In today’s Trivia Tuesday, our weekly peek into a leading law school program, we’re taking a look at Yale Law School’s small groups. Unlike at some larger schools, which divide each class into cohorts or sections of 70 or more students to encourage a more collegial 1L experience, the small size of Yale’s student body makes for an intimate law school experience by default. Still, Yale further cultivates its highly supportive and collegial environment by dividing the incoming 1L class into 11-15 “small groups,” each containing 12-15 students. First-year students take all of their fall term core courses with the members of their small group. Three of the four fall term core courses are composed of several small groups, and the fourth consists of just one small group.
The small group provides students with support in all aspects of the law school experience; this support is complemented by a professor who serves as the small group’s de facto academic advisor and as the instructor for one of the group’s core courses. Many students report that collaboration between members of their small group helped them prepare for end-of-term examinations, and that most students organized outings with their small group throughout fall term. While Yale Law’s choice to expand the size of the Class of 2012 has led to a slight increase in the number of students in each small group, students and faculty alike report that Yale’s resources are more than able to accommodate its larger class and the comfort provided by the small groups has not been altered.
