Bueller... Bueller... Bueller...

There is little in the world that is worse than the feeling of waking up in the night with a fever and a sore throat.

It came on quite suddenly. I felt fine all day yesterday, right up until later in the evening, when my sinuses were bothering me, but nothing too bad. I figured it was just the change in weather. It’s not the change in weather. My throat feels like it’s on fire, much worse than the usual “I’m-about-to-have-a-cold” sore throat. My head is pounding and every muscle in my back hurts. So why am I here instead of home in bed?

Because Our Law School has instituted an attendance policy. Each professor must pass an attendance sheet to be signed. If you miss more than 20% of your classes, you certify out, which means no grade, no credit, and a black mark on your transcript. And you can’t repeat the class later. OK, fine, you ‘re saying, this is a good reason to use your 20% and stay home. And you would be right. However, there is a hook: two of my classes meet fewer than 15 times. One meets 8 times, another 11. And both meet on Tuesday. And I’ve already missed one of each the last time I was sick. I could technically miss the second one more time (20% = 2.2 classes), but it meets immediately following the first, in which I have no further absences (20% = 1.6 classes). There is no distinction made for “excused” or “unexcused” absences, so it’s not like I could go to the student health center and get an excuse from the doctor.

This is a perfect example of why the attendance policy and it’s method of enforcement are ill-conceived.

Frankly, if you can skip classes and still pass the exam, then the professor is the one who should face consequences. And there are some classes here where attendance is nothing more than a formality. It’s a waste of my time and an insult to my intelligence. And for the rest of the classes, I would drag my butt in for class no matter how crappy I felt, just to be sure that I didn’t miss anything important. And I have, in fact, done this: last year, I came to class with pneumonia for two weeks before literally collapsing in the tub one morning. I would think that most of my classmates are similarly motivated—after all, this is a Tier 1 law school.

Furthermore, this is not high school or even undergraduate university/ college, it’s professional school. Mommy and daddy should not be looking over your shoulder to make sure you do what you’re supposed to do. If you can’t make it to class because you’re hung over on a regular basis, you’re not going to do well in class. And even if your law school decided that they wanted to pass you anyway, you are not going to get any such consideration when you take the bar exam. And given the fact that the legal profession carries an immense amount of responsibility—to yourself, to you clients, to society as a whole--- and is largely self-policing, I would think that the school would want to foster a sense of personal responsibility. I’m not convinced that this attendance policy serves that goal, and in fact, probably serves the opposite purpose by developing the habit of only showing up when someone makes you show up.

I am an adult. I wish to be treated as such. I’ve supported myself completely for a decade now, including paying for my entire undergraduate education and law school thus far. No one made me show up for class as an undergraduate—I did it because I cared about my education and because it was the best way to get full value for the thousands of dollars I spent on tuition and books. It seems odd to me that a higher level of personal responsibility was assumed and assigned for the years that I was an undergraduate student—one of several thousand on campus—than is currently allowed as a law student.

I would like to see a corollary requirement implemented that would require the professors to actually put something useful into their classes or be penalized. If more than 20% of your classes are poorly prepared, impart little to no information outside the reading, consist of unguided Socratic method (defined here as asking questions and letting the students ramble on for the full 50 minutes with no input as to which answers and opinions are on point or valid in the context of the lesson purported to be on the day’s plan), are almost entirely filled with your “war stories” instead of actual information, fail to conform to the syllabus (with allowance for reasonable and pre-announced adjustments to fit the pace of the students in the class—but no allowance for adjustments due to the failure of the professor to structure his lectures properly), or otherwise waste the students’ time, you will face sanctions. These could vary from remarks in your personnel file to loss of seniority, or even loss of tenure (for extreme and intractable offenders—a.k.a. Professor MacPherson). I could also get behind a proposal for disincentives to assign a casebook solely because you are one of the authors, especially if you are in the process of major revisions that will result in a new edition for the following semester, preventing students from being able to re-sell their (just released as a “new edition” at the beginning of the semester) casebooks—this means you, Professor Feedback!