The Rivals

Many at HLS were rankled by an April 16 New York Times article on the strategic plan, entitled “Harvard Law Tries to Increase Appeal,” which portrayed HLS as a leader in decline that was trying to keep up with rival schools. The article hit HLS’ soft spot, and many dismissed it as offbase and misguided.

“Our strategic plan is not motivated by competition with anyone,” says HLS professor Christine M. Jolls, who was recently granted tenure by the school. “It was motivated by people saying we have a great institution and we want to make it even greater.” Rakoff, however, agreed that outside competition might have motivated the plan “a bit.”

“We are inherently in a market situation,” he says. But Rakoff agrees that the threat from competition is not serious. “I don’t think there is any sense that we were in a threatening competitive environment where, if we didn’t do something big fast, we were going to be in bad shape.”

The changes at HLS certainly weren’t made in a vacuum. Other law schools began to change in the past few years, and competition became stiffer as the number of applicants to law schools nationwide dropped. “There’s no question that it’s much more competitive for law schools now than it used to be,” says David W. Leebron ’77, Dean of Columbia University Law School and 1979 HLS graduate. “Harvard is in some sense responding to the competition, and that’s a good thing,” Leebron says. “That’s not to say it isn’t a great school.”

Much of the new competitiveness among law schoools can be traced to the ambitious moves of New York University (NYU) Law School, which in the past decade has employed an aggressive self-promotion program and dramatically bolstered its reputation. The school also attempted to lure top professors with lucrative offers. Earlier this year, Joseph H.H. Weiler, an HLS professor and prominent international law expert, announced he would leave HLS for NYU. While NYU at least in the foreseeable future has little chance to boost itself to HLS’ level, its new methods turned heads at HLS.

“NYU made a big splash,” Gerken says. “Everyone was taken aback. It wasn’t the old school approach.” And while Gerken says HLS “is comfortable with our place in the world,” it cannot sit back and watch the world change around it and do nothing. “NYU has presented itself more successfully than any school in the nation and you can’t stand silent while that’s going on if you want to keep up.”

Harvard is Harvard

Taking a hint from NYU, HLS decided in the spring of 2000 to hire a communications director, Michael A. Armini, to coordinate the school’s press coverage and keep developments at the school in the forefront of public consciousness.