Legal Commentary

Thanks to Dan for the invitation to guest-blog at Prawfs for December.  Once the email reminding me that the time for my gig arrived, I had a bit of trepidation about whether I'd have anything to say.  After all, I'm stepping into the shoes of some insightful UGA colleagues and good friends at other schools who post here.  It's a good thing that exams came and inspired a comparison I thought I could share.

Everyone I know hates exams--prawfs hate writing them and reading them and students hate taking them.  I know of people who have experimented with different forms of evaluation to reduce the stress on students, and these usually come at the cost of increased work to the instructor.  I don't know of institutional rewards for law prawfs who evaluate students particularly effectively other than the satisfaction they get from it or the sense that their students will gain additional skills and knowledge from the preparation and exam process beyond just studying for a regular exam.  There are certainly punishments for those who cut corners on this part of the job by turning in grades late or grading so poorly that the administration has to step in.  On the other hand, I've not heard of a school that has an award or prize for, say, the best written exam or the most effectively graded exam.

It occured to me that much regulatory oversight is plagued with the same problem.  I'm most familiar with environmental regulation, but I'm sure this effect occurs in other areas as well.  Most members of the regulatory community comply to avoid negative consequences (fines, prison sentences, etc.), but they react to dealing with their environmental compliance people the same way that professors react to writing and grading exams--work that needs to be done but that is by no means pleasant or rewarding.  Environmental regulation could use more rewards as incentives for compliance, and some have been implemented.  Are there any lessons we can borrow to create positive incentives for writing and grading exams?