{"id":11971,"date":"2023-07-19T17:01:49","date_gmt":"2023-07-19T15:01:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prod-2018.frictions.co\/?p=11971"},"modified":"2023-07-19T18:16:50","modified_gmt":"2023-07-19T16:16:50","slug":"les-vilains-petits-canards-du-master-de-droit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prod-2018.frictions.co\/english\/35-heures-et-plus-si-affinites-s6\/the-ugly-ducklings-of-the-law-school\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ugly Ducklings of the School Law"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Left-leaning, with a thirst for justice since childhood and a desire to change that world that is almost na\u00efve: it is their belief in principles of social equality that leads Stella*, Thomas* and Amber* to the amphitheatres of the law school. Even if they aren\u2019t completely sure of what they\u2019ll do after completing their master\u2019s degree, they are motivated by a vision of a fairer society, and haven\u2019t given up despite the obstacles in their way.<\/p>\n

And there are plenty of obstacles. Unlike many of their classmates, Stella, Thomas and Amber don\u2019t have any family members who have studied the law. Neither are they supported financially by their families (Stella, in fact, dos not receive any financial support). The reality of their disadvantage struck them from the beginning of their studies and is reiterated with each new semester.<\/p>\n

Competition among students expertly wielded by teaching staff<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cOne incident had a big impact on me in the first year of my bachelor's degree,\u201d says Thomas, smiling. \u201cThe professor that ran our first session said to us, \u2018Look at the two people on either side of you in the year-level photo. One of them won\u2019t be here next year, maybe both \u2013 that\u2019s how demanding this program is\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amber, who was accepted into a very selective law school prep course after high school, quickly became disenchanted. \u201cOn our first day of classes, we had a pop quiz on the book that we were meant to have read over the summer. The people that knew each other already had spread the word among themselves. If you were alone, you didn\u2019t get the message, and you had no chance.\u201d Barely out of high school, Amber was already learning that it\u2019s not what you know, but who you know.<\/p>\n

Competition among the students is expertly wielded by the teaching staff, who seem accustomed to pitting students against each other. \u201cIn the third year of our bachelor's degree, one of them said that if we had a grade average of 10 [the passing grade in France], we shouldn\u2019t apply to the master\u2019s degree, because we would be taking places from more deserving people. That we would never become anything like a lawyer, because that was a statistical anomaly,\u201d recalls Thomas.<\/p>\n

Different teacher, same story for Stella, who reports the cutting remarks of the director of the second year of her master\u2019s. \u201cShe said, \u2018Last year, some students had burnout and depression. I mean, come on! If you can\u2019t handle studying law, don\u2019t study law.\u201d The message is clear: Stella, Thomas and Amber can only rely on themselves to succeed, even if they are going through a rough patch.<\/p>\n

\u201cI repeated a year for 0.2 points\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Personal problems do pile up as the years pass, and begin to tarnish the three students\u2019 results. Stella, who is experiencing a family breakdown, is being supported by a social worker from the Regional Student Welfare Office and the university psychologist. \u201cI failed my midterms in the second semester. I managed to have a grade average of 12, but I couldn\u2019t get the credit for the failed exams, even with make-up tests. I couldn\u2019t concentrate,\u201d she says. The axe falls: she has to repeat the first year of her master\u2019s for 0.4 points.<\/p>\n

Stella decides to open up to the director of the master\u2019s, particularly as a panel exists that can review cases like hers, with the power to increase a student's average by up to one point. \u201cI got an unbelievably condescending email. She reiterated that it was my problem, that all I had to do was work harder, and that given how poor my marks were in the first semester, it was necessary for me to repeat a year. You would think she was trying to make me drop out,\u201d she says, disheartened.<\/p>\n

Amber can beat Stella\u2019s record: she\u2019s repeating the year for 0.2 points. Things are not going well at home \u2013 her father has cancer, and she learns, just before the midterms in first semester, that he may only have a few months to live. \u201cI couldn\u2019t get into the right headspace, it was impossible.\u201d No clemency is granted to her by the administration or teaching staff. \u201cWhen I found out that I had to repeat for 0.2 points, it was the end of the world. I sent an email to the director of the master\u2019s to explain the situation. She said that she was sorry for me, but that if you don\u2019t have the marks, you repeat the year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thomas has seen many unfair situations like this. Each time, it\u2019s the same pattern: students that are hardworking, but unlucky and socially disadvantaged, find themselves pushed aside without any recourse. \u201cNothing is done to help them. The teachers don\u2019t care, they don\u2019t try to understand. And in any case, when it comes to the homework, the students that have a kind of introduction to law through their parents have had a huge advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was burnt out. I had a knot in my stomach every morning.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Thomas is convinced: from the very first semester, law programs maintain a closed social order and pick off students through attrition and injustices. \u201cIf you have help when you\u2019re writing an essay, you can easily get a good mark, particularly in first-year subjects. When you\u2019re all alone, it\u2019s a lot harder. We still don\u2019t know how to do proper legal research, for example.\u201d<\/p>\n

All three are holding on, but they are exhausted, and the spectre of a nervous breakdown is looming. \u201cI was depressed. I wondered if maybe I should have stayed living at home, even though it was a nightmare. It was really difficult psychologically,\u201d says Stella. \u201cIn my second year, I was burnt out. I had a knot in my stomach every morning. It was a disaster,\u201d says Amber of her experience. Thomas also reluctantly recognises that he cracked: \u201cThe first year of the master\u2019s was the hardest. I had a little bit of a breakdown. I put an enormous amount of pressure on myself. I absolutely had to prove that I belonged there. I put my social life on hold.\u201d<\/p>\n

Around them, other disadvantaged students are going through more or less the same thing. Amber has bitter memoires of her prep classes. \u201cA girl injured her diaphragm through stress. She couldn\u2019t talk and had permanent hiccups. I remember another girl that one of the teachers hated. He sent emails to the whole class criticising her. One day, before an oral exam with him, she threw up in the corridor and couldn\u2019t do the exam. He sent an email saying that it was unacceptable, that she should have made an effort despite the state she was in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stella saw the same kind of extremes in the first year of her master\u2019s. \u201cOne of my friends had depression. When she revised for her midterms, she mainlined caffeine and other things to stay awake. She asked her boyfriend to pinch her so that she wouldn\u2019t fall asleep. She had a breakdown in the second year.\u201d The young woman is angry. \u201cClearly, if you don\u2019t come from a certain background, you have to sacrifice your physical and mental health to succeed. This idea of sacrifice is very, very deeply rooted. Basically, if you aren\u2019t suffering, and they aren\u2019t torturing you, you don\u2019t deserve to succeed.<\/p>\n

Us, the nobodies<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Many students believe that they don\u2019t deserve their degrees. In law, between first year and second year, the failure rate is around 50%. It\u2019s estimated that 85% of those that complete their bachelor\u2019s degree go on to the first year of a master\u2019s degree, and that only 10% of this group will be accepted into the second year. Year after year, the students are squeezed out, cherry-picked, and some decide to pack it in completely. \u201cI knew people that were quite capable, but quit studying. They could have done something else, but law completely put them off,\u201d says Thomas sadly. le taux d\u2019\u00e9chec est d\u2019environ 50%<\/a>. On estime que 85% de de ceux qui ont obtenu une licence passent en master 1<\/a>, et que seuls 10% de ces \u00e9tudiants passent en master 2<\/a>. D\u2019ann\u00e9e en ann\u00e9e, les \u00e9tudiants sont essor\u00e9s, tri\u00e9s sur le volet, et certains d\u00e9cident carr\u00e9ment de quitter le navire. \u201cJ\u2019ai connu des personnes qui avaient des capacit\u00e9s mais qui ont arr\u00eat\u00e9 les \u00e9tudes. Elles auraient pu faire d'autres choses, mais le droit les a compl\u00e8tement d\u00e9go\u00fbt\u00e9es\u201d, confirme tristement Thomas.<\/p>\n

Is this selection through attrition ultimately a way to maintain a social elitism in the legal professions? Whatever the case may be, Stella, Thomas and Amber can only confirm that this brutal process disproportionately affects those with the least social and economic capital. \u201cIn my master\u2019s, the majority of students come straight from law school prep courses,\u201d says Stella ruefully. \u201cSome of them are doing a master\u2019s at the ENS or Sciences Po [two of France\u2019s most elite tertiary institutions] at the same time. I know one girl whose mother is a lawyer \u2013 really, she can do well without working as much as us, the nobodies.<\/p>\n

She clarifies: \u201cIt\u2019s always the same people who do \u201cwell\u201d. Either they\u2019ve come from a prep school, or they have parents that are magistrates, lawyers, government officials, CEOs. These people have the necessary background. Whereas we pay for all the difficulties that already hold us back. My mother barely spoke French when I was little, and my dad worked in transportation. This kind of strategy of burnout guarantees the continuity of the profession. It\u2019s the same people that get the same jobs year after year.\u201d<\/p>\n

A teacher has even spelled out to her that she doesn\u2019t belong at the law school. \u201cI had revised like crazy, I thought that I would get at least a 15. And I got a 2. In the feedback session, what the teacher said to me basically came down to, \u2019You\u2019re shit, you\u2019re nothing. In fact, you\u2019re just stupid, you\u2019re just rubbish. All you had to do was learn the material.\u2019 It totally put me off the law. I have imposter syndrome. I am genuinely thinking of just getting the degree and then doing something else. And what if it\u2019s like this in the law firms, too?<\/p>\n

\u201cA widely held belief that the profession is largely inaccessible to newcomers\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Is this a strategy consciously employed by teachers and law schools, or simply the echo of wider social inequalities that the administration is doing nothing to address, for lack of time and political consciousness? It may be impossible to answer the question, but some interesting insights can be gained from the statistics of the Observatoire des inegalit\u00e9s, an organisation that collects national data on social injustice and discrimination. For example, 34% of university students have parents in senior management, although this category represents only 18% of all workers. When it comes to students studying bachelor\u2019s degrees, 20% are the children of office workers and 12% are the children of blue-collar workers, although blue-collar workers make up almost 25% of the total population. For master\u2019s students, these figures fall to 13% and 9% respectively. certains chiffres de l\u2019Observatoire des in\u00e9galit\u00e9s peuvent \u00eatre avanc\u00e9s<\/a> : \u00e0 l\u2019universit\u00e9, les enfants de cadres sup\u00e9rieurs repr\u00e9sentent 34% des \u00e9tudiants, alors que leurs parents forment seulement 18% des actifs. De plus, 20% des \u00e9tudiants de licence sont enfants d\u2019employ\u00e9s et 12% enfants d\u2019ouvriers (soit moiti\u00e9 moins que la part d\u2019ouvriers dans la population totale). En master, ces donn\u00e9es tombent respectivement \u00e0 13% et 9%.<\/p>\n

Do these statistics hold for law? Few figures are available, as lamented by the Conseil national du droit in a 2019 report.<\/a>We do know that 62.9% of male magistrates have a father that is self-employed, an executive, in the higher intellectual professions, or that runs a business with more than 10 employees, as opposed to 5% that are children of farmers, traders or craftspeople, and 11.7% that are children of office workers or blue-collar workers.<\/p>\n

The findings are the same year after year, as noted in 2017 as noted in 2017 by lawyer Kami Haeri in a report to the Ministry of Justice on the French bar:<\/a> \u201cthe absence of reliable data and institutional policies dedicated to diversity\u201d mean that the lack of social diversity is difficult to quantify, on a background of a \u201cwidely held belief that the profession is largely inaccessible to newcomers\u201d. Findings that in large part explain Stella\u2019s imposter syndrome.<\/p>\n

*Les pr\u00e9noms ont \u00e9t\u00e9 modifi\u00e9s<\/em><\/span><\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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