Law Professors, Law Schools, Law Students

Attention, Law Students: These Are The Reasons Your Professor Won't Change Your Grades

Coming to office hours and demanding that your professor needs to change your grade and suggesting your professor is incompetent is not going to end well.

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grades law school grading curveDear Student,

I know you came in here to learn what you did wrong on your final exam…. No? Sorry.  I meant that you came here to complain that I did something wrong in grading your exam, that you worked hard, and that you deserve a better grade.  For the reasons given below, your thinking is deeply flawed.

Now, I’m just trying to help you here.  Sometime soon in your career, you might attempt to argue with a judge or a partner that your work is better than they believe it is.  You might even use that same condescending or hostile tone of voice.  You might blow up their inboxes or voicemails about it.  That isn’t going to go well for you.

True, there are some bad seeds that are professors.  I understand you think me one of them.  There is usually a strong correlation between a student’s perception of a professor and the grade the student earns. I have taken classes from less than awesome professors before.  So I understand. But rest assured, coming in here and demanding that I need to change your grade and suggesting I am incompetent is not going to end well.

GRADE APPEAL DENIAL FORM (Circle all that apply).

Dear student, you suffer from:

  1. Lake Wobegon Effect. Undergraduate is a world in which professors sometimes will change grades frequently.  Even if they don’t, students sometimes come into law school with high GPAs and thus have an expectation that they will do well.  Law school isn’t undergrad.
  2. Outlier Effect. You might feel that your grade is not the mainstream grade, because your other grades are higher.  In other words, the reason for your bad grade in my class is ME and not your more limited efforts in my class.
  3. Denial Effect. You might have looked at the sample answer I posted and believe incorrectly that you addressed exactly the same points as the sample answer.   Just because the words appear on the exam does not mean you addressed the question fully and completely.
  4. The Effort = Reward Effect. You believe you worked so very hard that you deserve an “A.”  This presumes that no one else worked very hard and that you worked efficiently.
  5. Peer Assessment Effect. All of your friends studied the same way and they all got better grades.  This does not mean you all did the same things on the exams or internalized the material the same way.
  6. Victim/Villain Effect. SOMEONE is responsible for this bad grade.  It’s not you. Therefore, it must be me, your professor.    I have all the better exams as proof.
  7. Dancing With the Stars Effect. You see how effortlessly the amateurs dance with the professionals.  They are doing exactly the same things.  You may be a legal amateur, but you think you are doing the same things as the pros!  This is why golf is such a popular sport.  People watch where the ball goes when the pros hit it, not cognizant that their own slice is due to the fact that their golf swings are much less refined than the pros.  You may have all the basic movements of a pro golfer, but you sliced this one badly.
  8. Delusion of Grandeur Effect. You feel that you have the ability to grade your exam objectively and with the same skill and discernment as someone who has been doing it for 20 years, without the benefit of being able to see the other exams that were produced the same semester.  Read that sentence again to see how preposterous that notion is.
  9. Costless Negotiation Effect. You believe that your effort spent trying to change your grade is costless.  You believe you aren’t wasting time you could better spend studying, or that I could better spend helping you improve, or that administration could better spend not dealing with your inevitable grade appeal.  Sorry, you are wasting your time, mine, and everyone else’s.  Now go forth and do that to a client, a partner, and a judge.  See what happens.
  10. The Glory Days Effect. You know how when your parents tell stories of their youth they seem to have superpowers?  They are prone to exaggerate their early greatness.  You are no different.  Your memory of your exam is not the same as what is written on your exam.

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Your plea is Denied.  And you’re welcome.

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.

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