Law Schools

Law Student Expelled After Trying To Lie, Cheat, And Hack Her Way Onto Law Review

The cheating scheme and cover-up probably took more effort than the actual law review write-on process.

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How bad do you want to be on law review? Would you lie, cheat, hack, and risk getting expelled if it meant you’d be selected as a member? Law students are wont to do crazy things for the perceived prestige of a résumé line, and that seems to be exactly what happened in the case of Claudine Tinsman, a former student at the USC Gould School of Law. (Just when USC thought it could escape the spotlight of academic scandals, it gets shoved right back into it.)

Back in 2014, Tinsman was first-year law student at USC who was participating in the law review write-on competition. Students were not permitted to collaborate during the write-on process, but while the competition was ongoing, Tinsman invited a classmate to stay at her apartment, and that’s when the cheating scandal began to unfold. During that time, Tinsman borrowed her classmate’s laptop a few times, leading to an unexpected email from the USC web portal asking if she was having issues logging onto her account. She hadn’t been, so it seemed a little fishy.

Shortly after their submissions were turned in, administrators noticed that their entries were strikingly similar, accusing each of collaborating, which was expressly against the rules. Both students emphatically denied cheating.

Shortly thereafter, a confession email that was allegedly sent from Tinsman’s classmate landed in an assistant dean’s inbox. When the dean replied and brought up disciplinary action, she denied ever having sent such an email, and suggested that Tinsman had hacked into her email. Tinsman, of course, denied copying her classmate’s law review write-on submission and hacking into her email, but she was nonetheless accused of violating 11 sections of USC Law’s conduct code.

The Recorder has more on some of the specific allegations Tinsman faced:

The review panel zeroed in on an apparently sarcastic citation from both law review submissions referencing the notoriously complicated Bluebook that read: “(making it hell on Earth to figure out how to cite to an annual report that is only available online, to resist throwing The Bluebook at the nearest passer-by, and to keep from calling up Columbia Law Review Association to demand ‘Dunkin’ Donuts’ for my pain and suffering).”

The investigators asked the two students to explain the citation, and found Tinsman’s explanation to be suspect. She told the investigators that she had been eating Dunkin’ Donuts while working on the assignment. When investigators asked how she had obtained the donuts, given there are no Dunkin’ Donuts in Los Angeles County, she told them a “friend from undergrad” brought them. She declined to provide contact information for the friend.

But two weeks later, the investigators received an email, purportedly from Tinman’s undergraduate friend, saying he had mailed the donuts after canceling a planned trip to Los Angeles at the last minute, according to the opinion.

USC wasn’t buying it, and recommended that Tinsman be expelled. Tinsman appealed the decision, offering up the fact that she’d recently been diagnosed with bipolar disorder with psychotic features. USC still wasn’t buying it, noting that Tinsman’s mental illness diagnosis after her misconduct didn’t mean she shouldn’t be expelled. Tinsman then went to state court, asking that USC be ordered to reconsider her expulsion in light of her diagnosis. USC once more said that Tinsman ought to be expelled, so she appealed in state court, arguing that her mental illness hadn’t been properly taken into account. Alas, the appellate court upheld her expulsion.

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Tinsman’s attorney, Mark Hathaway, said, “This case is a reminder that people overcoming mental illness still face harsh opinions.” In a statement, the school that’s no stranger to academic controversies said, “USC takes academic integrity issues very seriously.” Yeah, okay, USC, we totally believe you this time.

Expulsion of USC Student Who Lied, Cheated and Hacked to Get on Law Review OK’d by Court [The Recorder]

Staci ZaretskyStaci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked 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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