handful of students from T1s, T2s, or TTTs. However, when we start to drop beyond those high achievers at the top schools, I don't think you're seeing much difference. However, what I have noticed is that the top grads from the lower-ranked schools are far less likely to be bad clerks. Hearing stories from past years and from my firsthand experience here, it has largely been the grads of top law schools who were lazy clerks (which is a pretty small club, to be fair). From my own observations, the students from lower-ranked law schools tend to believe they have something to prove.

[icansortofmath]

Short answer is obviously yes unless you think the ability to write law exams has no correlation with “lawyering” ability.

[nixy]

Short answer is obviously yes unless you think the ability to write law exams has no correlation with “lawyering” ability.

It's pretty darn weak. Don't know about you, but my job hasn't ever involved sitting down and writing everything I can in 3-4 hours about a specific area of law in response to an artificial set of facts with which I've just been presented.

[QContinuum]

I'm not really sure what this conversation is supposed to be. If we're talking averages, I'm sure that the top schools will spit out better lawyers on average. They have better students on average.

So we agree. No one ITT ever claimed that we were only talking about law schools' ability to produce lions of the bar. My first post ITT expressly noted:

ig caveat[]: Of course it's entirely possible to become a great lawyer out of a lower-ranked school.

Working as an A3 clerk, I've worked with and spent a lot of time around people who graduated from schools all over the rankings, including HYS grads. I can tell you that I haven't noticed any real difference in intelligence between the HYS grads and the top students at T1, T2, and TTT schools.

Of course no one ITT ever talked about differences in intelligence between T13/T20 students and those at lower-ranked law schools. Rather, my first post ITT talked about differences in ability & willingness to perform consistently at a high level over an extended period of time; ability & willingness to tolerate short-term pain; and the advantages offered by the "thinking like a lawyer" teaching focus of the T13/T20 schools. All of these factors go to lawyering ability; none of them correlate directly with raw intelligence.

Short answer is obviously yes unless you think the ability to write law exams has no correlation with “lawyering” ability.

It's pretty darn weak. Don't know about you, but my job hasn't ever involved sitting down and writing everything I can in 3-4 hours about a specific area of law in response to an artificial set of facts with which I've just been presented.

And don't forget lack of consultation with anyone else and lack of access to any reference materials or research ability other than Mark I Eyeball access to a compact outline prepared in advance by yourself without knowing the questions presented or any of the relevant facts.

It would frankly be malpractice for any lawyer to approach an actual engagement under circumstances even remotely resembling a law school exam.

[PMan99]

Short answer is obviously yes unless you think the ability to write law exams has no correlation with “lawyering” ability.

It's pretty darn weak. Don't know about you, but my job hasn't ever involved sitting down and writing everything I can in 3-4 hours about a specific area of law in response to an artificial set of facts with which I've just been presented.

And don't forget lack of consultation with anyone else and lack of access to any reference materials or research ability other than Mark I Eyeball access to a compact outline prepared in advance by yourself without knowing the questions presented or any of the relevant facts.

It would frankly be malpractice for any lawyer to approach an actual engagement under circumstances even remotely resembling a law school exam.

Neither your nor Nixy are wrong that the exact conditions of a law school exam are rarely, if ever, repeated in practice. But that doesn't mean a student's exam writing ability isn't correlated with their lawyering ability. Because a lot of what goes into writing a good exam - not freaking out under pressure, understanding and distilling law sufficient to create a coherent outline (or even better, being able to spot someone else's), having the self-awareness and work ethic to put in the proper amount of study time, etc. - will translate into better lawyering ability. At least in biglaw, I don't have experience outside of that.

[lavarman84]

Of course no one ITT ever talked about differences in intelligence between T13/T20 students and those at lower-ranked law schools. Rather, my first post ITT talked about differences in ability & willingness to perform consistently at a high level over an extended period of time; ability & willingness to tolerate short-term pain; and the advantages offered by the "thinking like a lawyer" teaching focus of the T13/T20 schools. All of these factors go to lawyering ability; none of them correlate directly with raw intelligence.

Okay, if that's the point, I've seen more consistency from the top students at the law schools outside of the top 20 in terms of ability and willingness to perform at a high level over an extended period of time and the ability and willingness to tolerate "short-term pain." And I've noticed no real differences in people's ability to think like a lawyer between those groups.

[QContinuum]

Of course no one ITT ever talked about differences in intelligence between T13/T20 students and those at lower-ranked law schools. Rather, my first post ITT talked about differences in ability & willingness to perform consistently at a high level over an extended period of time; ability & willingness to tolerate short-term pain; and the advantages offered by the "thinking like a lawyer" teaching focus of the T13/T20 schools. All of these factors go to lawyering ability; none of them correlate directly with raw intelligence.

Okay, if that's the point, I've seen more consistency from the top students at the law schools outside of the top 20 in terms of ability and willingness to perform at a high level over an extended period of time and the ability and willingness to tolerate "short-term pain." And I've noticed no real differences in people's ability to think like a lawyer between those groups.

You mean you've seen more of these qualities from non-T20 students who secured A3 clerkships. That's a very - even vanishingly - small subset of non-T20 students, and by definition a subset that was handpicked by federal judges specifically for their positive qualities.

[icansortofmath]

I can't speak for law firms really but I know in banking there was definitely a difference between students from top schools and more middling schools just before the financial crisis (2008 one) when I interned. On average the median performer, for example, from UPenn was on par with or even faster than someone in the top 10% from, for example, Fordham by the time they were my fellow interns. This is on average for the typical Junior intern class. I observed the same thing with fresh associates too where kids from lower ranked schools often got relegated to borderline data entry stuff and PowerPoint while the smarter ones spent their time debugging models and sometimes straight up rebuilding them.

This is not to say they were better bankers across the board. There is definitely a "chip on shoulder" mentality for people from non-target schools and they often ended up being more effective than smarter kids from more prestigious schools (or just more banking focused schools. UPenn and NYU produce better-trained bankers and teach most up to date methodology. I heard Tuck too but I don't see as many of them.)

[lavarman84]

Of course no one ITT ever talked about differences in intelligence between T13/T20 students and those at lower-ranked law schools. Rather, my first post ITT talked about differences in ability & willingness to perform consistently at a high level over an extended period of time; ability & willingness to tolerate short-term pain; and the advantages offered by the "thinking like a lawyer" teaching focus of the T13/T20 schools. All of these factors go to lawyering ability; none of them correlate directly with raw intelligence.

Okay, if that's the point, I've seen more consistency from the top students at the law schools outside of the top 20 in terms of ability and willingness to perform at a high level over an extended period of time and the ability and willingness to tolerate "short-term pain." And I've noticed no real differences in people's ability to think like a lawyer between those groups.

You mean you've seen more of these qualities from non-T20 students who secured A3 clerkships. That's a very - even vanishingly - small subset of non-T20 students, and by definition a subset that was handpicked by federal judges specifically for their positive qualities.

That is the topic of this conversation as far as I understand it, students outside the t13 or t20 schools who have the credentials for biglaw or fed clerkships. As I recall, there were a few studies showing that the students from lower-ranked law schools tended to last longer in biglaw on average than their counterparts from the top law schools. Again, I realize that doesn't speak to the average law student at the schools outside of the top law schools, but my understanding of this conversation is that we were talking about how the top law students at the T1, T2, and even TTT schools stack up against the more average students at top law schools. And like I said, I think that desire to prove themselves plays a role in it.

[nixy]

Short answer is obviously yes unless you think the ability to write law exams has no correlation with “lawyering” ability.

It's pretty darn weak. Don't know about you, but my job hasn't ever involved sitting down and writing everything I can in 3-4 hours about a specific area of law in response to an artificial set of facts with which I've just been presented.

And don't forget lack of consultation with anyone else and lack of access to any reference materials or research ability other than Mark I Eyeball access to a compact outline prepared in advance by yourself without knowing the questions presented or any of the relevant facts.

It would frankly be malpractice for any lawyer to approach an actual engagement under circumstances even remotely resembling a law school exam.

Neither your nor Nixy are wrong that the exact conditions of a law school exam are rarely, if ever, repeated in practice. But that doesn't mean a student's exam writing ability isn't correlated with their lawyering ability. Because a lot of what goes into writing a good exam - not freaking out under pressure, understanding and distilling law sufficient to create a coherent outline (or even better, being able to spot someone else's), having the self-awareness and work ethic to put in the proper amount of study time, etc. - will translate into better lawyering ability. At least in biglaw, I don't have experience outside of that.

I think the curve dilutes a lot of the meaning of law school grades, though. Because I think a lot of people who are able to do the above don’t get top grades because someone has to do better and someone has to do worse. Again (I know I harp on this) you have a few people clearly at the top and some clearly at the bottom and a bunch in the middle, for whom missing one or two more issues on an exam isn’t really representative of how good a lawyer they’ll be. (Also - again repeating myself - I think there are too many skills involving time and people management that law school and exams don’t reveal anything about. Sure, some people succeed on exams through excellent time management skills, but a lot of people cram in finals week, too.)

There’s not *no* correlation, but I don’t think it’s the strongest.

[FND]

My own experience is somewhat similar - better schools are able to select more talented individuals who are willing to work harder; putting those individuals together makes them better by association. Likewise, better schools teach students how to think about the law, lesser schools teach to the bar.

BUT, LSAT/GPA is not a perfect measure, there are plenty of people who have the potential to do better but for whatever reason don't make the cut (e.g. students who party too much in UG tend to have worse grades). And, the best training can't teach certain innate abilities that are invaluable for attorneys.
On top of that, there are plenty of attorneys who do well, and keep doing well, because they work hard and manage to not screw up (or not get caught screwing up) who really aren't as good as everyone thinks. And that includes senior partners and department heads at biglaw firms.

I can often tell within a few minutes when I'm dealing with a less capable attorney, and I've come across them in all echelons of the legal world.
In a transactional practice (I don't do lit), it means being able to slip things in/under/through that it'll be years before anyone realizes (if ever) what happened. Or it means not digging deeper into hints of something being off. Or being so sure of the right answer that a better solution gets ignored.

Probably the most noticeable trait is when attorneys who focus on the issue at hand, rather than the underlying problem. Clients hire attorneys either to solve or prevent problems. Find out what the real issue is that needs to be addressed, and focus on that. The rest is just a smokescreen.

[Anonymous User]

Sure, some people succeed on exams through excellent time management skills, but a lot of people cram in finals week, too.)

one thing I found really interesting about law school is one classmate who, to be frank was one of the less talented / less smart people in class. A reverse splitter with high GPA and low LSAT, who got in off the waitlist.

He got the highest grades, because he worked harder, and smarter (yeah yeah) than anyone else. He pre-wrote his answers for the exams, and checked them with the professors, so that he only needed to fill in the blank during the exams themselves. Ended up with great grades, great offers, got the job he wanted, etc.

I'm sure he'll make partner at his V5 NYC firm (he's already on his way). But one-on-one, he's not a particularly good attorney (relatively speaking - we went to a pretty decent law school)

[Anonymous User]

I can often tell within a few minutes when I'm dealing with a less capable attorney, and I've come across them in all echelons of the legal world. In a transactional practice (I don't do lit), it means being able to slip things in/under/through that it'll be years before anyone realizes (if ever) what happened. Or it means not digging deeper into hints of something being off. Or being so sure of the right answer that a better solution gets ignored.

Probably the most noticeable trait is when attorneys who focus on the issue at hand, rather than the underlying problem. Clients hire attorneys either to solve or prevent problems. Find out what the real issue is that needs to be addressed, and focus on that. The rest is just a smokescreen.

I disagree with the general consensus ITT in that I think LSAT and uGPA (or even LS grades) mean very little, if anything, w/r/t lawyering ability. E.g., I've seen people with better LSAT scores or who were much smarter than me be much worse lawyers, and people with worse LSAT scores be much better lawyers. (Not that I'm some extreme in lawyering--probably just average.) Some people with good LS grades secure a job and just coast, as another example.

But I think the more interesting question is what makes a good lawyer vs. a bad one--for me at least, in a transactional setting. I hear people say "x in our firm is a hell of a lawyer," but often wonder if that's just a product of qualities the speaker values as opposed to something objective.

Anyway, just food for thought.

[ghostoftraynor]

I think everyone saying undergrad GPA, LSAT, and law school GPA don't mean anything would still hire Wacthell over DLA every time if cost wasn't a factor.

[FND]

But I think the more interesting question is what makes a good lawyer vs. a bad one--for me at least, in a transactional setting. I hear people say "x in our firm is a hell of a lawyer," but often wonder if that's just a product of qualities the speaker values as opposed to something objective.

in a transactional setting, it means:
(a) intellectual curiosity to try to understand every aspect of the deal
(b) ability to grasp the fine nuances
(c) investigative ability to spot the most minor tidbit that may have major repercussions
(d) creative ability to come up with innovative solutions

For example, I worked on a deal a while back, where a hedge fund was closing a portfolio of alternative assets, and we were representing the new buyer. While going over the chain of title "we" spotted that one of the previous owners of one of the assets was unusual. When we did a lot of digging, we found that the origination of that one asset was... not okay and that the underlying financial instrument could be rescinded.
(The the attorney who had okayed the purchase of that asset had not picked up on a seemingly minor detail that, upon further digging was a major problem)

Had we ended it there, the deal would have fallen through, the hedge fund would not have been able to offload a portfolio they wanted to get rid of, and the biglaw firm that did the due diligence would have been sued for malpractice. Our client, the buyer would be fine, but would have missed out on purchasing the assets at a very reduced rate and miss out on a lucrative investment.

Instead, "we" deconstructed every aspect of those alternative assets, double-checked the specific statutes, and found an obscure law in a flyover state that we could route the transaction through, which sort-of cured the defect (in said state, said defect could be waived).

So, good transactional attorney (a) uncovers a potential problem and (b) finds a solution to said problem.