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Hello TLS community! I attend a Tier 3 law school and something happened to me just now that has left me stunned and confused. I originally received a B+ in legal methods. However, 7 days later, I just received an email today saying that the professor had an "error" and it has affected 9 kids in our class. Therefore the whole class grades had to be redistributed and therefore I received a D. I emailed my dean for academic transparency on this situation and to appoint a meeting with her.

I am for sure going to review my grade and go over it with my professor. I did not do this originally because I received a B+ and thought to myself, good enough. In addition, I was just hired at the NJ Division of Rate Counsel as an intern. They read over my legal memo and told me it was good. I just do not understand.

How is it that they maintain blind grading if they get to change it after they submit their grades? Not to mention, this happens 7 days later! I am not saying I do not deserve this grade. However, I need input from other people here. I need to do something. I am not letting this happen to me without a fight.

This matters to me because I just lost my scholarship and this grade put me on academic probation. You can only imagine how much anxiety and stress I have right now. How can you error a B+ for a D? It's so far away on the keyboard. My God!

I do have this vibe with my professor that we don't get along for some reason. My final memo was our final grade, however, she has the discretion to give us that extra credit if we're on the bubble, whatever the hell that means...


Thank you.

Sounds like your TTTT didn't have enough money to go around so they needed some scholarship money back in the form of tuition. Common among TTT-TTTT schools unfortunately. You got boned, don't have any real advice about that. But this should be a lesson to anyone going on a scholarship with a stipulation.

grades?? wrote:Sounds like your TTTT didn't have enough money to go around so they needed some scholarship money back in the form of tuition. Common among TTT-TTTT schools unfortunately. You got boned, don't have any real advice about that. But this should be a lesson to anyone going on a scholarship with a stipulation.

That is one messed up practice.

On another note:

I got in touch with 4 other students in my class and all 4 of them were adversely affected by the grade redistribution. One of them was saying that we should sue the school because we shouldn't be the ones to bear the burden of a professor's mistake. He also mentioned that now he has to contact employers and tell them that their grade was actually something else and that this damages their reputation and first impression. I may lose my internship offer because my grade just got changed.

In addition, how in the world does this maintain blind grading? The professor literally revealed all the grades and 3 weeks later, now she changed 9 of the 23 students in my class. Just outrageous...

What do you guys think...do you guys think this is a lawsuit?

As a law student...she was definitely negligent. Duty as a professor, breach of that duty, proximate cause for her breach of duty, and injuries endured by we the students.

MrHan wrote:
What do you guys think...do you guys think this is a lawsuit?

As a law student...she was definitely negligent. Duty as a professor, breach of that duty, proximate cause for her breach of duty, and injuries endured by we the students.

Yikes.

rpupkin wrote:

MrHan wrote:
What do you guys think...do you guys think this is a lawsuit?

As a law student...she was definitely negligent. Duty as a professor, breach of that duty, proximate cause for her breach of duty, and injuries endured by we the students.

Yikes.

This is obviously a simmered down version of how I see it as.

OP, I'm sorry about your situation, but I have to ask: is English your first language? Not insulting you, just asking.

MrHan wrote: As a law student...she was definitely negligent. Duty as a professor, breach of that duty, proximate cause for her breach of duty, and injuries endured by we the students.

If this grade was for your torts class, the change may be justified...

Anyway, you're already doing what you should. Follow up and see exactly what the error was the first time around. And now you've learned a valuable lesson about why you don't go to a bad school on a conditional scholarship.

TheSpanishMain wrote:OP, I'm sorry about your situation, but I have to ask: is English your first language? Not insulting you, just asking.

Honestly I just wrote whatever was in my head in a really fast and upset manner. My apologies if my grammar was horrid in the previous essay but I am a little bit tipsy to cope with the news. Just to answer your question, yes, English is my first language. However, I didn't know I was writing for the committee of grammar nazis so sorry my poor writing destroyed your eyes.

I literally spent the past 3 hours sending emails to various deans at my school and talking to students in my class. At this point, I'm exhausted and I just want input from the internet.

So once again, sorry.

MrHan wrote:What do you guys think...do you guys think this is a lawsuit?

As a law student...she was definitely negligent. Duty as a professor, breach of that duty, proximate cause for her breach of duty, and injuries endured by we the students.

In case you were seriously considering this: don't sue your school.

Talk to the professor, talk to the academic dean, take whatever options are available to you through the school. (FWIW, the curve makes grading a fair bit more complicated than pressing B+ on a keyboard, so it's possible there was a legitimate calculation error, or it's possible someone screwed up. Find out before you do anything else.)

Is this thread a joke? Legal writing/analysis classes usually dont have a curve from my understanding. So i dont see how there was a "redistribution" of grades. Also, you'd have to work prettt damn hard to get a D in a legal writing class, no matter where you go. I smell a rat.

But in case this is real, dont sue your school.

rcharter1978 wrote:Is this thread a joke? Legal writing/analysis classes usually dont have a curve from my understanding. So i dont see how there was a "redistribution" of grades. Also, you'd have to work prettt damn hard to get a D in a legal writing class, no matter where you go. I smell a rat.

Many schools apply a curve to grading in Legal Writing, and and most Tier3/4 schools regularly give Ds and Fs.

Yeah, legal writing is usually curved (lots of schools don't grade legal writing but if it's graded it's curved, in my experience).

Well shit, my bad. If this is real, it sounds terrible.

I would just think youd have to really turn in a stinker to get a D. But maybe not.

OP, you posted a very similar thread on Reddit School of Law. Originally in that thread, you said your paper deserved a B+ or somewhere around there. When a poster asked to see it, you emailed him your paper for him to check whether it deserved a D, and he responded (fairly harshly) that it was atrocious. You alleged most (all?) of the people whose grades went down were people your professor allegedly hated.

I highly recommend letting this go. Your stress and anxiety caused by this D is very likely making you see or think things that just aren't there. You're not the first person to post here alleging your legal writing professor is out to get you. She probably isn't out to get you, in part because why would she, and also it's more likely that stress throughout 1L contributed to your seeing things that just weren't there. (Like now.)

You now admit you deserved the D. When you deserve a grade, unfortunately that's what you get. "Fighting" this does absolutely nothing good for you. Give it some time and the horror will subside. I wouldn't do anything rash, because it could easily make things worse. Just let it go and move forward, either by sticking it out or leaving school. It's a good idea to meet with the professor and learn how to improve your legal writing, but I wouldn't bring any resentment or hostility into that meeting.

I know it sucks to accept when we underwhelm ourselves, but sometimes you have to accept it and focus on going forward. I am sorry this happened to you. This happened to a friend of mine and she was depressed for a couple weeks but came back second semester and kicked serious ass. No one would argue that this situation sucks, but don't do anything rash. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps and do better this semester.

OP -- would you be open to sharing the paper? I can give you feedback, but I'm more curious than anything else so I'll understand if you don't want to.

OP, if you're going to lose your scholarship due to this, I say fight it. Don't sue or threaten to sue. Make an appointment with the Dean, see what the story is, and don't take it lying down. In the end, if you lose your scholarship, I'd drop out. And I'd make that very clear to them. Because going to a TTT school with no scholarship isn't worth it.

If they tell you "tough break, kid," you tell them "fuck it, I'm out." Then drop the mic and walk out the door.