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Oops! Top Law School Email Screw-Up Reveals Grades, Ranks Of All Clerkship Applicants

This is one of the juiciest and most prestigious accidental data dumps we've seen yet. Which law school did it?

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Don’t worry, we’re not going to “out” anyone. That would be mean, and we’re not in the business of ruining people’s lives. There is, however, some newsworthiness to the law school’s monstrous mistake: our readers will see the credentials necessary to get a clerkship after graduating from a top law school.

In fairness to UVA, the 2015 Applicants Workbook contained a wealth of information — it’s no wonder the school has done historically well in its federal and state clerkship placements each year. The school gathered information from every nook and cranny of these potential clerks’ lives, including their undergraduate schools, where they worked their 1L and 2L summers, where they’re from, and even their political affiliations. It looks like the law school’s career services officers are tracking everything, and this is just one reason why UVA continues to punch above its weight in the clerkship game year after year.

In fairness to the law students whose confidential information was sent out to almost half of their graduating class, this seems like an absolute disaster. According to UVA Law’s Academic Policies and Procedures, the school “does not use or disclose class rank except for limited purposes, such as determination of specific academic awards,” so it’s highly likely that the vast majority of them didn’t know what their class rank was before this data breach. Because we’re certain this document has made the rounds among students, it’s possible that now almost everyone knows what the affected students’ class ranks are. Ouch.

We’re going to give you a little preview of what’s to come in terms of this data. We know that UVA Law has a very generous B+ curve. When we took a look at it, the first thing to come to mind was, “Holy grade inflation, Batman!” Sorry, but you’re basically failing out of school at UVA Law with a B average. It’s sick.

If you’re thinking about heading to UVA, or if you’re there and wondering where you stand, check this out:

It’s notable that at UVA Law, with around a 3.2 GPA, you’ll be in the bottom 25 percent of the class. Crazy.

Let’s take a look at these stats. Again, we’ve redacted all identifying information except for GPAs, class ranks, and class rank percentiles. They’re available for your viewing pleasure on the next page. Enjoy!

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P.S. All your class ranks were mailed to half the class and it’s — ON A-T-L!

UPDATE (3:30 p.m.): It should be noted that the grades reflected in this chart are of recent vintage to UVA Law. Law students who graduated in earlier years were not ranked on this curve, and should not be viewed as having performed worse than current students. We’ll have some follow-up on this in the coming days.

UPDATE (4:30 p.m.): Here’s part of a statement that UVA Law provided to the ABA Journal this afternoon: “The dean and other Law School officials have apologized and reached out individually to all of the affected students. We are deeply distressed that this mistake occurred, and we are in the process of reviewing our data management procedures to build in more safeguards against unintentional disclosures.”

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