Law Students v. Law Professors
74 U.Va 14 (2022)
Judge Kulkarni delivered the opinion the Court.
Law school students are fond of the mantra that 1Ls are scared to death, 2Ls are worked to death, and 3Ls are bored to death. Yet, regardless of this mantra, petitioners from all three classes bring a claim of breach of contract and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The subject of this complaint is the professors of the Law School, specifically those that failed to upload students’ grades by the established deadline. Once again, we are presented with a number of procedural and substantive issues surrounding this case.
The students bringing this complaint allege that in attending this Law School they enter into a contract with their professors. The students give up a month of their life to live in the library or their other study spot of choice; in return, their professors provide them with their grades by a set deadline in order to alleviate the inevitable stress that the students have accumulated. The 1Ls have been encouraged to be hyper-competitive for the sake of the unknown, mysterious curve and for a chance to be on the less famous organization with the words “Virginia Law” in the name.[1] The 2Ls range from those who are trying to build their applications for public interest jobs, those who want to flex on their friends,[2] and those who are simply too anxious to allow themselves some time off from working hard. It is baffling that there are any 3L petitioners, but this Court must admit that there might be one of them who eventually clerks for the Supreme Court.[3] This wide range of students has all claimed that in failing, and allegedly even refusing, to upload grades by the first date of Spring Semester, the professors have severely impacted their ability to “enjoy law school.”[4]
To begin with, the 1Ls have no standing. In order to make such a claim, they have to be valid petitioners. As this Court has held time and time again, 1Ls have no rights; this is a bedrock principle of our jurisprudence.[5] For the complaints brought by these students, our decision is simple: suffer in silence. Your grades have zero bearing on your 1L job. You will get one, and, if your parents are dedicated enough to buy you a 1L summer associate position,[6] then these grades matter even less. For those of you who don’t, live like the rest of us. Everyone takes these classes and everyone is suffering together. Maybe this shared struggle is exactly what you need in order to bond with your class for the tough times ahead.[7] As usual, this party’s claims are dismissed with extreme prejudice.
For the upperclassmen, however, the complaints have merit. Much of these students’ precious time has been wasted on something as mind-numbing as their grades. For many of us, these are the last one to three semesters to be young and fun. Keeping us hanging on the questions of whether or not we made median (and what median even was) in a given class takes away from this time. There is, indeed, a clear contract between these students and their professors. In return for turning down the gunning and asking of random hypotheticals to impress professors who have no interest in being impressed, the professors who teach 2Ls and 3Ls have implicitly agreed to hand down better grades and to hand them down faster. No professor at this level[8] actually cares about what grades they give; grading is as much a chore for them as studying is for the students. No student has spent the last two months of their 2L[9] or 3L fall semester working hard in the library without social interaction; without grade validation, such behavior seems pointless.
Thus, the professors who choose not to complete their grading within the time limit provided by the Law School are not just inflicting emotional distress upon their students, they are doing it to themselves as well by keeping themselves stuck in the previous semester. Rather than calculating what the median GPA is in a given class, handing out medians to 90% of the students and using a random number generator to assign grades on either side of the median to actually create a curve, these professors insist on slacking and making their own jobs harder. It is for the few students still competing for clerkships and public interest jobs that professors are inflicting the most harm. These students gave the professor the consideration of paying attention in class, and therefore, these students have the most explicit contract with their professors for swift grading.[10]
Thus, this Court finds itself forced to issue a clear and firm order to the professors of the Law School: abide by the grade deadline. Lift the stress upon the few students who care. Lift the annoyance from the shoulders of those who do not. And save yourself the emails from the registrar’s office and the most persistent of students to get your grading done faster. A failure to abide by the deadline going forward may force this Court to issue an even more drastic order: requiring fall grades by January 1st.
Birch, J., concurring.
I start by commending my colleague for now upholding the precedent that 1Ls have no rights, now that he is securely in their second year of Law School. It is a large turn in his personal jurisprudence, but I must acknowledge the necessary change. As to the other petitioners, my colleague has absolutely hit the median in the center.
While I concur with the majority, I should first note the worthiness of some delay. Having grades released, en masse, after the conclusion of many of the religious holidays that occur in December is a benefit for students visiting their families. “My professor hasn’t submitted them” is the best possible response for why you can’t talk about grades at the dinner table. However, when New Year’s Eve approaches, this is the perfect time to know and announce your median-ness, and claim that you’ll start fresh into a new year.[11]
The methods used by professors described in the majority are true to form and practice. The speed of these methods should not be the cause for delay of a professor's grades. If anything, these tried-and-true methods should be considered a windfall for simplicity and expediency, something that rarely is seen in Law School or the legal profession. Professors who provide too much information and thought into their grading, should have realized they chose a profession that shies away from math like this court shies away from 1Ls’ rights.
In addition to the secondary IIE claim that occurs at the start of the semester when grades are long-delayed, the delay itself extends and exacerbates the already present IIE claim deriving from many final examinations. The delayed grading of a semester impedes the ability for students who were emotionally harmed by the class and its resulting examination to begin the recovery process. Students need to be given the opportunity to move on, otherwise, how will they start to find meaning outside of being a 4.0 K-JD.
[1] The Virginia Law Review is clearly the less prestigious organization…but congratulations anyway to their newly appointed Managing Board.
[2] i.e. get a clerkship.
[3] Whoever you are, we know you will be biased towards all of us and we thank you for that.
[4] There is no such thing.
[5] 1L Gunners v. Everyone Else, 324 U.Va 22 (2019).
[6] Or if you are a patent law candidate or in FedSoc.
[7] I am, of course, referring to journal tryouts.
[8] With the possible exception of Professor Bayefski and her Fed Courts class.
[9] Especially not the author of this case.
[10] I apologize for butchering consideration, Professor Verkerke. In my defense, I scored below median in your class.
[11] Even though you know you won’t.