How Law Professors Handle Law Student Freakouts During Final Exam Reviews

These are REAL COMMENTS students have made to this law professor about their exams.

nervous lawyerMost of the time, my students are awesome.  There are times, however, when there is that one student who seeks to have drama in his or her life.  That drama sometimes comes in the form of a final exam review that goes wrong.

Ordinarily, I’m happy to review final exams with students.  Ordinarily, students come to discuss their exams in order to learn what mistakes they made, and how to improve next time.  There are times, however, when the exam discussion is not about those two things.  In those bad discussions, the issue is the grade, and the student’s very skewed self-perception.  After a prolonged discussion, my patience depletes.  Here are REAL COMMENTS students have made to me about their exams.  What I say to them is in quotations, and what I’m thinking is in italics.  I’m not so proud of my thoughts in these times.  I very clearly need to work on practicing my patience.


YOU GRADED MY EXAM WRONG!

“Well, it is entirely possible, as I’m human, that I graded your exam wrong, and no one else’s.  Let me check… nope, the grade is correct.”

When I threw out the grading rubric that I carefully developed after weeks of grading and used the Ouija Board on your exam, it said you deserved a C.  Seriously, what non-systemic error could I have made that would only affect your exam and not your colleagues’ exams?  I suspect you didn’t contact your colleagues and say, “Hey, Professor LawProfBlawg graded all of our exams wrong.”


Sponsored

YOU SHOULD GIVE ME EXTRA CREDIT!

“I’m sorry, but that would be unfair to the other students, even if it were permitted.  But I’m happy to talk with you about your exam so you can learn from it.”

This isn’t high school.


I WORKED REALLY HARD ON MY EXAM!

Sponsored

“Well, I understand that my exams take effort to comprehend and master.  I’d be happy to walk you through what you wrote, what you didn’t write, and what went wrong so that you can learn from it.”

Are you saying that your colleagues didn’t work hard on the exam?  Are you suggesting that they did better than you despite their lack of effort?  That’s so nice that you think your colleagues have more raw legal talent than you possess or are more efficient than you are.


THIS IS THE LOWEST GRADE I HAVE EVER BEEN GIVEN!

I’m sorry to hear that.  I know it can be upsetting when you earn a grade that doesn’t match your past performance.  Sometimes we have bad days.  I’d be happy to walk you through your exam to show you where it went wrong and why it deserved the grade it received.”

So, you’re saying that if you look at all your grades, the grade in my class is the outlier.  That may be true.  That doesn’t mean I’m the problem.  If you were to look at all of the exams for the class we’re discussing, you’ll note your exam is the outlier.  It falls far below the others.  You see, you only know what you’ve written (if you have looked recently).  You don’t know what your colleagues wrote.  Therefore, comparing your performance to your past performance would be like an Olympic athlete demanding a gold medal because they tried hard and in the past did well, without any knowledge of how their competitors fared at this particular event. Or better yet, let’s test this logic out on police officers.  Officer, I’ve never been issued a speeding ticket before.  That proves I wasn’t speeding just now.


I HAD SOME PERSONAL PROBLEMS SO IT’S UNFAIR I GOT A BAD GRADE WHEN THE OTHER STUDENTS DIDN’T HAVE THOSE PROBLEMS

I’m sorry to hear that you had those personal problems.  I wish you had talked with me or with our Dean of Students about these issues before it was too late.  However, I’d be happy to go over your exam with you to discuss where it went wrong so you can improve your performance next semester.”

I typically don’t know what challenges your colleagues were going through.  I suspect you don’t either.  Regardless, life’s not fair.  There will be challenges in your daily life that will be ill-timed.  I’m not unsympathetic to those challenges, and would have helped you had you raised them before you got your grade.  Now they just sound like excuses.


YOU CLAIM I DIDN’T ADDRESS THIS ISSUE!  IT’S RIGHT HERE!  SEE?  I DID ADDRESS IT!  HA!

“I’m glad we’re discussing the exam itself so you can improve your performance next semester.  You do mention the issue.  That is true.  What you fail to do is state how the issue is resolved in light of the applicable law and the ever-so-detailed facts I’ve given in the exam to help you analyze the issue.  Others mentioned these five facts as key to the outcome, while you mention none.”

I’m thinking of using your answer as an example of “conclusory” reasoning.


BECAUSE OF THE GRADE YOU GAVE ME, HORRIBLE THINGS WILL HAPPEN.  I WON’T GET A JOB, I WON’T GET A CLERKSHIP, AND I WON’T GET ON LAW REVIEW!

“I’m sorry if your performance in my class causes those things.  Then again, it might not.  Regardless, I’d be happy to go over your exam so that you can improve your performance next semester.”

So I’m going to be your scapegoat?  You’re welcome.


YOU’RE AN A**HOLE! 

Can you put that in writing, please?  You have five seconds to get out of my office before I write a letter to the Bar describing my view on your character and fitness to practice law.”

Please call a judge or your boss that name. Please. Oh, please.


LawProfBlawg is an anonymous professor at a top 100 law school. You can see more of his musings here and on Twitter. Email him at lawprofblawg@gmail.com.