law school exams take a hit
My wife and I met in our last year at Fordham University School of Law. She was not a big fan of typical law school exams because she felt they didn’t really test her understanding of the law and how it applies in real-world contexts. To add insult to injury, having “missed” a number of classes, I used her notes and outlines to study at the last minute and still outdid her on the tests (o.k., I couldn’t resist sharing that bit of information). So, you can imagine how vindicated my wife felt when she read this article in which professor Steven Lubet derides the average American law school exam as “positively perverse.” The big problem, he says, is that the exams aren’t “really designed to test the skills involved in law practice.” Indeed, they offer “no opportunity for reflection, research, reconsideration or redrafting” – an oversight that might very well constitute malpractice in real life. So why do law schools continue to give tests that miss the mark? In Lubet’s opinion, it’s because they’re easy to grade and “do a great job of dividing test takers into measurable categories.” Bringing his point home, Lubet states that possessing those qualities that “separate highly successful practitioners from mediocrities,” such as “diligence, thoroughness, collaboration, consultation, fact investigation, and, crucially, the willingness to admit error and start over from scratch [ ] will actually put you at a disadvantage on law school exams. Far better to rely on flashes of insight and an ability to write on the fly.”
