When my kids were younger and would order a burger and fries, they would immediately go for the fries. They had already grabbed the ketchup upon ordering and were ready. They understood that the burger should be eaten as well, but the fries were the prize and kids ate them first. As “responsible adults,” we tend to now go for the protein before the fat and salt. The fries are earned.
This morning, I was having a meeting with a student who is on academic warning and probation. At our school, academic warning is good academic standing but with a GPA that merits some intervention ahead of the bar exam. However, academic probation is not good academic standing and is a status only our academic standing committee can confer. Our committee will usually place a student on both since warning triggers a series of required bar topic classes in addition to the probation criteria.
This student had registered for 13 credits this fall and an internship. However, due to the academic warning label, had to add our required 2 credit course, bringing her to 15 credits and a job. They asked me if was too much-and I agreed that it was. We agreed that dropping the internship would rob them of both a good credential and experience that isn’t formatted or assessed like law school (always a bonus for folks on the academic tightrope). The issue came down to dropping either professional responsibility or entertainment law.
Entertainment law is a small class taught only in the fall by one valued adjunct. I was surprised that a first semester 2L even got into the class as it is usually full after a few hours of registration. Conversely, prof. resp. is taught in multiple sections every semester (and the summer) by a variety of amazing folks here. Prof. resp. is required, but entertainment law is fun.
And students who are placed in these categories of academic distress feel like they shouldn’t have fun. They made promises to the academic standing committee about future success and responsibility and therefore seem to feel that every class they take has to be one that is required. The asked for mercy and feel that since it was meted out, they must never do anything other than stay on a prescribed path. I get that. I think I would do the same–put my head down, done what was asked, and just grinded through the rest of law school. I would have felt that I didn’t deserve fun.
But I would have been wrong. Law school may be the last chance a student will have to learn some seemingly superfluous content from an expert in that field. Education for the sake of learning rather than career is a rare commodity after law school. Since the profession of law does require (in most jurisdictions) some lifelong learning about your area of practice, why not take some time to reignite a love of learning while still in law school? I don’t regret taking classes in law school that weren’t on the bar, or relevant to my practice or career. I loved my law school bioethics class. It was fascinating even if it wasn’t something I even thought to pursue before, during, or after taking the course.
So, I asked my student the question. Ultimately, they would have to be comfortable with the choice they made in a place that I can imagine is not comfortable these days. I asked them if they ate the burger or the fries first and why. I told them that I was a burger first kind of person, and to me fries are the prize. But I told also them that the option to eat the fries first may not be on the table as they move forward in their careers, so why not embrace it now?
I did not ask for their final answer-and we didn’t need to because there is a little time left in our add/drop period. But I left them with a framework for thinking about the options: frequency of course offering, quality faculty, scheduled MPRE seatings, and the joy of having a class where doing the reading never seems like work.
Students in academic distress deserve to have their fries and eat them too.
(Liz Stillman)
