Asking about your grade Forum

[Garden District]

I'm in a clinic that's graded and worth about two regular classes-worth of credit over a school year. My client fucking SLAMMED me with tons of complex work and I essentially spent my spring semester working as their full-time attorney while carrying an otherwise full courseload. I know for sure that nobody else in the class had clients who were half as demanding, and I churned out probably 5x more work product. I'm talking hundreds of pages, where my buddy in the class maybe only had to do ~10. I got the sense that the professors didn't know how complex and involved the work I had to do would be when they took my client on for the clinic.

It's the end of the year now and, now that I'm kind of scrambling to get things together to do decent in the other classes I had to neglect, I'm realizing that I'll be LIVID if I don't get at least an above median grade.

Is there a tactful way to ask the the professor about my grade, preferably in a way that suggests that I'd better not get the same grade as everyone else despite having to do a ton more work? Is this my millennial entitledness showing?

[kellyfrost]

You shouldn't just walk into the professors office and begin by asking about your grade; however, there is a way to tactfully bring it up.

Walk into your professors office and discuss your client (i.e., I got the sense that the professors didn't know how complex and involved the work I had to do would be when they took my client on for the clinic.) Discuss the work you did, the challenges it presented, and most importantly what you learned. If the conversation tends to flow that way, bring up any concerns you would have about having a similar client or similar case handled by the clinic again, and if they did, what suggestions you would have for the students handling the case.

If you grade or other course work comes up, it is a great transition into the discussion you actually want to have with the professor about your grade. If it doesn't come up, that is fine too, because the professor will either be able to read between the lines what you wanted to discuss, or think that you are a great student and future attorney and really did well in the clinic on this particularly challenging case and deserve a good grade.

Sometimes, you have better luck when you lay down bread crumbs for someone to pick up and lead them to the final conclusion without actually coming right out and stating your purpose or conclusion. The reason for this is, often people think they have the best ideas, and if they thought of something or realized something then it must be correct or the best thing to do. Your job is to lay down the bread crumbs and lead them where you want them or their thoughts to go. Same thing applies when speaking to a jury, come to think of it.

[Garden District]

That is all good advice, thank you. I should add (in case it makes any difference to other people with suggestions) that I'll have to do everything over e-mail -- the clinic professors are local attorneys that do this on the side, so they don't have offices or office hours.

[Garden District]

About to turn in my final work product and can't imagine any other reasons I might have to e-mail them (I figure a sua sponte e-mail about this is definitely a bad idea, whereas bringing it up in an e-mail about something else only might be). Any other thoughts?

[SFSpartan]

kellyfrost pretty much hit the nail on the head. I think that this is probably something that is best done in person, mostly because it is hard to properly convey tone via email. When you do turn in that final work product, ask if they can meet for coffee to talk about some facet of the work you did. That gets you to the meeting, where you can lay down the proverbial bread crumbs.