hmm. ok. Good point. Can anyone point to when it has helped? I see people either saying it helps or it doesn't, but people in either camps saying it has never been pointed out or spoken to. I have several and it has never been mentioned.

J77, you're quite defensive about this, among other things. No one is attacking you. Your statements make it seem like you have been shunned by employers for people with better (arbitrary) grades and that your CALI award in legal writing didn't get you anywhere. I think it might have been your abrasive mannerisms.
GPA >> Interviewing skills >> CALI awards >> whatever that last thing was.

Sarah Palin would not be happy with you

But really, LRW is probably the most worthless class in law school, and a lot of employers know that. Many schools (most top schools) don't even give grades for it- and have it taught by students rather than actual profs. It's not that writing isn't important- it's that LRW just tends to be an exercise in using the bluebook properly and how to use westlaw.

Nobody is going to be all that impressed by a B student with a CALI award in LRW.

If you want to show off good legal writing skills, have a good writing sample. Nobody cares about the legal writing course.

As far as grades in other classes, I think it varies. Alumni from the school who know the hard professors might favor the kid with good grades in tough classes, and employers may notice good grades in classes relevant to particular practices. But in my experience, grades tend to fall within a spectrum and are relatively consistent from class to class. A marginally higher grade in one class doesn't mean much. Consistently high performance is more important.

The bigger thing with grades is graduation awards, which treat "hard" and "easy" classes equally.