Legal Writing Grade

[Mozart711]

This, as well as another post which said LRW was pass-fail, would make any LRW grade questionable unless the employer knows exactly how your school grades the class. As someone else mentioned, the cumulative GPA is prob the most important. However, I'm just bitter that I got a C+ (my school is on a C curve) in LRW.

our legal research (1 unit) class was not curved. everyone can get an A. but i just started legal writing (2 units) and it's a forced curve! it seems to me very important and our prof. tells us it's the most important class.

[correguachin]

our legal research (1 unit) class was not curved. everyone can get an A. but i just started legal writing (2 units) and it's a forced curve! it seems to me very important and our prof. tells us it's the most important class.

You know a teacher has gone off the deep end when he desperately tries to convince his students that his two unit LRW course is the most important class in all of law school!

[GA-fan]

Sure sucked when the interviewer asked me what my LRW grade was and I had to say "satisfactory" rather than with honors. My GPA rocks, and I hate to have to say this in an interview. In my school, the quality of work getting honors varies widely by teacher. My prof failed 15% of the class for LRW, another prof gave 40% S+... Just a reason to care a LRW if you needed motivation.

[Strong]

We are graded in LR&W, but on a more relaxed curve than core subjects.

[dorsia]

I did pretty well this semester in LRW so I'm hoping that will help me get a good summer job. Anyone have any other experience(s) RE: how a good or bad LRW affects getting a summer job?

An employer during OCI asked me if I was a good legal writer.  I told him that I was decent; that I had gotten two B pluses.  He then asked me who my legal writing professor was, and I told him.  His eyes perked up and said, "Oh yeah? . . . I had her too.  She gave me two C pluses so your B pluses don't mean *&^% to me."  The interview went well.  I did not, however, get a call back. 

Although I did well in LRW, I do believe that the grading should be pass/fail.  Because no real good way to have LRW on a blind grading system exists, too much opportunity for ass-kissing and subjectiveness is present.  Regardless, almost every firm at OCI asks for writing samples.  I would be surprised if any read them during initial interviews; many will at least skim them before call-back interviews.  An employer can determine for himself whether he thinks you're a good legal writer.  If the rest of your grades are good, I wouldn't worry too much about it.

[jacy85]

We have a decent blind grading system; the LWR teachers have an assistant who removes names for each paper before they grade, and she is the one who goes through afterwards and records the grades.

It's treated like a regular exam, blind grading with an opportunity after the fact the raise or lower the grade a bit (which all of our professors can do)

[Runner-up]

Too early to know what my grade in this course is. Still have a whole semester- which will be worth roughly 66.67% of the grade- to determine things.

[dorsia]

We have a decent blind grading system; the LWR teachers have an assistant who removes names for each paper before they grade, and she is the one who goes through afterwards and records the grades.

It's treated like a regular exam, blind grading with an opportunity after the fact the raise or lower the grade a bit (which all of our professors can do)

That would actually work well.  But, do you meet with your LRW professors, before handing in your final draft, to go over your paper for comments or questions or both?  We generally met with our professors at least once or twice before handing in the final memo or brief to go over our rough draft with comments.  Because the professor saw our papers once before the final, and met with us to discuss comments, it wouldn't work.  Even if an assistant deleted our names, the professor would still have a general idea who wrote the papers.

[jacy85]

We do meet with our professor, so it's not a perfect system.  I can only image that there is so much variation.  When a class of 20-30 people are given the same problem, many of them will make the same legal arguments.  And I usually make a large amount of changes between my first draft conference and turning in the final.  I'd think that unless someone had a peculiar style of writing, the papers would sort of run together by the end.

[Texas88]

Our class had totally blind grading. We get an exam number and that, not our name, goes on all our exams. We did not, however, get any review of early drafts of our papers. What we could do instead (it was optional) was write a practice exam on a different topic our teacher gave us and have her review it with us a week before the final.

The system worked out pretty well for me.