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Likely it is. You need to go to your professor and beg forgiveness before it gets kicked to a dean.

Were you told that you couldn't work with anyone else on the brief? Was this for a grade, or just a mid-semester practice thing?

It depends on your instructions. From what you posted, it sounds like you weren't supposed to be getting help from other students. If that's the case, I'd bring it up with your teacher before they bring it up with you.

This doesn't sound like plagarism (i.e. copying someone else's work). But its definitely serious if your school has a rule (which I feel is typical for 1L legal writing type classes) that students can't review eachother's work.

I'd beg for forgiveness. On a good note, my experience with legal writing adjunct profs is that they can be pretty cool and given their adjunct position, may not want to tank someone for this. Luck of the draw, really.

RaceJudicata wrote:This doesn't sound like plagarism (i.e. copying someone else's work). But its definitely serious if your school has a rule (which I feel is typical for 1L legal writing type classes) that students can't review eachother's work.

Agree with this.

My guess is how much pain results from this depends on whether it was for a grade or not. If it was just a practice draft, I doubt you get fried too badly. If it was for a grade, that's a different story and you'll probably need to throw yourself on the LRW prof's mercy.

The rule probably goes a little broader than just students reviewing each other's work. Probably can't have anyone review your work. Substantive edits from a 2L/3L or practitioner would be much more unfair to grading than a classmate or a non-legal 3rd party.

OTOH, a 2L/3L/Grad should probably know better than to edit a 1L's brief.

Also, (mostly for the benefits of other lurking 1Ls) in addition to the the primary concern of the ethical dilemma is the secondary concern of attention to detail. LSW is a tight curve with everyone's paper looking more or less the same. It's bluebooking, formatting, and other technical/non-substantive bits that differentiates your papers.

If it wasn't for a grade, and there was no explicit instruction not to have anyone else read your draft, I would not bring it up to your professor. If your professor brings it up to you, just feign that you did not realize that you couldnt have others proofread your ungraded assignments, and that you wont do it again.

If it was for a grade, thats a whole different story.