I have taught as an adjunct lecturer at a law school for more than 10 years and never once has anyone evaluated my teaching other than my students. When I started, I was not provided with any training. I received no feedback regarding my teaching from any of the faculty members at the law school. I often invited members of the faculty to sit in and evaluate my teaching; it never happened. From what I understand, that is common in most law schools that rely on adjuncts, both to teach and to keep institutional budgets in check. I am not suggesting that that approach is wrong, only that it has consequences.
As an adjunct, I am removed from the day-to-day discussions within the law school, including those pertaining to the use of student evaluations to assess the performance of instructors. Student evaluations seem to be the only tool the law school relies on in measuring the performance of its adjunct lecturers. To the extent another metric is being used, I have not been told about it, nor have I seen it in my classroom.
My thesis, which is not wildly unique, is simple: Absent some corroborating tool to evaluate instructor performance, student evaluations are an inherently unreliable and misleading source of information for purposes of measuring the effectiveness of an instructor. While student evaluations can provide objective information (i.e., whether the instructor is on time, intoxicated, treats the students appropriately, or appears to be organized), law students are not equipped to objectively evaluate the value of their own learning experience, or the skills of the instructor. Their evaluations should not be used for such purposes.
In the past 10 years, I have taught “Legal Writing,” “Advanced Legal Writing,” “Civil Procedure I,” “Civil Procedure II,” “Pre-Trial Advocacy,” and “Professional Responsibility.” Readers are no doubt wondering at this point about my student evaluations—they were very positive in my early years of teaching when I tended to play to the crowd, and less so recently as I have required more of the students (I’ll return to that point in a bit).
From what I understand, a central objective for a law school is for its instructors to teach students how to analyze legal problems and prepare them to practice law. To do that, instructors must teach analytical and practical skills that the students will actually use when they become lawyers. Recent studies and commentary, however, have criticized the significant gap between theory and practice that pervades our law schools. I happen to teach at an excellent school that is making important efforts to bridge that gap.
As an adjunct who litigates, full time, in his “real life,” I have observed that same gap and its impact on young lawyers who are often unprepared for the practice of law when they graduate. Many students that my firm hires do not know how to cite a case or prepare a basic pleading. At our law firm, we have seen that over and over, to the point that some of my partners are reluctant to hire from law schools that do not have a comprehensive legal-writing program.
As an instructor and practicing lawyer, one of my primary goals is to impart some practical knowledge and skills to my students. They need to understand that the law, as written, is often applied much differently. They need to understand (and acclimate to the fact) that the practice of law is demanding and, in many ways, unforgiving. Problems do not have easy answers, and they don’t always have “right” answers. Deadlines become critically important, as is timing. Confusion is common—as clients, judges, senior partners, and opposing lawyers often make it hard to solve problems involving competing interests. It’s a difficult job with tough challenges that cannot always be resolved by reading a book or looking up a statute. Students need to know what they are signing up for.
A law-school student (especially in her first year) typically has a very narrow set of objectives. Generally speaking, she wants to get a good grade. She wants to know what will be on the test, or what I am looking for in a given writing assignment. She wants to figure out the easiest way to get that good grade, and she wants immediate, detailed feedback on any work she does because she is scared.
Most students believe grades are everything. They are rarely interested in whether they are learning how to be a good lawyer—unless that helps them get a better grade. In the meantime, they resist confusion, perceived inconsistency, or anything else that detracts them from the most efficient path to a good grade. While I am magnifying that description somewhat for effect, it is generally accurate. The pressure to perform well and secure a good grade defines their objectives in many critical ways.
As a law-school instructor, my objectives are much different. While I want everyone to succeed, I am less concerned about whether my students are confused. I tell them how litigation works. We apply the rules to different situations, and I often ask them questions that do not have easy answers—questions that require the application of judgment, not just knowledge.
I require students to meet deadlines and to rewrite assignments that are done poorly. I don’t accept a lot of excuses, and I expect a lot from them. At the risk of being truly unpopular, I now ban laptops unless they are used for note-taking. In addition, I no longer buy them pizza.
I also focus on problem solving. Setting aside the first few weeks, I do not “spoon-feed” information from the book or hold their hands through every single issue in the reading material. As a result, many of them become frustrated, but their learning experience is much different and, I hope, much better.
In years past, I have often received very favorable evaluations. In every single one of those situations, I tried to align my teaching style with the students’ perceived expectations and needs. I “taught to the test” (or in legal writing, spoon-fed what I expected on the writing assignment) and did everything I could to placate their needs and expectations (a “consumer” model, if you will).
In retrospect, I view this approach as ineffective, and I view the positive evaluations I received as somewhat useless because they appear to reflect the student’s comfort level more than anything else. In more recent years, it seems likely that my evaluation scores have dropped because I am doing a better job of teaching and the students are, in fact, learning more in my courses despite their discomfort.
In any case, the evaluations still tell me nothing about whether I actually did my job. They cannot provide meaningful information regarding teaching skills or learning.
That does not mean student evaluations are completely useless. Last spring I taught “Evidence.” Unfortunately, my work commitments distracted me from the course, and I was frequently absent. My evaluations were low, and deservedly so. The students complained about the absences and the resultant disorganization. That is a perfect example of how student evaluations can be used, in limited instances, to identify objectively verifiable problems with instructor performance. I deserved that criticism.
But when it comes to rating the quality of instruction, the evaluations are inherently unreliable. Let me support that by applying the Federal Rules of Evidence, which judges rely on to exclude dubious information used to prove a given assertion. Many evaluations are insulting, false, and otherwise prejudicial. More important, student evaluations constitute inadmissible hearsay whose unreliability is compounded by the fact that the out-of-court declarant is completely anonymous. No court would ever consider such random aspersions from an unnamed declarant as competent character evidence.
Of course a law school is not a courtroom. But that doesn’t undermine the basic point about evaluations: Their inherent unreliability means they would never see the light of day in a courtroom.
Teaching should not be a popularity contest. Students may have general, verifiable information to share (“was the professor on time?”), but they are not qualified to assess our teaching skills or, for that matter, whether or not they have actually learned anything in our classrooms.
I am not basing that conclusion on a fancy empirical assessment of student evaluations but, rather, on common sense, years of teaching experience, and many years of reviewing inconsistent and misguided student evaluations that have done little to assist me as I search for new and more effective ways to teach.
I am not pretending to have all of the answers, and I write this short essay only to make a simple point: It is not fair or wise to judge adjuncts solely through student evaluations. It’s time for law schools to put other measures in place (peer mentoring, etc.) and provide continued training to all of their adjuncts. Law schools should not tolerate an environment where students can surf the Internet in class (without reading the assigned material) and then anonymously criticize their instructors for not being “engaging” or “organized.”
To bridge the gap between theory and practice, students should be appropriately confronted with the realities of the practice of law, not placated when they complain after being properly challenged. That may lead to lower evaluations, but it will certainly lead to better lawyers.
