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Policies: Student Ethics and Regulations

For All Sections and All Assignments 

Within the Legal Analysis, Research and Communication course, first-year law students complete a variety of assignments such as reading material from textbooks, cases and articles; exercises focusing on research, case selection, case usage; as well as producing drafts and final written products. Any item assigned by LARC faculty falls within one of two categories: skill building or skill assessment. As a general policy, the LARC faculty encourages students to build their skills in a cooperative environment. However, unless otherwise directed, students' progress is assessed on an individual basis. Therefore: 

  • Students earn grades based upon their individual efforts. 
  • Students must research and write graded assignments themselves.

Students are encouraged to access all resources made available to them in order to become competent legal writers: LARC faculty, the director of academic support, teaching assistants and the director of the LARC department. In LARC, the following conduct is prohibited and may constitute cheating and/or a violation of the Saint Louis University School of Law Student Honor Code:

  1. Because assessment of a student's progress is done on an individual basis, other than discussions held within the classroom students may not:

    • Discuss or collaborate in any manner on the graded assignments with other professors, friends, family members, lawyers or judges, or other law students from this or other universities.
    • Share search terms or research materials or have a discussion about the usage and application of search terms or research materials that are associated with the graded assignments.
    • Share comments made by teaching assistants or the professor regarding individual work products before the assignment due date.
    • Read/edit/comment on another student's work or ask another student to read/edit/comment on your work product.

Exception: scored and returned assignments, which are not subject to graded rewrites, are exempt from the penalty.

Please review hypotheticals related to this topic.

Late Paper Policy For All Sections and All Assignments 

Papers are due at the time and on the date specified by the department. All major assignments are due at the same time and date across the first-year class. The penalty for any paper turned in late to the professor is assessed against the assignment which is late. The penalty for each day (or fraction of a day) that a paper is late is 5%, 10% or 15% of the assignment's point total depending upon the assignment designation by the faculty member. Extensions must be made through the director of the LARC department prior to the due date.

Procedure for Correction of Grading Errors

In order to preserve blind grading and to enable us to correct grading errors, the LARC department will follow the following procedure:

  1. If a student believes there is a grading error, the student should:

    • Prepare a written statement identifying specifically where the student believes there is an error (including, as appropriate, identification of where the student believes points were earned but not awarded);
    • Identify the written statement only by exam number and section number;
    • Attach the written statement to a complete copy of the graded paper and turn the copy in to the instructor anonymously by sliding it under the instructor's office door;
    • Keep the original of the paper, including grading comment sheet. 

The instructor will consider the student's written statement and take the appropriate action to correct the error or explain why there was no error. The instructor will then turn the paper into the director of the department, who will notify the student to pick up the paper.  

Instructions for Turning in an LRW Assignment on a Disk

To preserve blind grading, the student turning in an assignment on disk must do the following before turning in the disk:

  1. Click on Tools, then on Options, then on Security.
  2. Click on Remove personal information from this file on save (this tool exists on Office XP and on Word 2003. If you are using some other operating system, you can perform this on the computers in the computer lab).
  3. Make sure the document name is this semester's exam number.
  4. Save the document to the disk to be turned in.

Please make sure that the disk you use is either a new one or one that you have removed all other documents from.