Grading Guidelines

In general, all of our law faculty grade our paralegal students as follows:

the grading rubric is as follows:

90-100 - all required or necessary case elements or legal theories present, and analyzed by student in some detail

80-90 - most of the required or necessary elements or legal theories present, and analyzed by student, but some missing details

70-80 - many of the required or necessary elements or legal theories not present, and analysis is scant

60-70 - most of the required or necessary elements or legal theories not present, and no or little analysis

You will notice that there are three elements for a good legal answer:

1. first you spot the legal issue. This means that you are able to identify the law which applies to the facts. Is this a case of negligence or battery. Of course if you are not sure you could discuss both.

2. second, once you have spotted the issue, you then state the law - eg. a cause of action for negligence involves the following elements ....

3. third, and probably most important, now that you have spotted the legal issue, and defined your legal terms, you must "close the circle" - many students fail to do this. What this means is to take the existing facts ( do not create your own, or speculate on some non existent set of facts) - take the facts as they are given and show why with this set of facts, this set of legal rules requires this exact resolution by the court.

Also if a case is provided in your assignment, substantial points are deducted for just giving your own opinion instead of carefully reading the case and reporting on it, again using steps 1, 2 and 3 above.

hope this helps in improving your legal analysis and scores and grades in all of your law classes.

continue working hard and enjoying your law classes.

again please contact your paralegal tutors at http://paralegaltutors.pbwiki.com

they are really super.

Prof J.