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Law Schools
Law schools should mostly ditch C grades, law prof argues
By Debra Cassens Weiss
May 15, 2013, 11:00 am CDT
By Pushkin on 2013 05 15, 11:37 am CDT
By B. McLeod on 2013 05 15, 12:19 pm CDT
By Anonymous on 2013 05 15, 1:02 pm CDT
By RecentGrad on 2013 05 15, 1:26 pm CDT
Pushkin wrote: "What happens in another 10 years, when Silverstein's kid is a professor at Little Rock and makes a similar argument on behalf of the post entitlement generation." I address this issue in the article. See, in particular, pages 537-38. In short, this is not a real concern. And even if such a push were to begin, there are ways to deal with it. See Part IV.B.
RecentGrad wrote: "How about this radical idea: we let professors grade each student, individually, on a scale of A, B, C, D, F, based on where the student's work should fall." The problem with this is that different professors have different grading standards. And so do different schools. There is no single place where a student's work falls. There are as many places as there are grading philosophies. For more on this, see my article In Defense of Mandatory Curves, and especially parts II, III, V.A., and V.E. The answer is to put in place policies that account for those differences. My first article, just referenced, explains how to do that at a particular school. My second article, A Case for Grade Inflation in Legal Education, the one primarily under discussion, explains how to deal with this across law schools.
By Joshua Silverstein on 2013 05 15, 2:11 pm CDT
By Ruth Carter on 2013 05 15, 2:39 pm CDT
By Actual Lawyer on 2013 05 15, 2:43 pm CDT
By Pushkin on 2013 05 15, 2:54 pm CDT
In response to Actual Lawyer, you wrote: "How about we subtract a fixed quantity of GPA from the grade inflated schools to bring them back down to Earth?" I like this idea in theory. Some schools have tried to do this to particular classes. See Valen Johnson's Book, Grade Inflation: A Crisis in Education, in particular, the last chapter. And some firms already do this. But the better solution is for the non-inflated schools to inflate. You continued: "Why are we fixated with continually rigging a system to collapse the separation between students." We aren't. And I explain why in great detail in Part IV.B. of A Case for Grade Inflation. Indeed, I want to do more to distinguish among students, as I explain there. You continued: "Plenty of students got Cs (or lower) when they failed to meet minimum standards." Glad to hear it! That is my proposal. Unfortunately, at most schools, students get Cs even if they SUCCEED in meeting minimum standards. That's what I'm opposed to.
Thanks for the comments guys.
By Joshua Silverstein on 2013 05 15, 2:58 pm CDT
By Newsflash on 2013 05 15, 3:02 pm CDT
The reason this is a problem is because law firm hiring committees are lazy. When they look at a student from school A who has a 3.3, but is ranked in the top 5%, or a student in school B with a 3.6 who is outside the top 10%, they will probably pick the kid from school B. Bigger numbers (absolute GPAs) matter to hiring committees that have to sift through thousands of resumes. Thus, school A is doing itself (and its students) a disservice by setting its curve arbitrarily low.
With all that said, that discrimination only happens at the margins. A school ranked #120 is not going to magically improve its students' outcomes by going to an A- curve. Thus, if all of the lower tier schools eliminated Cs, we would probably see an adjustment by the higher-ranked schools offering more A+s, possibly even moving their curve to/above 4.0. It's an arms race, made worse by the awful legal jobs market.
By Laurence on 2013 05 15, 3:14 pm CDT
You wrote: "The real difficulty with the proposal is that it caters to the idea the students should be sheltered from negative comments about their talent, effort, quality of work, or the like." I disagree. Here is why. The problem is that C's send the wrong signal. Right now, when we give C's, we intend to tell them that they are succeeding, but they receive the C's as failing (much of the time; of course, not always). I don't want to shelter students from accurate comments about the quality of their work. But they were raised in an A and B world. Law schools essentially use different grade scales from the rest of the world. That creates confusion. It is time for us to grade the way everyone else does. We should use grades that accurately convey to students what we think about their work. Right now, we are failing in this regard.
You continued: "The fact that students are "injured psychologically" by a low grade is their problem, not the professor's." Unless it is the professor's grading system that is needlessly doing so, especially when the low grades cause students to decrease work effort, which hurts the students, the school, future clients, and the legal system.
You continued: "It would be dishonest to tell them that their work was as good (or almost as good) as anyone else's in the class if it was not, and it does not do them a long term favor to be dishonst to them. " Quite right. But nothing I am proposing is inconsistent with this. Indeed, as I've said, my system will lead to more accurate communication with students.
You continued: "A grade is just a relative comment, an indication of how one performed in comparison to others in the same class and not a statement about absolute worth, but it is up to students to figure this out." Grades are somewhat more than this. But that isn't critical. What is critical is that the belief that grades have absolute, objective meaning. We've tried unsuccessfully for decades to convince students otherwise. Indeed, even many faculty are tied to this plainly false belief. Given that, it is time for an alternative approach.
You continued: "There will be a stigmatizing C in any system you put in its place." I disagree and I expressly address this argument. See pages 537-38.
Given your interest, I strongly recommend that you download and read my article. It addresses all of your concerns, and many more. Thanks again for the feedback.
By Joshua Silverstein on 2013 05 15, 3:16 pm CDT
In response to Laurence, good summary. My only disagreement is with the arm's race argument. I address that on pages 512-513. I don't think First Tier schools will do what you suggest. But even if I'm wrong, I still think it is worth it to give my approach a try.
By Joshua Silverstein on 2013 05 15, 3:19 pm CDT
I'm not sure what "should" means regarding eliminating grades. The individual schools, law schools collectviely, students, employers, society and perhaps professors might atatch a different reason to why schools "should" or shouldn't take a particular course of action regarding grades. Schools and students want to win against each other, employers want the "best", society probably doesn't care much...
I'd say the most appropriate course of action is to let grading be arbitrary, harsh and sometimes seemingly random, to prepare students for the vagaries of life. That's what we "should" do.
By defensive lawyer on 2013 05 15, 3:57 pm CDT
I must say, this is a brilliant topic for a professor to write about...how could law review student editors NOT be intrigued....
well played Professor Silverstein...
By defensive lawyer on 2013 05 15, 3:59 pm CDT
my school at the time 20 years ago set the mean at 78 percent, with he top 25% at 80 and bottom quarter starting at i think 76% it was kinda arbitrary and weird...the numbers looked odd...my endpt GPA was i think an 81.something, which looked bad, but which actually I had to explain put me near the top of the class...there was an information brochure from the school...it was odd...employers understood...
By defensive lawyer on 2013 05 15, 4:04 pm CDT
You also wrote: "strikes me that grades are irrelvant in the sense that you could give out anything in any quantity—what matters is your relative percentile performance against the rest of the class." In theory, yes. The problem is (1) many schools don't release class rank, and (2) many people falsely believe that grades have objective, absolute meaning.
Thanks for the comments!
By Joshua Silverstein on 2013 05 15, 4:29 pm CDT
How about a not-so-novel approach - let's grade students according to what they actually earn in the professor's class? Yes, all professors are different because grading is subjective. I think that's been dealt with by professors and students for centuries.
Maybe the real answer is to revamp law schools so that students actually know how to practice law when they graduate instead of relying on grade inflation to secure jobs?
By Maryland Esquire on 2013 05 15, 4:47 pm CDT
I think you can help prepare them a bit.
Only practicing itself makes one a lawyer.
By defensive lawyer on 2013 05 15, 5:00 pm CDT
You continued: "Maybe the real answer is to revamp law schools so that students actually know how to practice law when they graduate instead of relying on grade inflation to secure jobs?" This gets beyond the scope of grade inflation. So all I will say is that I think law schools do an excellent job preparing students to practice, though we could do better. If you would like to see my general thoughts on legal education reform, see the comments I posted at the ABA Task Force website here: http://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibility/taskforceonthefuturelegaleducation/comments2/april2013comments.html
By Joshua Silverstein on 2013 05 15, 5:00 pm CDT
I was privileged to go to a top-20 school that did not rank students against each other. As a result, the school has a well-deserved reputation for collegiality. No hidden books, many shared outlines, very helpful peers. Granted, there are certainly other potential causes for that collegiality and it isn't possible to measure the exact effect of a refusal to rank students. But for whatever anecdotal, subjective experience is worth, I often thought how much harder it would be on me mentally and socially if I knew that I was going to be ranked against other students by what are, in the end, the subjective whims of the grading eye.
By Anonymous on 2013 05 15, 5:02 pm CDT
Re. grading and gender studies, I did mention something about this in a FN in my prior article, In Defense of Mandatory Curves. See page 297, FN 172. But I have not considered doing a broader study of the subject. There is likely something to write about there, but that will have to be for someone other than me.
Class rank can increase the competitive nature of law school, to be sure. But on the whole, I think tracking rank does more good than harm. With that said, I would support not releasing class rank if that was what the students at my school wanted. However, that makes inflating all the more important.
By Joshua Silverstein on 2013 05 15, 5:36 pm CDT
As someone who has been awarded professional degrees both in the U.S. and abroad, I have witnessed first hand how American grades (not degrees) are considered worthless indicators of achievement. It kind of equates to every child who plays a sport getting a trophy.
Unfortunately, we are very parochial in this regard and assume there is only one way to do things.
By Marc on 2013 05 15, 5:51 pm CDT
By tim17 on 2013 05 15, 6:16 pm CDT
By Jeffrey Alan Kerstetter on 2013 05 15, 6:42 pm CDT
By Fed JD on 2013 05 15, 6:43 pm CDT
Fed JD wrote: "How about eliminating the curve?" As I explained in my article, In Defense of Mandatory Curves, that would be a bad idea. Different profs have different standards. Without grade normalization, substantial unfairness results.
By Joshua Silverstein on 2013 05 15, 7:10 pm CDT
Because the alternative argument is that if the class did 75% - 85% quality work they should only get a 75% - 85% score. (i.e. Cs and Bs)
By OKBankLaw on 2013 05 15, 7:12 pm CDT
I would say from my experience at a tier 3 law school that GPA does matter to employers (at least those willing to hire 3T grads). I have been asked for my GPA, but never my class rank (which was somewhere around 50? Maybe?). I have heard that top schools generally follow a "B" curve, and that lower schools turnout more 'cutthroat' grads at the top of the class because of the lower curve. Look forward to reading the whole thing.
By Rebecca on 2013 05 15, 8:32 pm CDT
Your interviewing experience is surprising. All the questions were about absolute GPA and not rank? Quite interesting. Thanks for sharing. A helpful anecdote.
By Joshua Silverstein on 2013 05 15, 9:47 pm CDT
Law schools can evaluate academic achievement harshly, in a way that will harm employment prospects for at least half of their graduates. Or they can charge $45,000 a year (six figure total) in tuition for entry to an already overcrowded, competitive profession.
But they can't legitimately do both at the same time. Blatantly overcharging the people you're also screening out is not exactly a noble or defensible position when the government is on the hook for all the aspiring entrants' student loans.
By Liz on 2013 05 16, 2:26 am CDT
In actuality, I think the schools can do whatever they want until they run out of mooncalves who will pay their asking price.
By B. McLeod on 2013 05 16, 6:09 am CDT
Professor Silverstein: Thanks for shining light on the issue of curved grading. You make a good argument, and while I don't necessarily agree with all of your points, the issue of appropriate grading is one that should be discussed more. I don't believe the curve works as intended in all cases. When I score a raw 94%, I don't think a "B" is a fair representation of my performance; but alas, the curve only allows a certain number of A's. I understand the need for normalization, but in some instances, it seems artificial.
If law school administrators were more interested in ensuring a quality education for their students, rather than in raking in huge tuition payments to fund their fat salaries, conference travel, and research/writing initiatives, perhaps the curve would become less relevant. Hiring professors for their knowledge of the law AND their ability to teach, rather than hiring based only on impressive credentials with no regard to the quality of instruction they provide would undoubtedly improve the quality of law students and future lawyers.
By LawStudent on 2013 05 16, 6:40 am CDT
First, as I've said, I want to focus on the issue of grading here. To the extent you are interested in the broader issues of legal education reform, I've posted thoughts on that at the ABA Task Force website, here: http://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibility/taskforceonthefuturelegaleducation/comments2/april2013comments.html
Second, re. curved grading, I'm a big proponent, if the curve is designed well. For how to do that, see my article, In Defense of Mandatory Curves. Re. your 94% hypo, the problem in a class like that is generally not with the curve; it is generally that the professor made the test or other assignments too easy. But your point is well taken. I defended mandatory curves as the lesser evil in the article. They don't work perfectly. And they cause unfairness at times. But unregulated grading is much worse. Or so I contend.
Re. your last paragraph, curved grading is necessary no matter what other policies we put in place. At every level -- high school, college, and graduate school -- it doesn't matter how much training the teachers have; grades vary from instructor to instructor because we all have different standards, something that will never change. Thus, we need grade normalization.
Thanks again for your comments.
By Joshua Silverstein on 2013 05 16, 3:56 pm CDT
By NoleLaw on 2013 05 16, 4:20 pm CDT
By Joshua Silverstein on 2013 05 16, 4:40 pm CDT
By NoleLaw on 2013 05 16, 4:48 pm CDT
You wrote: "What would stop employers from placing more emphasis on a .01 difference in GPA if they knew the distribution was compressed?" I address this specifically in Part IV.B. about grade compression. An important point. But there are compelling responses.
You wrote: "More emphasis should be placed at making grading comparable across schools." If your claim is that we should go further, I quite agree. And I implied as much in Part II of the article. But I wanted to hold off on a more aggressive proposal, for a variety of reasons -- including that I didn't want to conflate the issues of grade normalization and grade inflation too much. If I write a third article on grading, I will push things further.
I'm surprised at how much discussion is being generated. I never thought it would go this far. Things have gone wild on MSN.
Thanks again for the feedback.
By Joshua Silverstein on 2013 05 16, 5:01 pm CDT
Yet the bar exam is pass/fail. seems like that one should be graded too....
By defensive lawyer on 2013 05 16, 8:08 pm CDT
By Joshua Silverstein on 2013 05 16, 8:22 pm CDT
By defensive lawyer on 2013 05 16, 8:27 pm CDT
By Joshua Silverstein on 2013 05 16, 10:03 pm CDT
By defensive lawyer on 2013 05 17, 12:03 am CDT
By Joshua Silverstein on 2013 05 17, 12:14 am CDT
By Good Luck Grads on 2013 05 17, 2:09 am CDT
Give people their Cs. If you're at Yale law, you're already supposed to be one of the best and brightest. Man up and find out who the best of the best is.
By You call this coffee!? on 2013 05 17, 7:46 am CDT
By Solo on 2013 05 17, 8:41 am CDT
By Delinjer69 on 2013 05 17, 9:33 am CDT
My school used a combined grading system. Those courses with an enrollment of 24 or fewer students did not have any grading guidelines - at the end of a semester all 24 students might have earned an "A" or an "F" or anything in between - based solely on the professors assessment of whether each student had mastered the material that had been taught. Those classes made up of 25 or more students required the professor to assign grades using the "bell curve" system, using a "C" as the middleground. Now this did not automatically mean that the bulk of the class ended the semester having earned only a "C" it often meant that for every "A" there was likely to be an "F". (I know that those who are smarter than I will be able to show ways by which that can be avoided, but in light of the pressure placed on the professors to release grades, more sophisticated calculations were rarely the order of the day.)
The sad result of this mix and match system was that students often enrolled in courses with grading systems matching their strengths, and not those courses with subject matters relevant to their interests or desired areas of practice. It also meant that students for whom the bell curve was detrimental to their GPA often missed out on such fundamental (but not 1L courses) as Evidence, Crim Pro, Con Law II, and other fundamentals (at the very least) when faced with that daunting couple of months better known as "bar exam prep time".
An even sadder phenomenon was that my highly ranked 2nd tier law school rarely had time to meet with students who were not ranked in the top 1/3 of the class, and I have vivid recollections of those classmates ranked in the bottom 1/3, trying unsuccessfully to make even a single appointment with career services during our 3 year tenure. These were not the students that would be courted by law firms, and therefore not those that would help either the image or statistics that the school wanted to show the world. (A graduate working at The Gap was still "employed" for statistical purposes.). I sometimes wonder how many of those classmates took their $150,000 educations and went on to practice law, and for me, it begs the question - what possible upside is there to this methodology? A fact further magnified when one considers the fact that very often students are fighting for 2L summer internships, and are doing so when they are, at best 1/2 way through their 2L year. In retrospect, the absurdity seems palpably obvious, but I suppose that is easy for me to say, sitting in my office, and knowing that my diploma, licenses, and all else "suitable for framing" is hanging on wall to my left.
A question perhaps to ponder, countless universities successfully grade and matriculate undergraduate students as well as graduate students in a breadth of graduate programs, without the "necessary," rigid, and stressful grading systems that we impose on law school students year, after year, after year.
In the spirit of "Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarden" - it didn't seem to matter how many people went home with gold stars on their projects and worksheets - a gold star was still a gold star.
Then again, that is just my opinion and no doubt many will disagree. Apologies for its long winded nature, but as the joke goes: Lawywers are the only group of people who can write a 10,000 word document, and call it a brief.
(That and it's 5:00 am, and I really couldn't keep working unless I had a break of some sort...)
One final thought (humor me) - to each and every one of my fellow colleagues out there, and to all of you law students who might be reading, skimming, lining your bird cages with this - I just wanted to offer my kudos - for all the crap we give each other and get from the outside world, you all still get up every morning and keep the scales of justice balanced. (And in case you are wondering, I'm in-house corporate, not public service.). I still think my fellow attornys rock.
By Just 1 Lawyer's Opinion on 2013 05 17, 10:13 am CDT
By Just 1 Lawyer's Opinion on 2013 05 17, 10:18 am CDT
My law school competed with two other schools in our State. Our school curved first year grades at a C+. The other two schools curved their grades at a B-. It wasn't until the second year of school that our grades were curved the same as the other two schools. Whenever students from my school competed against students from the other two schools for a job, the grades from my school looked worse. We were never on an even playing field with the other two schools.
I don't know if getting rid of the C is the answer....but I can tell you this, it would make a whole lot more sense for all law schools to adopt the exact same curve. That way it would be a tad bit easier to compare students from different schools. The current system can be quite unfair.
By Island Attorney on 2013 05 17, 10:39 am CDT
Premise 2: Employers have no idea what those grades mean and don't bother to find out
Conclusion: Employers are much dumber than their own GPAs might indicate
By David R. on 2013 05 17, 10:46 am CDT
By Magnus on 2013 05 17, 10:57 am CDT
The idea that any school would give mostly C's is very surprising. To the extent that is true, then the policy should be changed,
By Joe Young on 2013 05 17, 10:57 am CDT
By Bill in Ohio on 2013 05 17, 11:02 am CDT
I had a very "seasoned" attorney ask me what the Rule Against Perpetuities was (not how to calculate or the state specific nuances - what the rule was) --- but it gets better....20 minutes later, he pops back in & tells me he's dealing with a different problem and did I, by any chance, know who Mrs. Palsgraff was -- her name was on a post it on his desk w/o a callback # or notes, and it didn't ring any bells. Ok - I get Maybe not remembering the gory details of you've been out for, say 25 years - but the name didn't ring a bell?
Maybe it's just me, so raise your hand if the name Palsgraff doesn't ring Any bells, and if the RAP didn't take more than one lecture to get through....
Went to the bathroom, laughed till I cried, and then realized that his law school tuition probably cost the same as what I spent at the bookstore during my 1st semester....soooo wrong
By Just 1 Lawyer's Opinon on 2013 05 17, 11:16 am CDT
By Steve on 2013 05 17, 11:28 am CDT
I'm with you in theory, but run this hypo (sorry, I know, hypo...flashbacks, then the nightmares come back, and before you know it, life is all about Mr. A, Mrs. B, and their widgets)
But seriously - let's say that a year long Civ Pro class is graded solely based on final exam scores, and the final exam is a 200 question multiple choice test. The raw scores range from students who nailed it and got all 200 right, to the students who only answered 188 questions correctly. The class has 100 students in it. So the entire 100 students fall within a 12 question (or 6%) range. The bottom of the curve is comprised of students who only answered 94% of the questions correctly. I would argue (& I respect if you don't agree) that those 94%'ers are still law school material.
Take it a step further though. Same course, same professor, same exam, different section - also 100 students graded on their own bell curve, only here the range of correct answers is 140-164. Here the "A's" would hit far below the bottom of the 1st class's bell, but does the A make them better suited than someone who answered 24 more questions correctly, but got placed randomly in a different section?
I don't know, it may, but to me it seems messed up.
By Just 1 Lawyer's Opinion on 2013 05 17, 11:35 am CDT
By DeadHead on 2013 05 17, 11:39 am CDT
By law professor on 2013 05 17, 11:40 am CDT
By Joe Moore on 2013 05 17, 11:41 am CDT
By James Davies on 2013 05 17, 11:47 am CDT
First, I understand that some schools "grade higher" than others, but let's be real -- employers know this. If they are choosing a Tier 1 student with a 3.8 "inflated" GPA over a Tier 3 student with a 3.0 "standard" GPA, chances are they would still choose the Tier 1 student even if their GPAs were both a 3.5. That employer is focused on numbers and prestige, no matter how you paint it.
As for the idea that giving a C to a law student is psychologically harmful, all I can say is, "grow up." If a student had earned a C in the class and can't handle that fact, how are they going to handle it when a supervising attorney tips their brief apart or a jury rules against their client? Our's is not an A/B profession, our's is an A-F profession. It is better to first learn that in law school in the hands of professors who presumably care about your growth than at work where firms have hundreds waiting in the wings to take your job if you can't handle the psychological effect of "failure."
Regarding the argument that different professors grade differently and, therefore, allowing them to "just grade" would be unfair, again, all I can say is, "grow up." I was known as a "tough but fair" grader. My best friend was known as a "hard ass." And, another friend was known as a "pushover." The pushover was popular with students who didn't want to learn, my best friend and I were popular with everyone else. "A" students want to earn their "A" in a class where it isn't just handed to everyone; "B" students are proud to earn their "B" when they know they worked for it; "C" students are satisfied with their "C" when they realize that they didn't work as hard as they could have; "D" and "F" students know they earned the grade they got. The exceptions to this are students who have been told their whole lives that just by going to field day they deserve a ribbon.
In the end, every student will have hard ass profs, tough but fair profs, and pushover profs and the range of grades among those three equalizes -- the "A" students will be at the top and so on. If students have a realistic view of their own capabilities and of the work they have put in, they will understand why they earned the grades they received and that will go a long way on our profession. It will go a hell of a lot further than just giving them all As because that's what another, "better" school does.
By Caf-Pow on 2013 05 17, 11:53 am CDT
By Dan Bowling on 2013 05 17, 11:54 am CDT
Joe - interesting point, but why not go the other direction and have all the schools eliminate the bell curve? Same outcome and there might even be the added benefit of students enhancing each other's learning rather than attempting to sabotage each other's rank?
By Just 1 Lawyer's Opinion on 2013 05 17, 12:03 pm CDT
Regardless of whether you think that Professor Silverstein's solutions are the best idea, he is drawing attention to a disparity in law school grading not just within each school but across all existing law schools. Hand-waiving it with reductionist arguments about coddling students and get-off-my-lawn and back-in-my-day stories about how we used to all get C's and we liked it is unhelpful in addressing the circumstances at hand.
Because of the way that employers rely on GPA law schools and law school grading lives in a prisoner's dilemma type environment. C's are perfectly fine grades to use, so long as everyone agrees to use them and use them consistently. But the minute a smart law school decides to stop using C's their students all get a boost at the expense of every student attending a school that still hands out C's. GPAs go up for the students attending the university that stops awarding C's, job placements improve for that school and now they're on the way to increasing important metrics that improve their ranking.
Is it truly any surprise at all that most of the tier 1 schools don't award C's? It shouldn't be, they have every economic reason to do so. Meanwhile, those in lower tiers are squabbling among themselves about whether to give out Cs and the significance of the C grade.
Tier 1 schools want you to keep giving out C's, its just one more tool that they can use to get their students jobs ahead of lower tier schools. And they can get you to do it by tossing out arguments about "not coddling students" and yell "grade inflation is a disaster!", while they continue being the culprits behind that very trend. The prisoner's dilemma game is teetering on the edge of collapse because too many people are refusing to cooperate to bring out the optimal outcome for all players. Instead, everyone is trying to choose to maximize their own individual gain, resulting in significant losses for those suckers still playing along.
By BGS on 2013 05 17, 12:05 pm CDT
first law school exams are highly subjective. they can fill a fact pattern with so many issues and you won't have time to address them all and your grade is lowered
law school exams are not indicative of what you will do in practice. have any of you met with a client got the facts and given them an anlysis within - BAR Essay time 30 mins per quest - its impossible if you do that its malpractice
you must at a minimum do some research to give your client proper adivce.
in your in a court room advocating for you client where you went to school is the last thing on your mind - the court room is the equallizer. I am sure many attorneys from fourth tier schools beat the crap out of some of you IVY league law schools (harvard, yale) to name if few.
GOOD GRADES REQUIRE HARD WORK and giving higher grades to improve employment chances is malpractice to those future clients that the student will represent.
- MY professor said it best. "Seat of the pants to the seat of the chair works ever time."
By Jorge M on 2013 05 17, 12:07 pm CDT
By Ryan on 2013 05 17, 12:09 pm CDT
By government ethics is an oxymoron on 2013 05 17, 12:12 pm CDT
Personally, I think law schools have an obligation to cull out students who (without the "wake up call" provided by bad grades) are merely going to go deeper in debt, and who may not survive the tough economic climate out here. Keep the grading system. Make it tougher. For those schools who take pride in academics, give non-inflated As through Fs. Those who believe in the trade school philosophy should receive grades from practicing attorneys.
By JimfromBham on 2013 05 17, 12:17 pm CDT
If all 75 students were honestly scoring 93 or higher on a test, the test was not well-written.
By Caf-Pow on 2013 05 17, 12:17 pm CDT
Last year, I transferred from a T4 school to a T1 school. I took pride in my grades because I realized that the A's and high B's I received meant something (Or, I at least went on the assumption that C meant average, B was above average, and A was excellent/well above average. We are indoctrinated from a young age that the scale works this way). When I transferred to my T1 and found out that the curve was set at around a B, I felt less pride over my grades. Perhaps it wasn't a big, negative psychological impact, but I was worried that employers would know that my current school practices grade inflation and that they would look at the B as essentially a C or an A as a B. Even I started to wonder whether I was really doing well at my school or how I could measure if the professors are giving away A-'s like candy.
Eventually, I got over it because I always knew that grades don't determine the kind of lawyer one will be. Plus, although grades help in the job search process, networking is your better friend these days. Still, I find grade inflation frustrating after 14-16 years of a certain scale and I find psychologically difficult to deal with this new curve.
By T4 to T1 student on 2013 05 17, 12:20 pm CDT
This is the Johnny will have "low self-esteem" psychology of today's generation if he is not rewarded. It reflects the overwhelming attitude of many from the spoiled generation of today. Everyone gets a gold star for simply showing up. No one fails; everyone gets a blue ribbon.
I hate to openly disagree professor, but your advocacy of such a meaningless grading system simply promotes sloth and incompetence in the legal profession. The past decade or longer has seen an onslaught of recent graduates simply incapable of practicing law. About twenty years ago, law schools adopted the medical school philosophy that if accepted, you will graduate. Law schools became a 'cash cow' for every university, public or private.
Law school should be rigorous! Failing a third of the first year class should be the norm at nearly every law school. The practice of law is demanding. Without rigorous grading, and a tough minded dean to expel the incompetent students at the end of the first semester or certainly by the end of the first year, we continue to perpetuate the miserable mob of poorly trained recent graduates who can squeak pass the bar exam and achieve admittance to the profession.
By Alabama Lawyer on 2013 05 17, 12:25 pm CDT
By Pogo on 2013 05 17, 12:26 pm CDT
By NoleLaw on 2013 05 17, 12:28 pm CDT
On another note - I'm not in any way saying that everyone should be given an A, a pat on the head, told they are wonderful, or have papers marked up with green ink instead of red, because red is a "hostile color." But maybe I just predate that philosophy - I did take a number of years to have a short "1st career" after college and before law school, with my share of hard-ass bosses up the ranks.
What I am saying is that I don't believe that the grading system (at least in its present form) is conducive to learning, or an accurate reflection of the the actual person's knowledge of the law - or even bell curve ranking within a class, since there are so many changing factors (I'd have far less of an issue if a school carried raw grades and bell curved an entire class at once as a single group, when necessary - though ultimately I don't see the need or the benefit - (but am open to it, if someone wants to lay it out for me - in contrast to normal grading.)
As to sending a message to students who can't cut it and shouldn't be lawyers, that they would be better served by pursuing a different path rather than remaining and accruing the debt, I would hope that such a student would get that sense on their own, regardless of the grading system; and if not, then I personally think that a really committed professor who genuinely cares about the students would take such a student aside and have that conversation with him/her. I would think though, that such a student would be more receptive if they didn't feel like they had just been manipulated or (as someone I know phrased it) been turned into the "sacrificial lamb" because someone had to be at the low end of the curve
By Just 1 Lawyer's Opinion on 2013 05 17, 12:29 pm CDT
By James on 2013 05 17, 12:32 pm CDT
If law schools eliminate curved grades in favor of a pass/fail type of system won't the firms just find some other arbitrary way to weed out the undesirables with no parental connections?
By adamb on 2013 05 17, 12:41 pm CDT
By Jeff on 2013 05 17, 12:41 pm CDT
The free market comes to the defense of the students who make up the bottom 90% of the bell curve!
It is a new world.
By T Rankin Terry Jr on 2013 05 17, 12:41 pm CDT
By JimfromBham on 2013 05 17, 12:42 pm CDT
By Everyman's Law on 2013 05 17, 12:50 pm CDT
As to the quality of an exam based on the score range of the student results -- I had a plethora of friends who were on the pre-med track during my undergraduate years, and the bio-chem professor was notorious for systematically creating exams so absurd that the final grades generally ranged from 30-45 % of questions being answered correctly. A 45 meant an "A" and was cause to celebrate. The prof was kind of a nut and got a kick out of it
By Just 1 Lawyer's Opinion on 2013 05 17, 12:51 pm CDT
By Garrett on 2013 05 17, 12:51 pm CDT
By Patrick on 2013 05 17, 12:52 pm CDT
By f grosser on 2013 05 17, 12:54 pm CDT
And take trial advocacy classes.
Because practice has little if anything to do with the grades you get in law school.
By Two to Beam Up on 2013 05 17, 12:54 pm CDT
By Laurence Allen Schwartz on 2013 05 17, 12:55 pm CDT
By NYTC on 2013 05 17, 12:55 pm CDT
By Jay on 2013 05 17, 12:58 pm CDT
By RIHAM mamdouh on 2013 05 17, 12:58 pm CDT
By Augustin Ayala on 2013 05 17, 1:14 pm CDT
By Real World Perspective on 2013 05 17, 1:15 pm CDT
By Schills on 2013 05 17, 1:22 pm CDT
By My 2 Cents on 2013 05 17, 1:26 pm CDT
By SD Attorney on 2013 05 17, 1:28 pm CDT
By Just sayin' on 2013 05 17, 1:28 pm CDT
By Mark on 2013 05 17, 1:33 pm CDT
By Patrick on 2013 05 17, 1:36 pm CDT
By Halli620 on 2013 05 17, 1:42 pm CDT
As an older attorney I have met the new generation of A and B students and the great majority of them are nothing to brag about when compared to the older generation that was lucky if it got even 1 A.
What is really needed for law schools is to get the absurdly high cost down..
By Dennis E. Boring on 2013 05 17, 1:47 pm CDT
1st - to anyone who takes issue with my informal use of the English language, incomplete sentences, and grammatical mishaps - I am sorry for having offended you, but deal with it. This is an informal conversation that has until now, managed to remain substantive without evolving into a mudslinging waste of time. I was writing to make a point, not display may drafting abilities - if you would like, I can forward a brief that I have written for your approval - I promise you won't find the problems you took issue with - you won't even find a sentence ending in a preposition - or a spelling mistake, as I'm sure I have made here during the night.
Again - I do apologize if I have made my comments less fluid or more difficult to read. I hope we can return to the discussion at hand.
As for actual grades I had my share of A's and my share of C's - including 1 that was not a mandatory bell curve course. At the end of the day my diploma is just as good as that of the #1 ranked student in my class, the same way the lowest ranked student in a medical school class still walks away "doctor" - the difference is that with very rare exception, that doctor will be matched to a residency program (ie - a job) in contrast to the options for the law school grad (not to mention the med school restrictions on student numbers - but that is so far afield...)
Part of my issue is that a curve can be no less arbitrary than a traditional grading system, and in my opinion is more so, this is further compounded when there are so many changing variables among the individual weighted scores.
Conceptually it might make sense, but in practice, uniform. Implementation I don't think can work but I don't have a magic answer either.
(I have to bow out for the moment but know that if anyone responds to my comments - since I seem to be pissing people off - I'm not ignoring, I will respond at some point.
I have never hopped into one of these conversations before and am truly enjoying the intellectual discourse - thank you.
By Just 1 Lawyer's Opinion on 2013 05 17, 1:47 pm CDT
Those of delicate sensibilites or whose tether to reality is unattached, and who can't deal with it, shouldn't ever be lawyers anyway. Do them, and the profession, a favor and get them out of law and into something they're better suited for.
By Ken on 2013 05 17, 1:47 pm CDT
Marc @ 23 wrote: "It kind of equates to every child who plays a sport getting a trophy." Bingo!
By Just Some Bloke on 2013 05 17, 1:51 pm CDT
By K on 2013 05 17, 1:52 pm CDT
By Lance on 2013 05 17, 1:56 pm CDT
In effect, everyone arguing to preserve the status quo are actually arguing to continue coddling upper tier students at the expense of lower tier students. You can't avoid the "coddling" as its being defined here, it's already happening and has been happening for years.
Those of you complaining about grade inflation, babying law students, and "thinning out the herd" of underachieving lawyers are not really going to get the results you're asking for because the grading issue already exists. C's have already been eliminated in many schools, the question now is should everybody do so? There are already thousands of law students being coddled by their upper tier law schools, you're just advocating to try to keep down the lower tier ones.
Those of you telling anecdotes about "good lawyers" who got C's in law school are only highlighting the failure of the law school grading system to accurately assess those students. The point of a grade is to say that someone is good (or bad) at something. If droves of students are coming out of law schools with bad grades but they're all awesome lawyers, then the grading system is failing to capture and express what it is supposed to be expressing. Instead of arguing for perpetuating the system that you endured, perhaps you should consider that its the grading system that is broken, not the students?
By BGS on 2013 05 17, 1:57 pm CDT
By R Bock on 2013 05 17, 1:58 pm CDT
By Pilar on 2013 05 17, 2:03 pm CDT
By Schills on 2013 05 17, 2:04 pm CDT
If we are going to eliminate the "C" grade then what not make law school pass/fail and the bar exams. Oh wait, we have to maintain the bar exam because law schools are so concerned about placing students in jobs that they may not be qualified for and who may not have a clue about the law that someone has to sift them out. Of course byt he time they get to the bar exam they will be deeply in debt, feeling great about themselves only to abruptly face the reality that they aren't as good as they thought they were.
I was in law school in the radical '70s. We were mosre intellectually honest and less concerned about our precious egos back then. I regularly see the work of recent law grads and it is uniformly declining. There are exceptions -- there have always been exceptions. That is what grades are all about.
Everyone who is admitted to law school is, or should be, someone with well-rounded academic achievements who has already demonstrated the ability to succeed. When you start sifting the academically successful of course there will be some ego-bruising -- welcome to the practice of law. There are winners and losers!
Again, if we are to eliminate the "C" grade then there are other things that need to be elimated too.
By Sandra Meas on 2013 05 17, 2:05 pm CDT
By G on 2013 05 17, 2:07 pm CDT
By Anon Adjunct on 2013 05 17, 2:11 pm CDT
By Just Some Bloke on 2013 05 17, 2:12 pm CDT
By rick kessler on 2013 05 17, 2:21 pm CDT
By LawJake on 2013 05 17, 2:23 pm CDT
Legal education might need rethinking in terms of debt, oversupply, and a mismatch between what is taught and what is required. The solution is certainly not to become standardless.
Besides, the professor's proposal gets a C in practical and logical analysis (and that's after the D and F were abandoned). He should realize that the B will just become the new C, and higher tier schools will readjust to reinforce the perception that among their student bodies there is stiffer competition.
By Brook Miscoski on 2013 05 17, 2:25 pm CDT
By Patrick on 2013 05 17, 2:29 pm CDT
So those of us in the "bottom half" of the 50 percent that did not flunk out had between 70 and 74.
Of course I was limited to a State or local government job or private practice. After a very financially successful solo practice for 20 years I decided to teach at the local community college and had to submit my transcript. The many 70 some grades were very embarrassing and when compared to the main state law school that gave honest, mostly "B" grades I looked stupid.
These grades follow you forever and limit opportunities for some very good lawyers from a very demanding law school. Perhaps with the changes the school has made they should reevaluate the grades an make 74's into B on the transcripts?
By Arne on 2013 05 17, 2:29 pm CDT
By P. Cadhla on 2013 05 17, 2:31 pm CDT
1. Harvard, Berkley and other top-tier law schools are comprised of students that had both excellent college transcripts and top LSAT scores. Western New England, William Mitchell and Williamette students typically have neither top LSAT scores nor top grades from top-tier undergraduate schools. It may make sense for those schools to have mostly As and Bs w/ a few Cs. Those students are better prepared for law school.
2. I don't buy the argument that we need to dump the "C" grade altogether. But I don't think that the schools should socialize the curve by telling profs 70% of students get a "C" and 20% get a "B" and 10% get an "A". Every class is different. Professors should agree on the standards needed to show that they can get through each subject. For example, a "C" grade in Civil Procedure means the students know blah. A "B" grade in Civil Procedure means that the students know blah plus whatchamacallit. And so on.
3. Finally, Cs are good for morale in the sense that they compel the student to strive. Anyone who gets a B knows that they may have been a few points away from an A, "but I was not in the C range!" A "B" can bring both a sense of relief and a sense of accomplishment. A student who gets a C? She hits the books hard next semester if she is bright enough to appreciate the significance of the C. If she doesn't hit the books maybe she doesn't belong in law school.
By teo on 2013 05 17, 2:33 pm CDT
By Oort Cloud on 2013 05 17, 2:34 pm CDT
By Howard on 2013 05 17, 2:36 pm CDT
With a son who is a college professor, I realize that academics live in a fantasy world and will spend their time on ridiculous exercises like this. I still think that every professor should be required to work in the real world every seven years or so to better understand how the rest of us live and must make a living.
By Daniel Lauber on 2013 05 17, 2:43 pm CDT
By sgerardin on 2013 05 17, 2:44 pm CDT
I understand the argument that the curve might be better than just letting professors grade how they please because of subjectivity, but don't you think the impact of subjectivity is lessened since students have many professors and get many grades? I suppose that point is not as strong since the first year is so crucial and it is only like 6-8 grades. .. but schools could switch to the quarter system and it would be more like 12 grades. I do have somewhat of a problem with curves at top schools. I go to a so-called CCN school, and while A papers may be distinctly better than B papers, the B papers are often pretty damn good. I had two classes during my first year where I was right on the cusp between grades (one B+/A- and one A-/A) and got the lower grade and both times the prof told me how he wished he could give more As. The B+ prof told me he would have given me a flat A if there was no curve, but other people were marginally better. The spreads on 1L exams are often narrow. It can be very arbitrary.
By CES on 2013 05 17, 2:47 pm CDT
By Lawgrad11 on 2013 05 17, 2:51 pm CDT
By Jeff on 2013 05 17, 2:58 pm CDT
By Robert I. Stolzman on 2013 05 17, 3:01 pm CDT
Wait- what? Then we would be arguing about: how unfair the bar exam is; how one state's exam is easier than another's; how a low bar exam grade may affect a person's self esteem; how bar exams are discriminatory; how bar exam grades unfairly affect employability; how bar exam grades unfairly affect a law school's ability to attract students--- on second thought what we need is a law-- yeah that's it a law banning grades and bar exams. Then students could just skip all the hard stuff and pay for a law degree and a license-- Wait-what? that would be unfair too? Maybe this is where the sidewalk ends! Wait-what? Wrong Silverstein?
By POPATLAW on 2013 05 17, 3:03 pm CDT
By Mike on 2013 05 17, 3:13 pm CDT
By David on 2013 05 17, 3:21 pm CDT
By Beneficiary of grade inflation on 2013 05 17, 3:24 pm CDT
I am inclined to agree with Solo, that a pure Pass/Fail system might be more practical, rather like the bar exam.
When I taught Literature at a university many years ago, students were often outraged to receive anything less than an "A." ("I HALF TO GET AN 'A'" a student once wrote on her exam.) The very logic of bell-curve grading was incomprehensible for, after all, they'd paid for the course hours and attended every class and done all the work and memorized every lecture and regurgitated the essential terms in their papers and finals - rather like the essay portion of a bar exam. Most of the students achieved these objectives - some more articulately than others - and it was difficult to justify giving most of them anything less than an "A" - which meant "Satis bene. You pass."
The wild price of tuition these days creates something of a quasi-contractual expectation in these Student-Debtors, more and more of whom will "HALF TO GET AN 'A'" in exchange for the expensive educations they have purchased. Hence, the tendency towards "Liberal-Arts-softness" in grading.
By anonymous attorney on 2013 05 17, 3:36 pm CDT
By POPATLAW on 2013 05 17, 3:36 pm CDT
By Portland Adjunct on 2013 05 17, 3:38 pm CDT
Now , the big problem-having the schools stop the greed and thier staffs use of grade inflation as job security.The unmitigated greed , the unresasonable promises to students and general worship and search for the almighty buck ( or professorship ego) -HAVE TO STOP. Though this problem is part fault of the schools , I also blame the government for handing out billions in student loans to every warm body with a bachelors degree just so they look like "a person of the people".
Now the last problem- our societal delusion that one can be whatever they want-and to do that overnight. Its gotta stop- perhaps adopting the european exam level (s) system where the candidate test to the next level should be adopted-yes , I know that supposedly is what LSAT's are for but they aren't effective since we have so many "unsatisfactory" students slipping through the cracks. This glut of wanna-bes has been farmed by the schools , politicians handing out daydreams , and provided cannon fodder for professors and firms alike.
And very lastly- no more or severely restrain affirmative action- pick the best candidates only without reserve .
All that I have suggested above would probably have , if it were the order of the day, prevented me from becoming an attorney.
I hate to sound like a not so old campaign advertisement but the system needs to change , including getting gov't out of the education business.
By large weasel on 2013 05 17, 3:46 pm CDT
I would add that that is the way it should be. I doubt very much that opposing counsel will be very concerned about me and as such I should develop a thick skin.
By sillyrabbit on 2013 05 17, 3:47 pm CDT
By Reece12 on 2013 05 17, 3:49 pm CDT
By joe lawyer on 2013 05 17, 3:51 pm CDT
By JD Survivor on 2013 05 17, 3:53 pm CDT
By OldGuy on 2013 05 17, 3:55 pm CDT
By Just Sayin' on 2013 05 17, 3:59 pm CDT
By Pocahantas on 2013 05 17, 4:01 pm CDT
By You call this coffee!? on 2013 05 17, 4:04 pm CDT
By R. Thomas on 2013 05 17, 4:06 pm CDT
By Jeffrey Harrison on 2013 05 17, 4:11 pm CDT
By tonya on 2013 05 17, 4:13 pm CDT
By KM on 2013 05 17, 4:17 pm CDT
But seriously, changing the grading system won't create more jobs for attorneys, and that is fairly obvious. It may help students at one school vis-à-vis students from another, but in the end it is a race to the bottom, or a race to nowhere, or some such thing. The net effect will be zero change.
And I have to agree with those who have commented that when the lowest grade is no longer a 'C', students will simply be more depressed over a "B-". It is not the letter that is the problem, it is the fact that it represents the bottom of the curve... Well, sorry people, but someone has to be at the bottom of any curve.
And regarding the tier 4 school that gives 70% of students a 'C' or below, there is probably good reason for that. They are weeding people out who never should have gone to law school in the first place. Many would argue that those schools shouldn't even exist. I think they create opportunity. But one thing is for sure - It doesn't make any sense for them to adopt a tier 1 type curve.
By Billing in AA on 2013 05 17, 4:20 pm CDT
By JOHN CULLEY on 2013 05 17, 4:38 pm CDT
Our nation was founded on free market principles.
Law schools should be autonomous. Law professors should be as autonomous as their employer permits.
Everything will work out just fine without any outside control.
There is no need for standardized anything when it comes to law schools. The bad schools will fail, the good ones will succeed.
Employers will hire based on their own criteria.
Good lawyers will be successful; the bad ones will exit the profession.
All is as it should be.
Great kindling for polite conversation; but its silly to exert effort to solve problems that don't exist.
It speaks for itself. You only muddle it by talking about it.
To paraphrase the relevant Silvertein- This issue speaks for itself. We only muddle it by talking about it.
By POPATLAW on 2013 05 17, 4:39 pm CDT
Many graduate/professional programs face a university requirement that a student to maintain a B average across all courses in order to remain enrolled in good standing.
Some universities had addressed the grade inflation problem by going to a system with 1/10s -- grades are given as 4.0, 3.9, 3.8, 3.7, 3.6, 3.5, .... 3.0. 2.9, 2.8, 2.7.... etc. A 2.7 is often the minimum grade allowed to obtain graduate level credit for a class. Most grades in this system are "B" grades, but significant differentiation is still possible. The "gentleman's C" of the 1920s and 1930s is now the a 2.7.
By John Ruskin on 2013 05 17, 4:39 pm CDT
By Rob Charles on 2013 05 17, 4:42 pm CDT
By GradeMax on 2013 05 17, 4:55 pm CDT
Second. If you eliminate lower grades, then that inherently devalues higher grades. If it's impossible to get a C, then how valuable is a B really (well its new C), and how valuable is my 3.5 GPA if noone could ever average less than 3.0.
RFinally, you need to be able to fail out of law school. Right now, law schools (any school really) has an incentive not to fail you out as they can keep collecting your ever-increasing tuition if you remain a student. This creates a huge burden on students who, like in point 1, dont have the stuff to get a top job and are now saddled with enormous debt that they wouldn't have had if law schools brought them down to reality by putting kids on academic probation. Law students have spent almost 20 years in school operating under the A-F model, where a C could be considered "average" (that hasn't been the practical case for a while, but has always been the "theoretical" case). When they get C's in Law school, they have the perception that it will be like C's they got in grade school or undergrad: a stumble, but not an insurmountable obstacle to your future. A C in law school is essentially a death sentence in terms of employability. However, operating under their preconceived notion of what a C means, they dont realize that a C = F to an employer and they should spare themselves an eternal relationship with Sallie Mae.
Grade inflation seems to be the bane of baby-boomers and Gen Xers everywhere, the elimination of low grades only makes things worse.
By Recent Grad on 2013 05 17, 4:57 pm CDT
By missed the mark on 2013 05 17, 5:09 pm CDT
By Adamius on 2013 05 17, 5:11 pm CDT
By Jonathan R. Zuckerman on 2013 05 17, 5:15 pm CDT
In college, my school set the average for classes at a C. My best friend went to a [nameless] ivy league in which you could declare partway through ANY class you took that you wanted to take it pass/fail if your grade fell below the grade you selected, so that it did not disrupt your GPA. That way, they felt, you would take classes that challenged you and still keep up your GPA.
I agree that there is too much variation amongst grading systems. It is interesting that the most prestigious schools seem to do the most to support the future employment/graduate school prospects of its students, who presumably need less help in that regard.
By SJ Lawyer on 2013 05 17, 5:19 pm CDT
As for the differences between professors' grades - well, that is actually how real performance appraisals work in the real world. Your first boss may think you walk on water; your third boss may think you are average. Over time, a trend will develop that will help you discern your performance.
All grades are not equal because all law schools are not equal because all law school students/professors are not equal. Trust me, I did Tier 4 for law school and Ivy League for undergrad - marked difference in students, faculty and staff.
One last thing: It really is okay to feel badly about performing badly!!! That's the point.
By Just Another Lawyer's Opinion on 2013 05 17, 5:36 pm CDT
By A Case for Grade Deflation in Legal Education on 2013 05 17, 5:43 pm CDT
By Emm on 2013 05 17, 6:21 pm CDT
Today I wonder how some so called lawyers made it through college, let alone law school Now I understand - everybody in law school gets A's..
I would go further than eliminating C's.. Eliminate all B's also. That way everybody will graduate at the top of their class, they will all be paid humongous salaries, and they will all win all their cases
By Grumpy on 2013 05 17, 6:30 pm CDT
By Sherrie R. Abney on 2013 05 17, 6:35 pm CDT
By IndyCanary on 2013 05 17, 6:43 pm CDT
This whole discussion might convince me that the whole thing needs to be shut down as being the breeding ground of whining infants.
F's for the lot of you.
By Walter Sobchak on 2013 05 17, 6:48 pm CDT
Distinguishing oneself from one's peers. That is the key. It is what determines success in careers. It is what determines success in high school and in college. Is it always a correct indicator? No. Are their exceptions -- outstanding lawyers who did not perform well in school? Of course. But finding them is the problem. One goes with what works more often than not, and relative grades are in indicator. Attempts to make law school grading blind to relative performance will fail -- as they should -- because as an employer, "all our children are above average" tells me nothing.
By tired of reading on 2013 05 17, 7:15 pm CDT
After all, the grading system is to create a distinction between aspiring graduates in their field. Look what happened in the school system in the U.S. overall. Students are boxed together with no distinctions and the material is dumbed down to meet the lowest standard possible just not to damage anybody's self esteem. Get real again! There has to be some sort of system to sort the cream from the crop. Not everybody is meant to be a nuclaer engineer, MD, or a lawyer and that is a good thing! But this artifically created level playing field is hurting society more than it does any good. Nobody can be critisized anymore for anything and people draw a blank if they actually do get critisized even if rightfully so.
In the end, if you do feel the need to eliminate a grade, just eliminate all grades and have a pass fail rate only. I don't think it is the right thing to do and people need to quitt whining and start dealing with reality. Grading has never been an objective measure and it will never be since it is up to the person reviewing the exam to determine what grade in their opinion the student's performance deserves. Rest assured that the smartest people accademically are not necessary the smartes or most successful people in their field later on. Yes, there is injustice in the current system and that is true for any educational system throughout the world, but there are other factors that will help even out those injustices and if you enjoy what you are doing and are happy with the path that you chose for yourself you will find a way to success! Just be perseverant!
By From a different angle on 2013 05 17, 7:20 pm CDT
Thank you for writing the article, which addresses an important issue. Students need to be graded fairly on their work. The job market is difficult in some places, and it is increasingly difficult for students to set themselves apart from their peers. Grades are one way to do so. But, if potential employers cannot trust the grades, because of different standards used at different schools or otherwise, then the graduates suffer further.
Obviously, there are many opinions about how to deal with this. Thank you for getting people thinking. And, I applaud you for responding thoughtfully to the comments here, however critical they may be.
By Rich Raleigh on 2013 05 17, 7:49 pm CDT
By elklaw on 2013 05 17, 7:52 pm CDT
This is Josh Silverstein. I want to make a number of additional points. But because there have been so many comments, I'm not going to do as much point-by-point responding as in my earlier messages. Also, my apologies for typos et al below. I wanted to get this up as quickly as possible on this Friday, so it may not be quite as polished as I would like. Finally, because of the length of my comments, I am putting up multiple posts since there is a 5000 word limit
Let me start with some preliminary comments.
First, I would like to thank everyone for participating. I have read through all 171 comments (as of the time I am posting this) and I'm glad to see such passion on the topic of grading.
Second, the discussion touched on a wide variety of issues. But I'm going to focus my comments almost exclusively on grade inflation. Otherwise, this message would become even more insanely long.
Third, @77 (James) asked that I not respond by citing to my articles. Unfortunately, if I don't, my responses will be as long as my articles. So I'm going to have to do some citing. I will cite the current article, A Case for Grade Inflation in Legal Education, as CFGI. I will cite my prior article, In Defense of Mandatory Curves, as IDMC. I will try to summarize the main points in this posting. But for some topics, you guys will just have to check out the articles.
Fourth, both articles are available on SSRN. IDMC is here http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2007338 and it is also available here: http://ualr.edu/lawreview/2012/08/13/in-defense-of-mandatory-curves/. CFGI is linked in the ABA posting. If anyone is unable to download them, please email me at the email address located on my law school website (just google my name) and I will send you copies. Note that each article has a table of contents. So you should generally be able to find what you are looking for.
Fifth, I'm going to focus on the comments where there is criticism. But I want to flag several of the positive comments and thank them for the support: @51 (Island Attorney), @53 (Magnus), @54 (Joe Young), @60 (law professor), @97 (Just sayin'), @116 (Law Jake), @119 (Arne), @133 (Beneficiary of grade inflation), @149 (KM), @155 (Grade Max), @160 SJ Lawyer. Also, thanks to my former student who jumped in: @66 & 107 (BGS). You guys all made a bunch of great points. Also, thanks to those who commented on my willingness to respond and join the discussion. I didn't write those down, so I can't identify specifics, but I wanted to thank you all too.
My substantive responses begin with the next post.
By Joshua Silverstein on 2013 05 17, 8:35 pm CDT
btw, i meant 5000 characters, not words, in my prior posting.
1. As several people pointed out, in graduate education generally, C's and below are failing grades. If your GPA is in the C range, you are kicked out of school. Law schools are the only exception to this convention. I simply want law schools to grade the way virtually ALL other graduate schools grade, since we are also graduate schools. I don't want to get rid of C's entirely. I just want to use them the way all other graduate schools do: If you get C's, you are academically dismissed. For more on the grading practices of graduate schools generally, see Part I of CFGI. For my specific proposal, see Part II of CFGI. The rest of graduate education has been working great for decades with a grading system like the one propose. There is no reason to believe it won't work just as well in legal education.
2. Several people made points about whether grades matter to employers and whether grades reflect the ability to practice law and be successful. E.g., @59 (DeadHead), @67 (Jorge M), @92 (Augustin Ayala). The latter issue is important, and it has been addressed in some other research, such as the Sander and Bambauer study available on SSRN here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1640058 (finding that grades matter more than where you went to school, and by a sizeable margin). But my focus is the former. I explain in detail that grades matter in finding employment. See CFGI, Part III.A., especially pages 505-508. Getting a job is the reason most people go to law school. That makes grading a critically important issue. Are grades everything? No. Are they important enough to warrant the work I've put into the issue? Without question. As some have pointed out, grades have less meaning over time. E.g., @88 (Laurence Allen Schwartz). But they can still make a huge difference because career paths are often determined during or shortly after law school.
3. @52 (David R.) criticized employers for not learning more about grading systems. The problem is that varying systems can be quite hard to compare, especially when schools don't release class rank. Many employers just don't interview enough to have the experience needed to appreciate all the subtleties. For more on this, see CFGI, Part III, especially page 510. In short, we should make this as easy for employers as possible. The adoption of my recommendations will be a giant step in that direction.
4. Several people said employers will adjust to the new grades and the net effect will be no change. E.g., @109 (Pilar), @150 (Billing in AA). Yes and no. I address this point explicitly in CFGI, pages 510-11. The upshot is this: Of course my proposal will not change the total number of jobs available. So the aggregate effect on all students will be 0. But my proposal isn't designed to address that issue. Rather, what my proposal will do is impact the DISTRIBUTION of the jobs that are available. Critically, it will make that distribution much fairer. That is all I'm after. Related to this, some folks noted that they focus on class rank and/or that employers should do so. E.g., @115 (rick kessler), @129 (Robert I. Stolzman). That is quite right. I expressly state that there should be more weight placed on rank and less on absolute grades. See CFGI page 511. Unfortunately, many employers mistakenly focus on absolute GPA. They shouldn't, but they do. Moreover, when schools don't release rank (as is often the case), the employers have nothing else to go on but absolute GPA if they want to assess student performance in school. If employers are going to care about absolute GPA (by mistake or when they have no choice), then we need to make GPA as fair a measure as possible. My proposal moves us in that direction.
5. I believe one person (can't remember who) said that the students at more prestigious schools essentially deserve better grades. I address this argument in detail in CFGI, pages 513-516. The arguments are not easy to summarize concisely. So on this one, I must just ask people to take a look. I think my response is quite compelling.
6. Some people suggested that the top schools should deflate. E.g., @46 (You call this coffee!?), @62 (James Davis). That is never going to happen. The only way to bring fairness to the labor market for new lawyers is for the rest of us to inflate. For more, see CFGI pages 515-516. I'm a political realist. Given the reality, inflation by the rest of us is the only alternative.
By Joshua Silverstein on 2013 05 17, 8:36 pm CDT
7. At least one person noted that the real issue with mental well-being might be class rank. @150 (Billin in AA). I think this is entirely possible. I spend several pages on this issue. See CFGI, Part III.B., at pp. 531-537. This is another one of the points that is too complicated to explain concisely. My ultimate response is that there is enough evidence supporting the conclusion that absolute grade levels cause enough unneeded stress to warrant inflation. Class rank may cause more distress. But there is nothing we can do about that, short of getting rid of ranking, which I oppose, all factors considered.
8. Several people argued that B would be the new C. E.g., @117 (Brock Miscoski), @131 (Mike), @147 (Jeffrey Harrison), @150 (Billing on AA). I address this argument in CFGI on page 537-38. Here I will simply quote one of my paragraphs: "ased on my review of the literature, there is little evidence that undergraduate and graduate students are starting to view B grades with the same loathing that they have for C marks. This is so despite the fact that B's have been particularly common throughout higher education for at least forty-years. Indeed, at the graduate level, B-type grades have been the lowest passing marks since the 1970s. If law schools adopt similar grading practices, there is no reason to believe that our students will react differently from their counterparts throughout the academy."
9. Some posters noted that life is stressful and the stress of law school is good preparation. E.g., @62 (James Davies). I quite agree. But C grades are unnecessary for that. Indeed, they are counterproductive. Again, I cover this in my article. See in particular CFGI pages 538-39, including FN 234. Here is the problem: When we law professors give C grades, we intend to convey to students "you get enough such that you should keep going in the program and keep working at it." But the message many (though not all) students receive is "I don't get it, so why should I stay in the program" or "I don't get it, so why should I try." In other words, the grades we award aren't sending the message we want to send. Why? Because throughout students' lives, they've been told that C's mean poor and failing performance. Moreover, law students got mostly A's and B's in undergrad and high school. Finally, law schools are out of step with the rest of graduate education. I said in my article that I'm agnostic on whether America becoming "an 'A and B nation' is positive or negative overall." The point is, we ARE such a nation – except in legal education. By grading like we do, law schools are the ones that are out of step, and the problems we cause by using such systems are our own fault. It's time we change and join the rest of the graduate world and much of the undergraduate and high school worlds. Finally, law school is more than sufficiently stressful to prepare students for the world they will face without C grades; C grades are not needed, except for the purpose of telling people their performance is so bad that they will be expelled if they don't do better. Many first tier law schools have gotten rid of C's and their students are ready. The same is true in every other graduate field. I see NO reason to believe that second, third, and fourth tier schools are the ONLY sector of the academy that will not be able to prepare their students for the real world if we adopt the practices I advocate.
By Joshua Silverstein on 2013 05 17, 8:37 pm CDT
10. Several people said that grading should be based on what the students "earned" or their "performance." Others pointed out that someone will always be average or below average, or that my system says everyone is above average. And yet others said we should give C grades for C work. E.g., @74 (Pogo), @81 (JimfromBham), @82 (Everyman's Law), @100 (Halli620), @108 (R Bock), @101 (Dennis E. Boring), @142 (OldGuy), @148, @55 (Bill in Ohio). All of these comments reflect a critical misunderstandings about the nature of grades and grading. I explain this in both of my articles. See CFGI, Part IV.A. and IDMC, Part V.A.; for related material, see also IDMC Parts V.B., V.C., V.E., and VI.B. Here is the essence of all that: Anyone who made the points I just noted has fallen prey to the classic fallacy that grades are an absolute, objective measure of performance. Grades are no such thing. Letter symbols only get their meaning from the grading system in which they are used. They have no intrinsic meaning. C's don't necessarily mean average. And A's and B's don't inherently mean above average. Here is another way to put it: There is no such thing as a student's "performance," full stop. That is because professors and teachers have different standards for grading. And so do different departments and schools. There is no such thing as "A performance" or "C performance" per se. There is only "performance within a particular grading system." Critically, there is no way to change this. Grading will always be a combination of art and science and thus there will always be different grading standards. And as I demonstrated in my prior article, IDMC, it is not realistically possible for all professors at even a single law school to apply the same substantive grading standards. See Part V.E.2. of that article. Given all this, I recommend that we design our system of grading symbols based on substantive concerns – concerns like fairness in the job market, the well-being of our students, and incentives for the students to work hard and learn. That is what I have done in both of my articles. I believe my system serves these interests best in legal education.
11. Related to 10, some noted that my system makes everyone a winner or gives everyone a trophy. Alternatively, I am proposing we give grades just for participating and thus I'm compromising standards. E.g., @70 (JimfromBham), @73 (Alabama Lawyer), @117 (Brock Miscoski), @126 (CES). This is most definitely NOT the case. Law schools flunk people out all the time and I think we should continue doing so at roughly the same rates we have been. If you don't meet the (varying) substantive standards set by the teachers at a school, you should be expelled. My current article is solely about labeling. I think we should label those students who get it as A and B students. Those who don't get it should be C or lower. And the latter group should be academically dismissed. I'm not trying to water down standards, game the system, or do anything of the sort. I have always maintained, and will always maintain, standards that require that students perform competent legal work in my classes. I've given grades that got students expelled from school. And I will do so again. I simply want to change the labels we use because I believe that doing so will (1) improve fairness in employment, and (2) improve the well-being of our students, which should improve work effort. Moreover, any problems caused by my proposal are outweighed by the benefits. Finally, note that we can flunk people out just as easily (perhaps more easily) using Cs and below as we can Ds and below (which is what most of us do now). It certainly works quite well in the entire rest of graduate education.
By Joshua Silverstein on 2013 05 17, 8:41 pm CDT
12. Several people asked something along the lines of "if everyone gets high grades, what is the point of working hard"? Alternatively, how will we distinguish among students? @61 (Joe Moore), @ (T4 to T1 student), @98 (Mark). I address these arguments in detail in Parts IV.B. & IV.C. of CFGI. To summarize, first, there are numerous incentives to keep working hard, including (1) it will be easier for teachers to distinguish among their students if they adopt all aspects of my system (including number grades), (2) the average grade will be closer to the flunk out line in my system than under the status quo, (3) inflation does not undercut the importance of class rank (class rank is more important than absolute GPA), and (4) the average grade in my system will be around 3.3, which means people will have plenty of incentive to fight for grades in the A range. How will students know they need to improve? Simple: If they get C's, they know they are in big trouble. If they get B-'s, they know they are near the bottom of the class and have work to do. And so on. See Part IV.C. for a full discussion of these and other arguments. See also Part IV.B., which is about the dangers of grade compression. There I explain how it is quite easy to design grading systems that enable teachers to distinguish among students even in an inflated system like the one I support. @153 (John Ruskin) has it right on this – number grades are the best answer. But they are not necessary, for the reasons I explain in the article, namely that small numbers of letter grades have worked in every other graduate field for decades.
13. Related to 12, several folks said C's make people strive and are a good wake-up call. E.g., @103 (Ken), @121 (teo). I think there is real truth to this. And I'm very glad that C's helped many of the posters here. My claim is not that everyone is negatively impacted by C's. Rather, my claim is that, all things considered, C's do more harm than good, even when it comes to incentives to study. Again, see CFGI, Part IV.C. The evidence is close on this one, and there isn't a ton of it. But here is what the evidence does overwhelmingly show: Inflation will NOT cause a significant decrease in work. Here is what I say in the article on page 556: "But the use of relatively high grading in graduate schools is so widespread that, yet again, my opponents shoulder the burden of proof to establish that second-, third-, and fourth-tier law schools are the ONLY subset of the academy where grade inflation will have truly deleterious effects. Until they proffer such evidence, I am comfortable recommending that all schools eliminate C grades. The placement and mental-health benefits of such a change are simply too great to ignore."
13. Multiple people questioned grading on the curve. I strongly support mandatory curves too. But it is critical that such curves be defined carefully. My article, In Defense of Mandatory Curves, linked above, explains both why curves are so crucial and how to design them. I thought about including a detailed response to the folks who talked about the curve. But given the length of my posting and the fact that inflation is my real focus right now, I'm just going to have to refer you all to IDMC. The piece was published last year. And the final version is available on SSRN, Westlaw, Lexis, HeinOnline, and the website of my law review, as I noted above.
14. On pass/fail grading, very briefly: I'm aware of no law school that uses true pass/fail grading. Yale, Stanford, et al, all they have really done is change the labels for grades from things like "A" and "B" to things like "Honors" and "High Pass." (Well, most such systems also get rid of GPA and class rank too. But on the grades themselves, it is just new labels.) I have some sympathy for such systems, but, for reasons of time, I'm going to save that topic for another time.
15. One final point. @138 (sillyrabbit) wrote: "I am a 3L and I can honestly say that all my professors up to this point do not care if they injure students psychologically. Most see it as a badge of honor to inflict some pain." I strongly suspect you aren't being fair to your teachers. But if you are, I find this tragic. I oppose that philosophy and my grading proposals are an attempt to push in the other direction – the direction of humanizing legal education. For more, see CFGI pages 539-40 .
I truly want to thank everybody for the effort you put in to make comments. This has been a wonderful discussion.
By Joshua Silverstein on 2013 05 17, 8:41 pm CDT
Later, as a firm hiring committee member myself, I was frustrated to get resumes and transcripts that didn't explain the school's grading system. One school used a higher-than-4.0 GPA, but many applicants didn't reveal that, so it made their grades look better than they were!
By American University Grad on 2013 05 17, 8:51 pm CDT
By former professor on 2013 05 17, 8:55 pm CDT
By Paul on 2013 05 17, 9:37 pm CDT
By Joshua Silverstein on 2013 05 17, 9:50 pm CDT
By Old Man from New Hampshire on 2013 05 17, 10:14 pm CDT
By FOOL ME on 2013 05 17, 10:33 pm CDT
By Anna Gray on 2013 05 17, 10:36 pm CDT
By Howard on 2013 05 17, 10:41 pm CDT
With no respect due - I think that~s the proper phrasing - this is the kind of drivel that is ruining not only Law Schools, but education in American generally. Schools should release and employers should look only at the ranking of the student, if they want to evaluate performance in Law School. If a school¨systematically assigns inferior grades...¨they just might be doing it because they are insisting on an adequate work product from their students, instead of sending incompetents out to (a) fail the Bar after having borrowed tremendous sums of money (b) finally pass the Bar and advise unfortunates who hire them. Let~s at least be honest with ourselves. Law Professors who pass inferior students wouldn~t let them represent their dogs. Read ¨Failing Law Schools.¨We should all be ashamed of ourselves - A (once) proud to be Law Professor of 40 years.
By FOOL ME on 2013 05 17, 10:55 pm CDT
My God! If I had known I was doing that, I would have never given C´s, much less D´s and even F´s. I~m sure my father - a member of the Great Generation - which lived through the depression and WWII - would have been ashamed of me. What drivel - in high school I wanted to play football. The football Coach looked at me (6 feet tall and 135 pounds) and told me ¨Boy you better go see the track coach.¨ I took one look at the monsters pounding each other on the field and thought it was the best advice I ever received. Now I know he¨... injured me psychologically... and exacerbated my stress level in unhealthy ways..." If I ever meet the insensitive brute again, I shall inform him of it. Maybe not - he~s at an advanced age now, and it may chrush him.
By FOOL ME on 2013 05 17, 11:09 pm CDT
Those who merit a C need to have a good talking to by the professor, and to consider dropping the class and taking it again over the summer term, or completing law school in four years instead of three. That should be enough incentive for anyone to improve performance.
What I've found is that law school professors rely too much on upperclassmen to do the real teaching, and the evaluating. (This is how most law reviews work, and that's how most students obtain access to the best jobs.) I've always considered that a disgrace. At least the teaching assistants in undergrad already had the degree their students were seeking. The profs need to be more involved, and to ensure that everyone who passes is indeed mastering the material.
Isn't it also true that the highest-rated law schools have dispensed with grading entirely? But we have to get tough with those who aren't so elite, right? Perhaps none of these programs are as rigorous as they should be. I don't see how slapping a "C' on a transcript does much to change that. That's the lazy way of addressing what may be wrong.
I also think advocating use of the normal curve is laughable. This means you presume that in every examination, a small group of non-randomly selected people will perform according to this pattern -- and if they don't, you'll force the data to conform. In science, a normal distribution is something that either does or does not emerge from the data. Here, you advocate presuming it a priori, for every single exam, and for a preselected small population. How funny! Is it really impossible for everyone in the group to do very well? Or pretty badly? Could 20 of 30 people deserve an A? Could it happen that only one does? A curve is another lazy strategy, to hide behind so that the professor's performance can be sheltered from scrutiny. Who would dare argue with the curve?
(Maybe social -- and medical -- science research methods, including a unit on statistics, should be required in law school, right up there with accounting for those who haven't had it. This would be useful for any area of the law that relies on expert testimony.)
By Sonja (real name, real spelling) on 2013 05 17, 11:14 pm CDT
I'm sorry about that.
I am still highly skeptical of "the curve." It presumes what you're trying to prove. There are better and fairer ways to achieve fair evaluation. Be less opaque about the nature of the performance desired. Ranking the performances you get (or creating a lattice, which is closely akin to assigning grades) is mathematically different from forcing the results into a preconceived curve.
By Sonja (real name, real spelling) on 2013 05 17, 11:25 pm CDT
By An Old Guy on 2013 05 18, 1:48 am CDT
By B. McLeod on 2013 05 18, 2:16 am CDT
The problem is that schools are inconsistent. Some give all A and Bs while others give only 70's and a few 80s and some under 70s. That makes those who go to job interviews start at an unfair disadvantage. The average law student will earn a B because he or she is a little smarter than the average college graduate.
Everyone has heard stories of transfer students with high grades at schools such as UT Austin transferring to schools like Texas Tech and flunking out.
By Arne on 2013 05 18, 2:55 am CDT
I am not a lawyer. I have had many occasions where I needed to interact with a lawyer and I have never inquired as to the "quality" of the school he attended. It really matters very little. All law schools produce lawyers. What does matter is how bright I come to think he is in representing me in some action. I should say grading systems imply some students are smarter than other students. And they probably are. So it follows some lawyers are smarter than other lawyers. I think we should do away with grades and produce lawyers as was the practice in the medieval period. A person became a lawyer by attending a given number of lectures. The theory being that if he attended and listened he must have learned enough to be a lawyer.
By Martin Kessler on 2013 05 18, 3:29 am CDT
It appears most who screen resumes know the curves for the "top" schools and their own alma mater.
Any other school's graduates are essentially evaluated as if that school used the same curve as the screener's alma mater
Of course, we COULD just treat it like the bar exam... you can score high.. low.. or somewhere in-between. But in the end, it's just Pass or Fail If anything, those who have taken a bar exam should be allowed and EXPECTED to put a bar exam score on a resume to employers. It's the closest they'll ever get to be measured against other applicants on the same unbiased yardstick.
By Steve on 2013 05 18, 4:11 am CDT
By B. McLeod on 2013 05 18, 5:28 am CDT
By Dave Peck on 2013 05 18, 5:27 pm CDT
By Robert A. stok on 2013 05 18, 5:57 pm CDT
By Lygeia on 2013 05 18, 6:26 pm CDT
Not a bad idea, but I think my earlier comment is a better alternative. Make every student summa cum laude, and first in his class. I'm surprised some enterprising (word chosen carefully) Law School hasn't already done so.
By FOOL ME on 2013 05 18, 6:57 pm CDT
By Marc Pederson on 2013 05 18, 11:40 pm CDT
tsk. tsk.
By B. McLeod's Dressmaker on 2013 05 19, 1:20 am CDT
By Realist on 2013 05 19, 8:11 pm CDT
It should be pass or fail
By tim17 on 2013 05 20, 3:06 pm CDT
By Something needs to change on 2013 05 20, 3:27 pm CDT
By Crabby Old Man on 2013 05 20, 4:21 pm CDT
By profjacobs on 2013 05 20, 5:57 pm CDT
By Something needs to change on 2013 05 20, 6:45 pm CDT
By SME on 2013 05 21, 6:39 pm CDT
All right. There was one very important hypothetical that involved a relatively inexperienced attorney agreeing to take a criminal case that involved a flagrant conflict of interest. The conflict was grave enough, and her representation so deficient, that it probably amounted to constitutionally ineffective assistance of counsel. (I'm sure of this, having worked on numerous such cases at a federal appeals court.)
A law professor in California wrote a "model answer." One point he mentioned was that the attorney could have associated herself with an experienced criminal lawyer in order to "cure" her deficiencies in that area. Mind you, not that an experienced lawyer would have told her that she had no business taking this case, and that what she proposed to do could even amount to ineffective assistance of counsel. Nope. Only later did the "model answer" acknowledge the severe conflict, and point out that it couldn't be cured. It presented the issue as being divorced from the suggestion that she consult someone who would know something about what she had gotten herself into. (Obviously, such consultation would have been pointless, unless it led to the knowledgeable attorney telling the inexperienced one that she had an incurable conflict.)
In other words, the answer simply involved writing up a mindless checklist into essay form.
The fact that the social costs of a possible constitutional violation (the harm to the client, the harm to society, the possibility of retrial or a successful habeas petition, and the attendant costs, many of which are, after all, economic as well as "moral", etc.) are serious, and thus merit a mention, did not occur to the professor. Or, at least, this never appeared in his model answer.
I never used to write up straw man arguments on my law school exams, only to show that they can be easily knocked down. I know I lost points for that.
Just how many law professors grade based on model answers like this one? I hate to think about it. Judges do not want you to waste their time like this.
(Oh, BTW, I did pass the CA bar. They never tell you your score.)
By Sonja (real name, real spelling) on 2013 05 22, 7:04 am CDT
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text: Masters of Bluegrass the Bluegrass MOB, featuring Del McCoury on guitar and vocals, Bobby Osborne on mandolin and vocals,J.D. Crowe on banjo, Bobby Hicks on Fiddle and Jerry McCoury on bass and vocals. Born out of picking parties on Del McCoury's back porch, the masters of bluegrass have come together to give the fan an experience of days gone by! Bobby Osborne co leader of the Osborne Brothers is a contemporary of Bill Monroe, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs. He and his brother recorded the Tennessee State Song "Rocky Top"in 1982. JD Crowe is most known for forming the New South , which was the most revolutionary bluegrass outfit of its time. Originally, the band consisted of guitarist Tony Rice, mandolinist Ricky Skaggs, dobroist Jerry Douglas, and fiddler/bassist Bobby Sloan, and they played a wildly eclectic brand of bluegrass on electric instruments. When they released their debut, J.D. Crowe & the New South in 1975 on Rounder Records, it caused an instant sensation — it marked a genuine turning point in the sound of the genre. Bobby Hicks played fiddle with Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys in the 1950'/s in 1981 he joined Ricky Skaggs band and played fiddle in it for 23 years. Jerry McCoury is Del McCoury's brother, was in the Dixie Pals in the 1960's. This will be for 2013 only.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
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