Many students are unhappy about a lack of feedback from their professors and often feel lost in classes with over 140 people, Cooper says.

But Clark points out that HLS's large size provides students with resources they would not have access to at smaller institutions.

"It's wrong to keep focusing on the ratio," Clark says. "The real strength of Harvard is that it is an academic metropolis with many magnificent neighborhoods."

Nevertheless, the student-faculty ratio at Harvard is several times higher than at other top-ranked schools such as Yale, Stanford, New York University, Cornell, University of Chicago and University of Virginia, according to the 1999 U.S. News and World Report law school rankings.

Harvard's 20-1 student-faculty ratio is the highest of the top 25 law schools in the nation, according to the magazine.

"The appalling thing is how out of whack our student-faculty ratio is compared to other law schools," Cooper says.

Smaller is Better

Class size reduction is a multi-faceted issue, Clark says, that may involve shifting resources or hiring new faculty or a combination of both.