I'll give my thoughts on it. I believe that this would significantly reduce a level of competition and would be more likely to foster cooperation. I have found that the most value in my legal education has come from the discussion of the law with others and while it exists in the law school, I think increasing it can only be beneficial.

I also think that having more exams or methods of evaluation would encourage professors to promote original thought on the topics in discussion and in papers or exams. This to me would be beneficial particularly in courses such as torts that are widely perceived to not be essential to our legal knowledge base as applicable to our future practice.

I'm sure that professors would resist this, given that it would be more work for them and would change the way the course is currently structured, but I think it would promote our education in a way that the do or die scenario of the 100% exam does not.

-- AndrewWolstan - 20 May 2008

I know that one professor this semester gave a midterm. It was ungraded, but students were urged to study for it nonetheless. Afterwards, she met with each student individually to discuss strengths/weaknesses of their midterm performance. I would have loved to have had this opportunity. It's unfortunate that we don't know whether we are truly grasping the concepts until after the final exam. I agree with you Andrew, more opportunities for evaluation would enhance our education.

-- MinaNasseri - 20 May 2008

Also, what's the deal with our legal writing course ("Legal Practice Workshop," as this school of ours prefers to call it) being ungraded? The one 1L class that actually matters in the long run is basically a joke. It would be great to have more feedback and guidance (and incentive to take the memo/brief assignments more seriously) in the legal writing area.

-- MinaNasseri - 20 May 2008

My two cents:

Professor Dorf was really great about giving feedback after our exam in civ pro first semester (i know this may be too late since it is after the exam for the purposes of this thread) and i found it extremely helpful (hopefully) with regard to taking my next round of finals.

Professor Blasi similarly sought to help after the torts final as he met with each of his students and went over an entire section of the test one on one.

I think that encouraging professors to do more of this sort of thing could be a great first step. It may be too late to help with regard to feedback for one particular class, but it is great to get perspective with which to move forward.

-- AdamGold? - 21 May 2008

Feedback after the exam is nice, but what really made a difference to me were mid-term assignments with feedback. I'm not sure whether or not more graded assignments would reduce competition, but it definitely reduces stress (and the two likely correlate). My property prof gave the ungraded midterm Mina referred to, and it was really helpful. In studying for the final, I knew how to structure my answer and what to focus on, and I knew what my personal weaknesses were and could concentrate on improving. It was a smaller class, and individual meetings probably aren't feasible in a regular 1L section. However, I think spending one class on a midterm, graded or not, and at least one class taking it up (preferably with a model answer) would reduce the exam-time panic and uncertainty a lot, especially in first semester.

-- ClaireOSullivan - 21 May 2008

Professor Greenberg gave two graded mid-terms in Civ. Pro. Although it played havoc with other classes and it was easy to see why mid-term assignments are discouraged in law school, talking with him after the first (poor) exam result helped my exam writing considerably.

-- DanielHarris - 21 May 2008

I think a lot of the comments are focused around helping to understand how to write an exam. I think that problem could be fixed if a professor simply said how they wanted their exam answers given. What do you think of the other effects on the course structure and atmosphere. For those that had midterms, did the class have more cooperation? What about less black letter questions?

-- AndrewWolstan - 22 May 2008

I had Greenberg for Civ. Pro. I found that more exams were simply more exams. The feedback was helpful in terms of learning how to write better exams, but I didn’t find it to be helpful in terms of learning about the law. As far as cooperation goes, the midterms simply forced people to find study groups sooner and do more of the same earlier in the semester.

In Dorf’s Con Law, we were required to write two 1,2500 word papers, which were marked (but not graded) and critiqued by the TAs. I found this to be very helpful. The papers were short enough to be done in a day and forced us to start thinking creatively about Con Law in the same way that a good exam would. The papers encouraged discussion and added something to the course as a whole. This kind of midterm work is something that could really add something to a lot of courses.

-- StephenClarke - 22 May 2008

I think feedback after the fact could be helpful- I definitely didn't feel any more confident about my ability to write law school exams this semester than I did last semester. And on that note, both legal writing and legal practice good stand to be completely revamped- I feel barely competent about memo writing and briefs are still beyond me. As for the Dorf ConLaw? papers- they seemed like a joke to me, but maybe that was because my TA was more focused on whether you put a word count on the top than on anything substantive. Although it was helpful to have to think creatively about the law at a time when I was mainly focused on fighting to comprehend class lectures.

-- AmandaRichardson - 22 May 2008

I also wrote the two 1250 word Con law papers during the semester. I did find the process of writing them useful, but I agree with Amanda that the feedback ultimately depended on the TA. My law school experience and, I imagine, my legal training, would have been significantly enhanced if each class included two papers with extensive feedback from the professor in addition to the final. Perhaps there is some argument that by giving students only one shot it trains them for the rigors of the legal practice. Even so, I can't imagine that professors would disagree that the general lack of feedback poses a significant obstacle to our learning process. I assume the reason that nearly all law school classes consist of only one graded final exam is that those with authority decided that it was most practical to do it this way. Is this really the case? What would happen if a law school required professors to increase the amount of feedback over the course of the semester? Would that law school have trouble attracting professors? At least more student discussion on the subject points in the right direction of change.

I agree that more work with feedback would reduce stress. I think this would affect the overall culture not only because it would disperse the final grade, but also because it would create less uncertainty which I believe accounts for a lot of the negative interaction among first year students. My second semester was a very different experience form my first mainly because I was more confident. Of course there will always be more uncertainty at the beginning of any experience. However, the lack of feedback significantly contributed to this feeling. Also, I was incredibly surprised about how little guidance professors offered on what they wanted from us in exams. It was almost as if the work that we were actually going to be evaluated on was off limits as a topic of discussion. I applied to be a peer mentor next year because I hope to at least help calm some of the unnecessary uncertainty faced by 1Ls. I think the law schools could do a lot to offer us a better and more beneficial experience.

-- CarinaWallance - 23 May 2008