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67 J. Legal Educ. 139 (2017-2018)
The Impact of Individualized Feedback on Law Student Performance

handle is hein.journals/jled67 and id is 143 raw text is: '39 The Impact of Individualized Feedback on Law Student Performance Daniel Schwarcz and Dion Farganis Overview For well over a century, first-year law students have typically not received any individualized feedback in their core doctrinal classes other than their grades on final exams. Although critics have long assailed this pedagogical model, remarkably limited empirical evidence exists regarding the extent to which increased feedback improves law students' outcomes. This article helps fill this gap by focusing on a natural experiment at the University of Minnesota Law School. The natural experiment arises from the assignment of first-year law students to one of several sections, each of which is taught by a common slate of professors. A random subset of these professors provides students with individualized feedback other than their final grades. Meanwhile, students in two different sections are occasionally grouped together in a double- section first-year class. We find that in these double-section classes, students in sections that have previously or concurrently had a professor who provides individualized feedback consistently outperform students in sections that have not received any such feedback. The effect is both statistically significant and hardly trivial in magnitude, approaching about one-third of a grade increment after controlling for students' LSAT scores, undergraduate GPA, gender, race, and country of birth. This effect corresponds to a 3.7-point increase in students' LSAT scores in our model. Additionally, the positive impact of feedback is stronger among students whose combined LSAT score and undergraduate GPA fall below the median at the University of Minnesota Law School. These findings substantially advance the literature on law school Daniel Schwarcz is a Professor at the University of Minnesota Law School. Dion Farganis is a u017 graduate of the University of Minnesota Law School, current judicial law clerk to the HonorableJoan N. Ericksen of the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, and former Assistant Professor of Political Science at Elon University. For helpful comments, we thank Robert Ahdieh, Michael Asimow, June Carbone, Bradley Clary, Andrea Curcio, Allan Erbsen, Jay Feinman, Dan Ho, Jason Husser, Bert Kritzer, William McGeveran, Noelle Noonan, Kathleen O'Neill, Hari Osofsky, Tamar Resnick, Richard Sander, Michael Simkovic, Sandra Simpson, and an anonymous reviewer, as well as participants in faculty workshops at University of Minnesota, Southwestern Law School, St. Thomas Law School, and UCLA Law School. We also acknowledge the wonderful support provided by the University of Minnesota Library generally, and Connie Lenz in particular. Luke Wolf provided excellent research assistance. Journal of Legal Education, Volume 67, Number i (Autumn 2o7)

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