Legal Commentary

Last month, I was talking to a colleague who is on my law school's curriculum committee when he raised a topic that took me back to my days as a law student: the dearth of 2-credit law school classes. He noted that a number of students had raised the concern that they only needed to add a 2-credit course to graduate or complete their dance card for a particular semester, but there were no 2-credit courses that filled the bill. This led me to remember that several fellow students raised a similar objection when I was in law school. Now, two possible responses to this objection are that: (1) it's not that big of a deal for students to take the extra credit hour, so no change needs to be made, and (2) if the proposed solution is to reduce some elective classes from 3 to 2 credit hours, that solution could constitute throwing the baby out with the bathwater because students wanting to take these classes and needing 3 credit courses could lob a similar objection. I thought, however, that a third response, the flex or variable credit course, might be a viable solution, and I wonder whether any readers have taught such a class in law school.

Now, I don't believe that the law school I attended, William & Mary, had flex or variable credit courses, but I know that the College of William & Mary does. The concept is fairly simple: At the start of class, students in a variable credit course can decide whether they want to take the course for 2 or 3 credit hours (at William & Mary, students can also take the course for 1 credit hour). Thus, students in the same class can be taking it for a different number of credit hours and be expcted to complete a different number or quality of assignments. In doing some brief internet research, I found that several colleges allow students to take flex or variable credit classes (some examples include Syracuse, Hawaii, and Oregon).

I wasn't able, however, able to find any inidcation that any law school offered flex or variable credit courses. I would guess that there are two main reasons. First, with the strict law school curve, it would be difficult to place a student taking a class for 3 credit hours on the same curve as a student taking the same class for 2 credit hours. Second, this problem could be further complicated if, as with most law school classes, the class at issue were subject to blind grading.

It seems to me, though, that for the "smaller" classes (such as seminars) that are often not subject to blind grading and the law school curve, there wouldn't be any issues with a flex or variable credit course. For instance, if I were teaching a seminar with a 25-30 page paper requirement for students taking the course for 3 credit hours, I could require a 15-20 page paper for students taking the course for 2 credit hours. Or, if I had a paper and an oral presentation requirement for 3 credit students, I could simply remove the latter requirement for 2 credit students. I could also require slightly less in the way of class participation for the 2 credit students than I require for the 3 credit students.

So, have any readers taught a flex or variable credit class in law school? How did it go? Do readers think that such a class could work in law school, either in a larger or smaller classes, or do you think that the two would go together like oil and water?