FIRST YEAR-THE COMMON COMPLAINT

A common complaint among first-year law students is that the grades they receive do not accurately reflect their understanding of their courses. Many of these students are correct. This inconsistency between the understanding of a subject and the grade received for that subject is usually because a student does not possess strong writing skills.

Law school grades are only partially based on how hard you study. 90% or more of all first-year law students study hard for their first semester's final exams, but 10% or less of these students receive "A" grades.

Most law school first-year classes are graded on a final exam only. This means students cannot truly gauge how well they understand what they are attempting to learn during the semester.

Furthermore, these finals exams are essay exams and exam grades are often based on an answer's content and writing. Unlike undergrad, on law school exams students cannot write everything they know about a topic and expect to receive a good grade because the right answer is there somewhere. That is the fastest way to receive a B or lower grade. The best graded exams are written clearly and concisely, and precisely answer the question asked.

Also, don't assume you write well because you received high grades on essay exams and papers as an undergraduate. Not only do law school professors grade harder than undergraduate professors, the level of writing of your law school classmates will be much better than the level of writing of your undergraduate classmates.

What was once near top of the class work in an undergraduate setting, is middle of the class work in law school. In law school you are competing against and being compared to the best students. Remember, the best and brightest from thousands of colleges and universities nationwide are funneled into approximately two hundred law schools.

For those interested in getting the best grades in law school writing is the key. To become a better writer work with undergraduate professors who will critique your writing and show you how to improve it.

Legal Writing Prep, this website's law school preparatory course, focuses specifically on teaching the IRAC writing structure used in law school. For additional practice, local bookstores have grammar books with exercises and answers to those exercises. One book used by many law schools is Plain English for Lawyers by Richard Wydick.

The websites below provide additional thoughts on law school grades.

• http://www.infirmation.com/articles/one-article.tcl?article_id=3713
• http://civpro.blogs.com/civil_procedure/2004/01/more_on_bad_law.html

Other related articles on this website include Law School-First Year, The Fear-Part I and Law School-First Year, The Fear-Part II .

Good luck in law school!

If you have any questions or comments about this article, or want to write your own article about the pre-law or law school process, feel free to contact me.