Getting accurate information about professors is a problem for law students across the nation. Until pedagogical initiatives result in every student getting a certificate of participation, grades will still be very important to law students.

At Boston University School of Law, every semester students submit reviews of their professors, and those reviews are published so that other students can make better decisions. BU Law has the best professors, according to Princeton Review.

But not every class is a winner. Last year, a 1L property professor received scathing reviews from many of the students. We don’t know all the details about what happened in that class, but we’ve heard some negative things about the professor’s teaching style, grading system, and personality.

Apparently, the reviews were so bad that BU Law Dean Maureen O’Rourke took the extraordinary step of addressing the entire class. According to one tipster:

The students who showed up to the meeting were given no apologies. They were told that the administration read the reviews and did not think that they were indicative of Prof. McClain’s teaching. The students were informed that McClain would get tenure regardless, so that they should leave the issue alone.

When the dean was pressed on whether the reviews would nevertheless be published, she said that they would not be published, not even the 1-5 bubble fill-ins ranging from poor to excellent on overall teaching evaluation.

What is the point of having a student review system when bad reviews are expunged from the record? (Former ATL Law School Dean Hottie) Dean O’Rourke responds after the jump.