Law Schools

Law School Dean Allegedly Puts Students In 'Time-Out' Before Allowing Them To Take Final Exam

This sounds like it was one hell of a test.

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‘How dare you put me in time-out!’

Law school finals are finally winding down, and we’re starting to hear horror stories from students who have been handed their own asses during testing season — and sometimes not just by their exams. Sometimes, law school deans get in on the “fun” of kicking law students when they’re already down.

Earlier this week, students at the Newark campus of Rutgers Law were supposed to sit for a torts exam. Before the test was slated to begin, a terror attack was attempted in New York City. As you can imagine, nervous students grew even more nervous until they were able to get in touch with their family and friends.

Things rapidly went downhill from there.

It seems that students were unable to enter the classroom where their exam was supposed to be held because someone had broken the lock on the door. A locksmith had to be called, and clearly knowing who he was dealing with, instead of trying to fix the lock, he just took the door off its hinges so law students could get into the room. Students would be able to start on time thanks to the locksmith’s heroics — or at least that’s what they thought.

An assistant dean — one who students are now referring to as the “assistant dean from hell” — allegedly entered the room and saw fit to put all of the students in a “time-out” because they had somehow annoyed her. She reportedly told students that if anyone left the room, they would automatically forfeit their right to take the exam. A student says she then left the room for an hour. You may be asking yourself if this was a live-action false imprisonment hypothetical. Unfortunately, it was not.

Here’s what a student claims happened next:

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After an hour she finally comes back and after threatening to leave for another hour when we ask her if everything is okay and if we can take the exam now, begins to hand out the exams. She then decided she would change the exam rules the professor had set, which left several classmates without any notes. Which, I’ll admit was an incredibly stupid decision on their part. (He was letting us use ANY resources but the internet including commercial outlines. She refused to allow this even though it is not against school rules when stated by the professor, and we had him willingly recorded and in writing, plus on the exam instructions sheet.)

So several people had anxiety attacks, we lost a lot of confidence in ourselves due to her actions, and she almost definitely had a negative impact on everyone’s exam experience that I spoke with since the exam.

This sounds like it must have been the worst test-taking experience in the world. It’s almost as if this assistant dean wanted to intentionally inflict emotional distress upon all of the students who were about to take the torts exam.

We’re not sure which professor’s class was supposedly subjected to this horrendousness, but we’d suggest that he or she keep the assistant dean’s antics in mind when grading. After all, they were arguably subjected to some intentional torts prior to even taking the test — they very clearly deserve some extra credit.

Staci ZaretskyStaci Zaretsky has been an editor at Above the Law since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

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