Law School Discussion

My school has mandatory attendance, and it usually works something like this: You may miss X number of classes without any effect on your grade.  If you miss any over that amount, your grade is dropped one level (i.e. a B becomes a B-) for EACH absence over the allowed number.  The professors are allowed to set the number of classes you may miss, with most choosing to give us somewhere around 4-6.  Many of them base the allowed absences on the number of times per week that the class meets.  I do have one professor that says you get X number of absences, and anything higher than that results in an F.  In every one of my classes we either sign a roll sheet or the professor takes attendance from a seating chart.

My opinion is that (a) we are paying BIG bucks to go to law school, and that is incentive enough to attend and (b) if you're smart enough to miss a lot of class and still ace the final, more power to you.  People should be responsible for their own choices regarding how well they want to do in law school.  I know the ABA requires a certain level of attendance, but I'm also getting really tired of unnecessary rules.

Furthermore, one of my pet peeves is when a professor tries to show how much "control" s/he has over the class.  We are adults, and we are here to learn.  We are not here to be intimidated or to hear how great you think you are.