Question about Plagiarism and C&F
Posted: Wed Nov 27, 2013 5:10 pm
Heartfelt thank you to all for your input.
Law School Discussion Forums
https://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/
https://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=220520
If your school is anything like mine was, collaborating at all on a legal writing project by providing work to a friend does not make you an "innocent person." It likely depends on what your instructions were. Ours were that we were absolutely not allowed to talk to others about our LRW assignments (if that's what this was).troubledone wrote:Without going into too much detail, basically my roommate and I are supposed to have a sit down with the dean and our professor about an assignment we wrote for class (not a brief/memo but one of several smaller assignments we had to do throughout the semester) that is apparently similar in content. What had happened was that my roommate was in a major crunch and had wanted to see my assignment to "model" it off of. He made this request within an hour of the class so I sent him my doc as an attachment via email since I was at school and he was at home. We definitely did not work on it together and because my roommate and I have a good relationship for a few years now, I know he obviously didn't do it on purpose but he must have left it substantially similar because he was either desperate, had a lapse in judgment, whatever. He's obviously incredibly apologetic about the situation and has assured me that he will explain the situation and that he will do everything in his power to take all the blame. Problem is, I was always under the impression that even an innocent person providing the source is often busted for the same crime. We were assured by the prof that this wasn't an honor board type of deal, they just want to ask us how we came up with each of our assignments.
I realize the outcome of this type of a situation is dependent on countless factors but does anyone have any knowledge or experience to shed on this predicament I am in? I'm obviously devastated over this and I wanted to have some idea of what to expect here, esp as to whether it affects my C&F.
Thank you in advance.
No first hand experience with C&F/honor code issues, but if your professor has assured you that it isn't an honor code issue, then it's not an honor code issue. My guess is that 1) they're not going to pursue it b/c it's a minor assignment, and maybe the 'no collaborating' instructions on those were not as explicit as they are on the memos (only you would know this for sure); however, b) the similarities in a minor assignment are still worrisome, and they want to make sure you and your roommate aren't collaborating; if you are under the mistaken impression that this is okay now you might end up doing that on one of the important assignments, where it will definitely be a no-no.troubledone wrote:Without going into too much detail, basically my roommate and I are supposed to have a sit down with the dean and our professor about an assignment we wrote for class (not a brief/memo but one of several smaller assignments we had to do throughout the semester) that is apparently similar in content. What had happened was that my roommate was in a major crunch and had wanted to see my assignment to "model" it off of. He made this request within an hour of the class so I sent him my doc as an attachment via email since I was at school and he was at home. We definitely did not work on it together and because my roommate and I have a good relationship for a few years now, I know he obviously didn't do it on purpose but he must have left it substantially similar because he was either desperate, had a lapse in judgment, whatever. He's obviously incredibly apologetic about the situation and has assured me that he will explain the situation and that he will do everything in his power to take all the blame. Problem is, I was always under the impression that even an innocent person providing the source is often busted for the same crime. We were assured by the prof that this wasn't an honor board type of deal, they just want to ask us how we came up with each of our assignments.
I realize the outcome of this type of a situation is dependent on countless factors but does anyone have any knowledge or experience to shed on this predicament I am in? I'm obviously devastated over this and I wanted to have some idea of what to expect here, esp as to whether it affects my C&F.
Thank you in advance.
Pleadings (complaint/answers) aren't necessarily that different if you are dealing with the same fact pattern/hypothetical case. I mean, hell, we had to draft pleads for my Trial Ad class and 99% of them looked the exact same.troubledone wrote:What I meant in the OP is simply that it wasn't one of those memo/brief types of writing assignments but it was still a graded writing assignment - it was a pleading as if we were filing it in court (like a complaint or an answer). I realize there's probably no distinction but just in case.