Corporate & Securities Law

Law School Grades: From Inflation to Addition

By John Wallbillich

A tough legal job market apparently calls for desperate measures.

The New York Times reports that Loyola Law School in Los Angeles is taking direct action to make its graduates appear more marketable. This is the “other” Loyola.

The school is retroactively inflating its grades, tacking on 0.333 to every grade recorded in the last few years. The goal is to make its students look more attractive in a competitive job market.

The article actually continues with a good recitation of the various grade philosophies and alternatives used by many law schools.

But to call the current legal job market “competitive” certainly misses the mark. When strong graduates from highly-ranked schools find nothing available, it’s more like a job desert.

Good luck to all law school graduates this year, including those at the western Loyola. They started law school under a different set of assumptions about a lot of things. And now many have at least 100,000 reasons to wonder whether they made the right career decision.

Full post as published by The Wired GC on June 22, 2010 (boomark / email).