{"id":119191,"date":"2025-05-15T15:03:47","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T23:03:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/05\/15\/ethics-exam-leaked-early-in-ironic-law-school-twist\/"},"modified":"2025-05-15T15:03:47","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T23:03:47","slug":"ethics-exam-leaked-early-in-ironic-law-school-twist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/05\/15\/ethics-exam-leaked-early-in-ironic-law-school-twist\/","title":{"rendered":"Ethics Exam Leaked Early In Ironic Law School Twist"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Every year, there\u2019s some law school exam drama. Sometimes a professor will\u00a0reuse exam questions<\/a>\u00a0(despite knowing this is begging for trouble<\/a>), or employ\u00a0shocking and tragic hypotheticals<\/a>, or force students to\u00a0defend segregation<\/a>. But another classic blunder involves accidentally releasing the upcoming exam to the class<\/a>, giving students who see the test before it\u2019s inevitably clawed back an unfair advantage.<\/p>\n

USC Law students are dealing with that situation right now, but with the extra twist that it\u2019s happening in their professional responsibility class. It\u2019s like an M. Night Shyamalan plot\u2026 in that it\u2019s both ironic and frustratingly stupid.<\/p>\n

Tipsters report that the exam was posted online for less than an hour, but of course that\u2019s more than enough time for students to theoretically download it while the students who weren\u2019t sitting on the school website missed out. The professor has since emailed students instructing them to delete the exam, obviously. At least the students have maintained a sense of dark humor under the circumstances. Here\u2019s a slice of the section\u2019s GroupMe (obviously with names redacted):<\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A meta-ethical dilemma! Would you dutifully abide by a discovery clawback? This is not what\u2019s happening here because not every student got the early exam and there would be no way to effectively grade the students who properly deleted the exam in any event. <\/p>\n

But it\u2019s funny.<\/p>\n

The professor\u2019s email left tipsters with the impression that there\u2019s no plan to write a new exam. If true, that\u2019s a bad call. Assuming every student who saw the test complied with the deletion request, there\u2019s no way to scrub the study guidance they picked up from seeing the test in the first place.<\/p>\n

It sucks to have to write a new exam at the last minute. Unfortunately, sometimes life sucks and it\u2019s time to hunker down and write a new exam. Screwing up like this is embarrassing, but can be remediated. Doubling down is the only way to make this situation worse.<\/p>\n

One might even say the ethical<\/em> response requires writing a new exam. <\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Ethics Exam Leaked Early In Ironic Law School Twist<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Every year, there\u2019s some law school exam drama. Sometimes a professor will\u00a0reuse exam questions<\/a>\u00a0(despite knowing this is begging for trouble<\/a>), or employ\u00a0shocking and tragic hypotheticals<\/a>, or force students to\u00a0defend segregation<\/a>. But another classic blunder involves accidentally releasing the upcoming exam to the class<\/a>, giving students who see the test before it\u2019s inevitably clawed back an unfair advantage.<\/p>\n

USC Law students are dealing with that situation right now, but with the extra twist that it\u2019s happening in their professional responsibility class. It\u2019s like an M. Night Shyamalan plot\u2026 in that it\u2019s both ironic and frustratingly stupid.<\/p>\n

Tipsters report that the exam was posted online for less than an hour, but of course that\u2019s more than enough time for students to theoretically download it while the students who weren\u2019t sitting on the school website missed out. The professor has since emailed students instructing them to delete the exam, obviously. At least the students have maintained a sense of dark humor under the circumstances. Here\u2019s a slice of the section\u2019s GroupMe (obviously with names redacted):<\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A meta-ethical dilemma! Would you dutifully abide by a discovery clawback? This is not what\u2019s happening here because not every student got the early exam and there would be no way to effectively grade the students who properly deleted the exam in any event. <\/p>\n

But it\u2019s funny.<\/p>\n

The professor\u2019s email left tipsters with the impression that there\u2019s no plan to write a new exam. If true, that\u2019s a bad call. Assuming every student who saw the test complied with the deletion request, there\u2019s no way to scrub the study guidance they picked up from seeing the test in the first place.<\/p>\n

It sucks to have to write a new exam at the last minute. Unfortunately, sometimes life sucks and it\u2019s time to hunker down and write a new exam. Screwing up like this is embarrassing, but can be remediated. Doubling down is the only way to make this situation worse.<\/p>\n

One might even say the ethical<\/em> response requires writing a new exam. <\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Ethics Exam Leaked Early In Ironic Law School Twist<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every year, there\u2019s some law school exam drama. Sometimes a professor will\u00a0reuse exam questions\u00a0(despite knowing this is begging for trouble), or employ\u00a0shocking and tragic hypotheticals, or force students to\u00a0defend segregation. But another classic blunder involves accidentally releasing the upcoming exam to the class, giving students who see the test before it\u2019s inevitably clawed back an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-119191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119191\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}