Hillsdale College graduates rank among top performers in law school and law school admissions, according to Career Services statistics.
Of the 2016 graduates who reported law school attendance, 67 percent reported attending top-10 law schools. Of the 2015 graduates who reported attendance to law school, 57 percent attended top-20 law schools, according to Career Services data.
“Every year at least three students get into top-10 law schools,” said Nathan Schlueter, Hillsdale College professor of philosophy and pre-law advisor. “Right now we have students at Harvard, Yale, University of Virginia, University of Chicago, and the University of Michigan. I don’t know another school of our size that has that kind of repeated success getting students into top law schools.”
Students are not only accepted to the highest-quality law schools, but large percentages of students who apply to law school generally are admitted, and those who attend perform at the highest level, Schlueter said.
In 2015, eight out of nine Hillsdale students were accepted to law school, and in 2014, all 14 students were accepted.
Those students are also getting on law reviews, Schlueter said. Usually, law reviews are reserved for the top 5 percent of students in a given law class, and Hillsdale alumni are making the cut.
Schlueter said law review acceptance is based on writing. All exams are graded blindly, so that professors do not pick favorites. Schlueter said Hillsdale students have been chosen to write for the law reviews at schools like Harvard, Yale, and the University of Michigan.
Schlueter attributes success largely to the quality of students entering Hillsdale College and to Hillsdale’s liberal arts education.
“The liberal arts really force students to master the kinds of skills you need to do well on the law school admissions test,” Schlueter said. “Close reading, textual analysis, good writing, and good logical reasoning are all part of that package. You get that by reading difficult texts. Reading the great books sharpens the mind in ways other things do not.”
Megan Lacy, a 2007 Hillsdale graduate and 2010 graduate of the No. 8 ranked University of Virginia School of Law said studying a broad range of topics, and discussing first principles at Hillsdale helped her perform well in law school.
“We were taught to reason from first principles and argue from original sources,” she said. “That’s a lot like what a lawyer does when she argues about the meaning of a statute or a document and tries to persuade a court that her case comports with one line of reasoning instead of another.”
Lacy said she intentionally majored in history and minored in French, studying across multiple disciplines with her favorite professors.
“My goal was to study interesting topics with professors who would teach us to think seriously about them. Some of the best things about our Hillsdale education are things I also love about law,” she said.
Education at Hillsdale also produces character, Lacy said, which is helpful in the legal profession.
“On a personal level, I’ve found our liberal arts education to produce reliably mature, kind, hardworking, and self-governing students. All of those qualities prove invaluable to the pursuit of a demanding profession like the law,” she said.
Now, Lacy works as Legal Counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“At the end of the day, setting aside the additional pressures and responsibilities at work in private practice and in politics, that’s what I love about the law — wrestling with a question alongside your colleagues until you’ve gotten it right,” she said. “In many ways, it’s not so different from the way we wrestled with the ‘everlasting questions’ alongside classmates and professors at Hillsdale.”
Close relationships between students and professors also help with law school applications, said Garrett West ’15, a law student at No. 2 ranked Yale Law School.
“Hillsdale allowed me to become close with professors who knew me well enough and cared about me enough to write strong letters of recommendation,” West said. “I think that’s a tremendous advantage compared to some other larger institutions.”
Paul Ray ’08, a 2011 graduate of No. 1 ranked Harvard Law School and 2013-2014 clerk for Associate Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, said that just as important as his studies at Hillsdale were the friendships he made along the way.
“Fellowship with other people who are trying to live out in the legal profession what we learned at Hillsdale has been an immense blessing,” he said.
Ultimately, the path to law school starts with loving undergraduate studies first, Schlueter said.
“Of the three Hillsdale students who clerked for the Supreme Court, all three of them just loved their time here,” he said. “They loved ideas and they loved the things they were studying.”
“Take time to study subjects that aren’t immediately relevant to law school and a legal career,” Ray said. “There will be plenty of time to learn what you need to know to be a good lawyer, but it’s hard to find time amid a legal career to study poetry, literature, philosophy, and other subjects that are so important to the good life.”
