Katherine Silver Kelly, The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, The High Stakes Hypocrisy of Success in Law School, ___ Albany L. Rev. ___ (forthcoming 2026):
Introduction
Read for class. Pay attention. Take good notes. Stay focused. Work hard. Manage your time. These are the keys to succeeding in law school. Or so it seems. If it were that simple, then why is the “how to succeed in law school” market so big? There are hundreds of books, blogs, podcasts, and videos all giving expert advice on how to read, outline, and study. “Day in the life” TikToks and vlogs get thousands of views. Regardless of how hard you work, success only comes if you outperform your peers, most of whom are working equally as hard. This is the high stakes hypocrisy of success in law school. It is largely determined by how you perform, relative to your peers, on an end-of-semester exam. Grades are assigned based on a curve which law schools and employers use as an indicator of professional capabilities.
Law school is often portrayed as a matter of discipline, intellectual curiosity, and hard work that lead to success but the reality is much more complex. The traditional model rewards those who quickly and intuitively grasp often opaque norms and expectations. Success is not just difficult; it is elusive and limited. This article examines the existing hypocrisy of success in legal education, why it exists, and how law schools can address it without compromising important commitments to scholarship and academic rigor. Although success is a prerequisite for admission, the current structure creates artificial standards that often have little correlation to professional expectations yet often determine those options. This structure sets students up to fail. Part I of this article identifies the institutional problems that stem from our current narrow definition of success for both faculty and students. Part II explains how the reasons for these institutional problems stem from continued reliance on mechanisms that hinder learning and inaccurately measure it. Part III offers tangible, evidence-based solutions that foster challenging and authentic learning environments by being transparent about the learning process and integrating a strategies-based approach.
