appeal grades? Forum

[lawschoolisfun2012]

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[blurbz]

Got a B- on my second legal writing memo compared to a B on my first one. I spent more hours, worked harder, and met with my prof more for the second memo. Should I both trying to appeal the grade? Something just does not seem right.

Go in and talk to the prof first.

[morris248]

Got a B- on my second legal writing memo compared to a B on my first one. I spent more hours, worked harder, and met with my prof more for the second memo. Should I both trying to appeal the grade? Something just does not seem right.

The professor expects more the second time around. I would meet with him but not to appeal the grade, just to go over your mistakes.

[tstyler98]

Got a B- on my second legal writing memo compared to a B on my first one. I spent more hours, worked harder, and met with my prof more for the second memo. Should I both trying to appeal the grade? Something just does not seem right.

Most likely the other students did the same thing. It doesn't matter what you do, it's what you do compared to others in your section.

I would recommend talking to your professor. Hopefully they can explain what you need to work on.

[CanadianWolf]

Because you need to be in the top 25% of your class in order to retain your scholarship, you should meet & speak with your legal writing professor if LRW is counted toward your overall law school GPA.

[Ludo!]

You should definitely go talk to your professor but I'm not sure what you expect. You're graded on a curve - it doesn't matter how much work you put into the memo if the other people in your class are better. Hopefully you focused on your real classes and didn't waste too much time on LRW.

[CanadianWolf]

Two concerns: Scholarship retention & many summer positions/fellowships for law students require a letter from law students' LRW professor.

[Ludo!]

Two concerns: Scholarship retention & many summer positions/fellowships for law students require a letter from law students' LRW professor.

Why would his professor change his grade though? He's not the only one in the class with those concerns (and I don't know how big a concern the second one really is, I never applied to a single job during 1l that required a letter from my LRW instructor). He can go talk to his prof but I seriously doubt anything will happen.

[CanadianWolf]

I never wrote about changing grades. Also, this is not OP's final grade.

[Ludo!]

If you're not talking about changing grades then what are you talking about? The semester's over. Unless OP's LRW class is radically different than most, his grade is substantially based on those two memos so his overall grade is a B or a B-. What's the point in talking to the professor and finding out what he did wrong? OP said "something just does not seem right" like he thinks the prof made a mistake. I'm trying to tell him, that's pretty unlikely.

[Grizz]

many summer positions/fellowships for law students require a letter from law students' LRW professor.

Never seen even a single one that required this.

[CanadianWolf]

His concern may influence his final grade as well as any assessment/recommendation letter from the LRW professor & he may learn from his mistakes.

Often required for summer fellowships or diversity SA positions. (Ask your law school's LRW profs.)

[Ludo!]

His concern may influence his final grade as well as any assessment/recommendation letter from the LRW professor & he may learn from his mistakes.

Often required for summer fellowships or diversity SA positions. (Ask your law school's LRW profs.)

Why would his raising concerns with his professor influence his final grade? You really think the professor is going to say "B on first memo, B- on the second, but he did come talk to me about it so I'll go ahead and give him an A in the class" ??

How would you know what is often required for fellowships and SA positions, aren't you a 0l?

[CanadianWolf]

I wish.

[Ludo!]

@Ludovico Technique: Yes, I am not in law school. Seriously. But I bet that you'll figure it out.

Since you never clarified this and since your posts are so consistently misguided I'm just going to assume you are a 0l

[CanadianWolf]

Assume away.

[shock259]

I ended up at median in LW and I'm not certain how I can improve. I spent a significant portion of my time on the memo, I thought it read very well, and the professor made 1-2 comments on it that weren't praise. I may go talk to the prof to see if there is anything I'm missing. Not sure if it will really help though.

[KMaine]

I would go in and talk to the professor. Ask him/her what you need to do better so that you will be able to write more clearly. This will be helpful to you if you have a full year course, but it will also be helpful to you when you are doing any sort of legal work. You will be judged on your writing, and it appears your writing is not that good. I am pretty certain that your writing is objectively worse than most of your classmates, so it would be good if you could understand why that is the case.

[thesealocust]

Got a B- on my second legal writing memo compared to a B on my first one. I spent more hours, worked harder, and met with my prof more for the second memo. Should I both trying to appeal the grade? Something just does not seem right.

Absolutely. Professors love it when students appeal grades, and as a special little snowflake you're entitled to a better grade. If the professor won't change it contact the administration or the press.

This is an injustice and you should not let it stand, snowflake.

I wish.

Aren't you a lawyer? I seem to recall you claiming to be when you first joined.

[Grizz]

I'm guessing a lawyer in Tampa or Central FL due to decent knowledge of that market.

[cantabaout]

since everybody write on teh same topic and cover the same issues in LRW, I am inclined to think that your writing is really worse than your peers'.

If it's like a seminar class and everybody writes a different topic, then grading becomes really subjective. of course, i see no point in appealing seminar grades either- unless it's a really low grade that makes your transcript look bad and/or keeps you from getting magna or cum laude.

[AreJay711]

DO IT!!!

[Ludo!]

I'm guessing a lawyer in Tampa or Central FL due to decent knowledge of that market.

No, I think he is some kind of pre-law counselor or something.

[ObLaDiObLaDa]

Look into free writing workshops or other sources of outside persuasive writing help. I got a B in legal writing and my professor's main comments were just that while I set everything up correctly in my memo and did the proper analysis, my writing lacked the strength and persuasiveness that my classmates' memos had. I took a free persuasive writing seminar that opened my eyes to how my use of word placement, word choice, structure, and other such things was really weakening my writing.

[cantabaout]

just move on - especially if you do well on other classes

i've known someone who transferred from a T50 to a T10 and graduated magna there. Yet the lowest grade that she got at her T50 was in LRW. I've also known people who write award-winning law review articles and only swung a B.