> Specifically, he said of lawyers like me (the not-harvard crowd) "You cannot make a purse out of a sow's ear".
According to the NYT source, he actually said, "you can’t make a sow’s ear out of a silk purse", referring to the Harvard crowd as silk purses but not to non-Harvard lawyers as sow's ears. He seems to be referring to his disdain for the quality of the education at the most selective law schools while complementing their qualifications of their students.
It's an expression he has used more than once. I first heard it when a law student asked him whether she should bother applying for a clerkship given she hadn't gone to harvard. In that instance the sows ear was the asking law student.
> I first heard it when a law student asked him whether she should bother applying for a clerkship given she hadn't gone to harvard. In that instance the sows ear was the asking law student.
That's a very mean thing to have said about her and her whole class. I'm sorry you experienced that.
According to the NYT source, he actually said, "you can’t make a sow’s ear out of a silk purse", referring to the Harvard crowd as silk purses but not to non-Harvard lawyers as sow's ears. He seems to be referring to his disdain for the quality of the education at the most selective law schools while complementing their qualifications of their students.