• Often, the arguments that are most persuasive before the Faculty are those which demonstrate that Columbia is falling behind its peers. However, Columbia's current policy on law school exams is pretty standard. To make matters more difficult, we would be attempting to convince the people who are most responsible for perpetuating the current system, and who are most likely to have loyalty to the system, that the system is broken.

Additionally, the Senate had a long discussion in November with Dean Greenberg-Kobrin regarding reforming Legal Practice and Legal Research.

Minutes: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/law/senate/meetings/minutes111009.pdf

Some felt that the course was not challenging enough, and that not enough reinforcement of research skills was done. Others felt that they put sufficient work in to receive a grade, and were disappointed that the class boiled down to pass/fail. One proposal which stood out was to have LPW run concurrently with Legal Methods, so that we would be given familiarity with Lexis and Westlaw early on in law school.

Does anyone have thoughts on what might be done to improve the experience and value of Legal Practice/Research?

-- RonMazor - 08 Feb 2010

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/law/senate/meetings/minutes120809.pdf

One of the problems which repeatedly came up is the fact that, at Columbia, the Faculty enjoy great freedom and discretion. If professor conduct is to be reformed, either with regard to post-exam feedback or altering the grade structure to allow for writing assignments/midterms, the reform will need to be self-initiated by the Faculty. As I understand it, the Senate doesn't have direct authority on academic matters or professor conduct--the best we can do is express the student position to the Faculty and attempt to persuade them to change their behavior.

On the basis of similar discussions, I can point to two hurdles that will need to be overcome.

• A proposal for establishing midterms or written assignments will require Faculty to voluntarily increase their workload. Given human nature, and Eben's previous observations on the character of law school professors, this is not an easy proposition.

• Often, the arguments that are most persuasive before the Faculty are those which demonstrate that Columbia is falling behind its peers. However, Columbia's current policy on law school exams is pretty standard. To make matters worse, we would be attempting to convince the people who are most responsible for perpetuating the current system, and who are most likely to have loyalty to the system, that the system is broken.

Nevertheless, I think your idea of a mass-mailing to representatives could be a good way to get some movement on this issue. If this is a widespread student concern, then it is something that the Senate should address. If you're able to demonstrate student demand utilizing this new system, the Senate will have a high interest in responding favorably.

So, in short, while creating midterms or written assignments faces a significant uphill battle, it is a good idea, and it is worth an attempt. At the very least, I'll vote for it :).

Yesterday, I attended a lunch program hosted by Professor Sanger and Student Services entitled “Lessons Learned from the First Semester.” What was meant to be a discussion of study and stress tips quickly transformed into a forum for 1L’s to discuss their frustration with the law school process. Over the past few weeks, I’ve heard a lot of the same comments and I felt that this thread would be a good place to address them.

With regard to Columbia’s strict curve, Professor Sanger pointed to the fact that without grading guidelines, one professor might on average give her students higher grades than another professor who teaches another section of that particular class. The curve ensures that no student is unfairly advantaged by a professor who is typically a higher grader. Though I agree that a system in which we are given critiques of our work rather than a letter might be more helpful to our learning process, the curve makes our current grading system somewhat fair, albeit stressful and competitive.

A complaint that showed up on this thread concerned the Socratic Method. I personally appreciate this teaching device but not because it encourages me to read my cases more thoroughly. I don’t mind speaking in public when I have something prepared but speaking off the cuff scared me when I started law school. The Socratic Method brought me out of my shell. I am not the student who says something insightful every class but I would not have participated without it.

My personal frustration with the 1L experience is the minimal opportunity to get feedback from professors. I would greatly appreciate a midterm exam or assignments throughout the semester so that I could gauge what professors want me to focus on. Office hours are a wonderful way for us to meet with professors to address specific questions but it’s hard to discern expectations about exams from these encounters.

I’m glad that I chose to attend law school and I look forward to the career that will follow it but I think that some of the concerns voiced in Eben’s class should be formally addressed. Student Senate recently assigned us all a personal representative who we are supposed to contact with such concerns. I sent a quick note to my representative yesterday and below you can find a sample note to send to yours.

Dear [Representative],

Thank you for your work so far this year and for your reaching out to me to hear my thoughts and concerns.

Currently, I would like more of an opportunity to get feedback from my professors. Is it possible to require professors to provide us with midterm exams or occasional written assignments with personalized responses so that we know if we understand the material? I understand that professors don't want the burden of grading another exam during the semester but any similar guidance would be a great way to help 1L’s adjust to the law school process.

Thanks again for all of your hard work,

Sincerely, [your name]

Please use my letter as a template for your own letter to your student senator. Post your “Dear Representative” Letter here.

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About grading: CLS is the second law school that I go to. In my first one (a law school in Taiwan, where law is provided as a college degree), there was no curve so professors could give whatever grades they liked. Professors wanted to be “nice” so it was common that more than 80% of the class got an A. Therefore, virtually no one studied hard. As a freshman (sophomore, or junior) all you had to do was party and drink every day, just like an American undergrad. The time I spent on studying last semester was at least twice the first three years in my Taiwanese law school combined. Sounds attractive, right? But in the senior year everyone started freaking out because what was waiting us was the bar exam, with an 8% passage rate.

In other words, in Taiwan we don’t need first year grades to distinguish students, but we still need something to make the distinction between the “good” and the “not-so-good.” (But it’s probably not as cruel as the first year curve, since you can always take the bar again if you fail this time.) So it brings me to another question: why is such a distinction based on exam-performance necessary everywhere? Can’t we distinguish ourselves in a more meaningful way? In an ideal world, every prospective employer would try to hire the applicants who are most competent for the job not simply based on grades, but on “a totality of circumstances.” And then we would train ourselves in a way that makes us cut out for the job we want.

Unfortunately, we are not living in an ideal world. Last week I went to a lunch session about career in teaching, and a panelist put it clearly: if you want a teaching career, the first thing is to get killer grades. It may not be true, but to some degree it does explain why people feel anxiety about grades: people are made to believe that grades affect our future.

Assuming CLS is not going to abolish letter grade this semester, I think there are two possible ways we can ease the anxiety. Firstly, we can choose not to believe the panelist that I mentioned. What he said is simply wrong; even though we have mediocre grades in the first year, we are still capable of doing everything as long as we train ourselves in the right way and acquire good lawyering skills in the law school.

On the other hand, we can also just recognize the fact that poor grades do keep us away from some specific jobs, the so-called highly selective ones. (That’s the reason why I mentioned Taiwan at the beginning as an example: without a license, you just can’t be an attorney.) However, there are still countless jobs out there that don’t require good grades. And some of these jobs may be even more meaningful and lucrative than the “highly selective” ones. For example, Taiwan’s 8% bar passage rate creates lots of law school grads without a lawyer’s license. Those people have to find some living other than being an attorney. To my knowledge, lots of them are living meaningful lives, the current Taiwanese President included.

Also, there is no Socratic in a Taiwanese law school. I'm still forming my perspective about the pros and cons of SM, and hopefully I'll have something to say about it as soon as possible. My primary idea leans toward positive side, but I do agree with Jonathan's doubt about the "extremely specific questions." (I remember once I was asked what was the primary issue of a case, and I answered "a component of the airplane is defective." But I forgot the name "altimeter" so the prof excruciated me for ten minutes.)

-- WenweiLai - 08 Feb 2010