Vale of Tears is the Most Horrifying Thread on TLS Forum

[JCougar]

Also, If grades are even remotely random, then logic dictates there would be no one with 4.0's, or even close to that. But yet, there are. Somehow, a group of students get "A's" and "A-" in every single class they take. I guess that is just random.....

You obviously have no education or experience in statistics.

If you have a sample size of ~200, then chances are pretty high of a handful of people scoring 2-3 standard deviations above the mean due to random error alone.

I don't think law exams are all random error, but they're more random error than not.

[JCougar]

I know that lawyers aren't math people, but can't we use a chi square test to determine how random law school grades are in actual fact?

ETA: I don't know what course grade breakdowns look like on a law school curve (I'm a 0L) but someone who does, and took stats should be able to do this. Could be interesting since there seem to be intense anecdotal opinions on the subject, and everyone here is always talking about the data in other contexts.

The distribution isn't going to be random - schools work out what it should look like - how many As, A-s, etc. are given out in each class, and which exam grade falls where on that curve. What's random (which really means not random, but impossible to predict) is where any given person falls in that distribution. Can you even do a chi square test (lol at me understanding what that is) on the student, not the course breakdown? How would you evaluate one person getting all As is vs another getting all Bs as random/not random?

Chi-squared wouldn't really be an appropriate test for something that's not testing categorical frequencies. I guess you could argue that grades in one individual class are categorical, in that you only get A+, A, A-, B+ and B. But the independent variables wouldn't be categorical anyhow (amount of study time, intelligence, writing ability, etc.). And also, you would want to try and correlate these IVs with overall GPA, which isn't all that categorical anyway.

The best way to do it would be a regression analysis, and looking at the delta-r-squared of each factor on GPA. There's not much data on this (probably because most people know that if you actually did a study on this, it would reveal that law grades are almost 100% bullshit--IOW, who in the law school community wants to actually reveal that the emperor has no clothes), but a pretty good study was done a while ago. I've posted it on here multiple times, but I figure it deserves a re-post on this thread.

A somewhat recent paper lamented the uselessness of law school exams as valid assessments of any sort of ability:

This is a good article. I don't want to post too much of it here, but whoever has Hein Online or Westlaw can look up the whole thing:

Grading Law School Examinations: Making a Case for Objective Exams to Cure What Ails "Objectified" Exams

Linda R. Crane
Professor of Law at The John Marshall Law School, Chicago, Illinois.
Summer, 2000
34 New Eng. L. Rev. 785

* * *

VI. CONCLUSION

It is common knowledge among law school faculty that we are comprised almost exclusively of lawyers who teach, and that we typically have no formal training as educators, nor as testing specialists. Many law professors have only limited experience as practicing attorneys prior to entering academia and a law school.

. . .

The traditional model for teaching law school courses is essentially incompatible with the objectives of the law professor who wishes to evaluate student performance fairly and reliably; but who bases that evaluation on the results from the traditional model for testing law students--the essay examination. Under this traditional model for testing, the law school examination is formatted into a small number of comprehensive essay questions that the professor has never taught the student to answer. Essay questions assume that the student's orientation to the material being tested is vastly different than it really is. The traditional model for teaching law students is at odds with the traditional model for testing students' proficiency in the subject--at least if reliability, validity, and fairness are goals.

It is inherently unfair to teach students course material in one way and then to test it in another way. In addition, there is a century's worth of evidence that suggests that the essay question format of the traditional law school examination is highly unreliable due to the large number of subjective factors it allows to influence the final grade. 89

In 1976, the Law School Admission Council published the results of a study by Stephen P. Klein and Frederick M. Hart supporting the idea that factors other than substantive knowledge affect essay grades. 90 One factor that correlated highly with success on law school essay examinations was legible handwriting. 91 Another leading indicator of higher grades was length. 92 Longer answers were viewed by law professors as better. 93

Law schools have an obligation to use the most accurate and internally consistent, or reliable examination methods. 94 The essay exam is inherently capricious not only because of the number of subjective factors used in scoring that influence the student's overall grade; but also because they compare law students based on too few samples of each student's knowledge of a given domain of material to be reliable or statistically valid. 95

The traditional law school essay exam is mathematically unsound and [*807] unable to consistently measure the law student's proficiencies within the law school's curriculum. This is due to an inability to either accurately sample the same amount of material or to render the same number of samples of a given domain of material as an objective exam can within a comparable time period. 96 Therefore, single-shot essay exams used to measure numerous domains of information within each larger law school subject are notoriously subjective and unreliable. Accordingly, they are also invalid for their intended purpose. This is especially true given the enormous importance placed on the results of law school essay examinations and because those results are used to compare students' performances. 97

I also eventually found a Google Books copy of the actual study, and posted on it:

Just because it's consistent among classes doesn't mean it's valid, though. I actually eventually found the Klein & Hart study on Google Books. It's page 850:

http://books.google.com/books?id=XQgrjw ... dy&f=false

While there seems to be good reliability across law professors as to what kinds of exams are "good" and which aren't, it seems that the grades are best predicted by a combination of a) word count and b) a layman's impression of correctness (in this case, two English majors who never went to law school were the "laymen"). So basically, if you can write a lot of words and impress an English major, you're in good shape. Both these factors combined predicted about 50% of the grading variance (r = .70). That's a huge number. And, as the authors note, its artificially low, because they only had two English majors give ratings, which depressed inter-rater reliability, which in turn artificially depressed that variable's validity measure.

Basically, if you had a bigger group of English majors give ratings, you could predict nearly 60% of a law exam's grade based only on those ratings alone and word count. And none of those factors have anything to do with knowing and applying the law, since the English majors never took a single law class in their life. And knowing/applying the law is what law exams are supposedly measuring.

The study does note that LSAT predicts something like 16 additional percentage points of variance, but at most schools where the top 51% of the class is jammed into an LSAT range of about 2-3 points, this measure of intelligence probably loses a lot of its predictive power.

Overall, we're talking about not much more than one third of your law exam grade is actually knowing and applying the law--at best. The rest is word count and writing ability. If you can crank out 7-8K words in three hours, and it's at least superficially good writing, you're probably in good shape.

[JCougar]

Do people who had UG majors where exams were curved feel that law school grading is as "random" as the OP seems to suggest? It seems possible that the cliche that the "exam I felt best about, I got the lowest grade in" comes from people not used to being graded on a curve.

Most of my UG exams were curved to B-.

Law school grades feel random:

A) because it is fairly random due to the subjective nature of grading. Prof might not like your argument even if you know what you are talking about.

B) since it is on a curve, you can't tell between this test is easy v. I'm destroying this hard test. So if you think you are doing well, everyone probably is too since it's easy. you have to distinguish yourself from the pack to get the A-.

C) law school exams value particular styles and values that are essentially capricious. It values vomiting out pretty straight forward analysis at insane paces rather than thoughtful, deliberate analysis.

D) the material is easy. No concept in law school is difficult to understand. So good luck standing out when competing against other people with similar skills. It would be like if Math School was just who could do the most multiplication and addition problems in 3 hours.

I have to say, these last two are pretty much on point.

I believe I am mostly a victim of C. I'm methodological, careful, deliberate, and kind of a perfectionist when it comes to thinking and writing about stuff. I don't want to "speak up" if I'm not 100% sure of the answer. This is a bad quality to have re: law exams. It turns out to be a good quality to have as an actual lawyer, though. I've never had any negative feedback on any assignment I've ever turned in, including in environments where the expectations are very high. My last few memos, according to feedback, were essentially perfect. Basically every boss I've ever had has complimented me on my writing skills. I had about median grades, but I wrote onto a journal, and then I had my note published (4 out of 30 were published on my journal) despite the fact that I basically wrote my note submission in three days. I'm even neurotic about the posts I make on here, despite it being an internet forum. I try to use perfect grammar and editing, and will re-read my posts after I make them to make sure I didn't make any errors--it's almost a neuroticism.

So I know I can write, I know I can analyze legal issues as close to perfectly as you can get. And I know that people that finished in the top 5% aren't significantly better at it than me, because I was in study groups with them, and when we did practice problems and exams together, I got just as much as they did, if not more.

What I can't do is just spit out whatever half-baked legal theory pops into my mind simply because it's a possible argument. And I can't type fast. If you give me 3 hours, the best you're going to get is just north of 3,000 words. Which isn't enough to consistently score well on law exams.

I have a pretty good feeling about my long-term prospects in this profession, because I get great feedback wherever I work, and I can visually compare my work to memos written by people who used to work here that went off to prestigious clerkships and were in the top 10%.

But whether I ever get a chance to prove it at a place that is actually hiring is another thing. It's very, very difficult to overcome the hurdle of the false, empty prestige that law school grades create. I just have to build up great references and writing samples and hope my resume doesn't get superficially glanced at and thrown out.

[Young Marino]

Let's also consider that 90 percent of all practicing attorneys weren't top ten percent in lawl school... I got median pwned (literally) and I'll be trying cases at my local DA's office in a year (clinic). lawl school is really not as serious as everyone makes it out to be bro....

[romothesavior]

Let's also consider that 90 percent of all practicing attorneys weren't top ten percent in lawl school... I got median pwned (literally) and I'll be trying cases at my local DA's office in a year (clinic). lawl school is really not as serious as everyone makes it out to be bro....

I mean, that's good for you (and I do mean that, I'm not being sarcastic), but no one can really argue that law school grades have a huge bearing on the types of jobs one has available to them right out of law school, and therefore have a big impact on lifetime earnings and "success" in the field (however one chooses to define it). No one doubts there are outliers on both ends of the curve, but grades are strongly correlated to these things.

[BigZuck]

Let's also consider that 90 percent of all practicing attorneys weren't top ten percent in lawl school

wut

Please tell me you don't believe that everyone who graduates law school becomes an attorney. How could you believe that after being on TLS for so long and in the LST era?

[lawsearcher]

I am getting tired of reading all of the dumb responses from people on this board. I am sorry you didn't do that well in law school. But the exams are not random. And while more words can help you get a higher grade, they are far from necessary. It seems everyone wants to justify why they didn't do well.

They key is to know the material and know the professor. Work hard ALL SEMESTER at learning those two things and you will do very well. A look at the guides written over the years almost always seem to emphasize this, especially at non-t14 schools.

You can outwork your other classmates. It's a myth that they all work hard. It goes something like this: 10% work really hard, 40% work pretty hard, 40% don't work that hard, 10% barely do anything.

You want to know if you studied hard enough? If you did, you should know your grade. With one exception, I have been able to predict all of my grades. Why? Because if you really know the material, you will know if you hit on all the major issues or if you struggled to articulate well. But it takes a lot of hard work. Most people are more interested in enjoying themselves than striving for grades (and they might be right, but I am only speaking to earning good grades)

Disclaimer: This only applies at T1 and below. I cannot speak for the T14 where the competition is more intelligent and the work ethic may be less variable. I am a 3L at a T1 who has never been outside of the top 5 (people, not percent) in my class after each semester.

[prezidentv8]

But the exams are not random.

/gets highest grade in class
/gets worst grade in other class
/pretty much the same effort on both

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[BigZuck]

I am getting tired of reading all of the dumb responses from people on this board. I am sorry you didn't do that well in law school. But the exams are not random. And while more words can help you get a higher grade, they are far from necessary. It seems everyone wants to justify why they didn't do well.

They key is to know the material and know the professor. Work hard ALL SEMESTER at learning those two things and you will do very well. A look at the guides written over the years almost always seem to emphasize this, especially at non-t14 schools.

You can outwork your other classmates. It's a myth that they all work hard. It goes something like this: 10% work really hard, 40% work pretty hard, 40% don't work that hard, 10% barely do anything.

You want to know if you studied hard enough? If you did, you should know your grade. With one exception, I have been able to predict all of my grades. Why? Because if you really know the material, you will know if you hit on all the major issues or if you struggled to articulate well. But it takes a lot of hard work. Most people are more interested in enjoying themselves than striving for grades (and they might be right, but I am only speaking to earning good grades)

Disclaimer: This only applies at T1 and below. I cannot speak for the T14 where the competition is more intelligent and the work ethic may be less variable. I am a 3L at a T1 who has never been outside of the top 5 (people, not percent) in my class after each semester.

Lol

No

There are some smart people whose opinions/thoughts I respect in this thread and by and large I think they have UNDERestimated just how random law school grading is

So yeah, you're wrong. You're just good at law school dawg. Congrats, enjoy.

[Young Marino]

Let's also consider that 90 percent of all practicing attorneys weren't top ten percent in lawl school

wut

Please tell me you don't believe that everyone who graduates law school becomes an attorney. How could you believe that after being on TLS for so long and in the LST era?

Lol. Zuck it's been a while. Sup bro?

[Johann]

pretty much everyone posting in here saying law grades are random did well in law school.

[lawsearcher]

It isn't just being good at law school, because there is no unified exam type. I've had all kinds of exams: one long hypo, multiple short hypos, take home exams where you have 8 or 24 hours. There has been multiple choice exams, extreme multiple choice (where more than one can be correct and you have to circle both), hybrids of both, and all different professors. I always knew the material cold.

As for getting the best/worst grade in two separate classes with same effort, that is very extreme. But grade variation can happen. On any given exam, the person is going to know X% of the material. After that, the questions randomly test on 100% of the material, but not everything makes it in obviously. So some stuff will go into your wheelhouse or not on any given exam. There is luck in that sense.

But you can minimize that variance by knowing the material very well. The higher the X% you know, the less the variance will affect you. I got an A- in the class I knew the most about compared to the rest of the class. But the questions just happened to hit areas that weren't my strengths and I knew it. I did really well on the practice tests, but that test got me. It happens. But the more you prepare, the more you minimize that risk.

And when I say X%, I mean thoroughly knowing and being able to explain that material concisely no matter what the scenario.

[lawsearcher]

pretty much everyone posting in here saying law grades are random did well in law school.

The higher you go grade wise, the less it is random. Obviously in the middle of the bell curve it can be more random. I don't think many of these posters are top 5 or 10%.

People aren't willing to admit they didn't put in the effort to know the material perfectly. If they did, they would get mostly A's. Again I can speak for T1 and below only.

[romothesavior]

I feel like I've said this so many times ITT I feel like I'm talking to a wall, but here goes again.

Law school grades are not random. There are people at the bottom of the class who are not that bright or that hard working. Meanwhile, people at the top of the class are almost universally smart and hardworking working. It's not truly "random." But the idea that there's a perfect correlation or even a strong correlelation between hard work and/or intelligence is just wrong. Most people in law school are smart enough to do well, and there are diminishing returns past a certain point of effort.

Saying "law school grades aren't random" is fucking obnoxious because you're fighting with a straw man. Nobody believes they're truly random like a dice roll or lottery.

[Desert Fox]

You can separate these into three questions.

1. How random is a law school exam at measuring how good you are at law school exams in general? It clearly isn't totally random, but people generally have a pretty big spread. The difference between Top 35% and Top 65% is pretty random. The difference between top 5% and top 95% really isn't.

2. Do law exams test anything of real value or does it favor randomly picked attributes? From what I can tell legal writing, written exams, multiple choice, and paper class grades aren't really that correlated. This wouldn't make exams random, but it would make them arbitrary and capricious. If law school just tests how quickly you can superficially analyze a simple fact pattern, then who really cares? I'm sure it isn't totally arbitrary, but I expect its significantly so.

3. How much do the relative differences in ability, as measured in #2, actually reflect objective ability. What is the difference between first and last place in an objective sense and how much is that worth. The difference between the first and median place marathon runner in the Olympics is like 11 minutes over 23 miles. That's about 8% better. Now what if you were looking for a guy to run between units of your Roman Army. Fast is better, but so ability to stay hidden, ability to communicate, ability to stay healthy and recoup for the next run, etc. etc. That 8% might be worth it or it might not. Maybe law schools are more like the difference between first and last place at the Boston Marathon, where it is many hours difference. Who knows.

When you combine all three, I'm not sure grades mean all that much. Sure the next brilliant jurist might get straight A's, but that doesn't mean everyone gets straight As is a brilliant jurist.

[romothesavior]

+1 to everything DF just said. Awesome post.

Also, TLS is made up of mostly people who went to good schools, got good grades, and wound up with good outcomes. The idea that people are saying grades aren't a good metric is hardly the result of frustration or envy.

[lawsearcher]

I feel like I've said this so many times ITT I feel like I'm talking to a wall, but here goes again.

Law school grades are not random. There are people at the bottom of the class who are not that bright or that hard working. Meanwhile, people at the top of the class are almost universally smart and hardworking working. It's not truly "random." But the idea that there's a perfect correlation or even a strong correlelation between hard work and/or intelligence is just wrong. Most people in law school are smart enough to do well, and there are diminishing returns past a certain point of effort.

Saying "law school grades aren't random" is fucking obnoxious because you're fighting with a straw man. Nobody believes they're truly random like a dice roll or lottery.

Saying "law school grades aren't random" is fucking obnoxious because you're fighting with a straw man. Nobody believes they're truly random like a dice roll or lottery.[/quote]

Most people at a T1 have the raw intelligence. But what you keeping missing is they aren't working hard enough to truly learn the material. Maybe they don't get in a good study group or use someone else's outline instead of creating their own. Maybe they didn't spend the full time highlighting and briefing the cases in the beginning so they miss some nuances during review. To GUARANTEE a good grade, you need to work VERY hard, especially the first year.

Look at most of the TLS guides. A common response is "Wow, I don't think I can do that much but congrats, great guide!" Or even in this thread, there's people saying I did most of the readings or attended most classes. What? If you missed a reading or a class you aren't really planning to do well. If people truly devoted themselves to law school (debatable whether or not this is healthy), and that only, they would if nothing else do better, and at a T1 they would be top 10%. The idea you worked so hard that you cannot find a way to improve yourself whether it's study groups, LEEWS, GTM, or outlining is crazy. There are simply more hours worth of things to learn and do 1L than there is time available.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Have you ever heard the expression "work smarter, not harder"?

[lawsearcher]

You can separate these into three questions.

1. How random is a law school exam at measuring how good you are at law school exams in general? It clearly isn't totally random, but people generally have a pretty big spread. The difference between Top 35% and Top 65% is pretty random. The difference between top 5% and top 95% really isn't.

2. Do law exams test anything of real value or does it favor randomly picked attributes? From what I can tell legal writing, written exams, multiple choice, and paper class grades aren't really that correlated. This wouldn't make exams random, but it would make them arbitrary and capricious. If law school just tests how quickly you can superficially analyze a simple fact pattern, then who really cares? I'm sure it isn't totally arbitrary, but I expect its significantly so.

3. How much do the relative differences in ability, as measured in #2, actually reflect objective ability. What is the difference between first and last place in an objective sense and how much is that worth. The difference between the first and median place marathon runner in the Olympics is like 11 minutes over 23 miles. That's about 8% better. Now what if you were looking for a guy to run between units of your Roman Army. Fast is better, but so ability to stay hidden, ability to communicate, ability to stay healthy and recoup for the next run, etc. etc. That 8% might be worth it or it might not. Maybe law schools are more like the difference between first and last place at the Boston Marathon, where it is many hours difference. Who knows.

When you combine all three, I'm not sure grades mean all that much. Sure the next brilliant jurist might get straight A's, but that doesn't mean everyone gets straight As is a brilliant jurist.

The problem is you are thinking top 35% and top 65%. You should be thinking top 10%. There is a difference in effort from top 10% that keeps them from falling into the wishy-washy top 35-65%. And no some people who don't work as hard may sneak in, but not many, and I suspect those that do are very intelligent.

I can't speak to The Value of Law School exams. They prove how well you know the material. I don't know what more you want them to measure. They certainly don't show you are a great lawyer, but combined with LSAT and uGPA (in the form of school choice), they say something about you that employers can use to determine who they want to hire. If you were hiring, would you use a different measurement?

[lawsearcher]

Have you ever heard the expression "work smarter, not harder"?

Of course there is merit to this phrase. Unfortunately, people use it as an excuse to not work as hard. I'm not saying stare at your outline over and over again, I'm saying use the time to go over your outline and and improve it, do more practice exams, find a new study group to compare your answers. These are just some ideas off the top of my head to improve that are smarter but still involve hard work.

[Desert Fox]

There is no amount of studying that will guarantee top 10%.

[lawsearcher]

+1 to everything DF just said. Awesome post.

Also, TLS is made up of mostly people who went to good schools, got good grades, and wound up with good outcomes. The idea that people are saying grades aren't a good metric is hardly the result of frustration or envy.

I've seen enough of these threads to know you won't be convinced. Good grades from good schools are possible but fall into more of the randomness scale.

I am saying it's possible for most people admitted to a T1 to do great, if they truly put in the effort. If you really think you did the best you could, working from beginning of semester to the end, then great. I cannot sit and here and know exactly what you did. But I've seen enough of my classmate's work ethic to know who truly put in the time to learn the material from the first day on through. It wasn't a surprise who did well when grades came out.

[lawsearcher]

There is no amount of studying that will guarantee top 10%.

I guarantee if we put you in some alternate reality back into 1L where I gave you $25 million dollars to get top 10% grades, you would have worked harder and found a way into the top 10% at a T1.

[LeDique]

There is no amount of studying that will guarantee top 10%.

I guarantee if we put you in some alternate reality back into 1L where I gave you $25 million dollars to get top 10% grades, you would have worked harder and found a way into the top 10% at a T1.

is that way using half the money to bribe the profs? otherwise, i don't think it'll work

[thebobs1987]

+1 to everything DF just said. Awesome post.

Also, TLS is made up of mostly people who went to good schools, got good grades, and wound up with good outcomes. The idea that people are saying grades aren't a good metric is hardly the result of frustration or envy.

I've seen enough of these threads to know you won't be convinced. Good grades from good schools are possible but fall into more of the randomness scale.

I am saying it's possible for most people admitted to a T1 to do great, if they truly put in the effort. If you really think you did the best you could, working from beginning of semester to the end, then great. I cannot sit and here and know exactly what you did. But I've seen enough of my classmate's work ethic to know who truly put in the time to learn the material from the first day on through. It wasn't a surprise who did well when grades came out.

I don't understand why you keep saying T1. Maybe at your school that is possible, but at my T1 school, I know plenty of people that work a lot harder than me and know the material inside and out, but still got median. Some are even great writers that ended up on law review, but just can't write a law school exam as well. I am not saying it is random, but as DF said, you can't simply work your way into the top 10%. The people in the top 10% mostly are a little smarter/better equipped to write exams. After that there is very little difference I have noticed from people down through median.