How to Use Feedback Effectively as Law Students

As law students, it is typical to engage in some forms of assessments, mainly being formative and summative. There is also classwork, likely during seminars or workshops where students are asked to prepare answers to questions, and teachers provide feedback on these answers during class, telling you how good your approach is, and what you could do to improve it. These are ways you get feedback in university as a law student. It is important that this feedback is not ignored. It is an invaluable tool for growth and understanding what it takes to get the best grades. Here’s how law students can make the most out of feedback:

1. Understand the Type of Assessment and Feedback

• Formative Assessment Feedback: These types of assessments usually entail you having to write smaller words of a given essay topic, or a plan for essays and problem questions. Feedback is usually given without marks, but sometimes, especially for short essay questions, marks may be provided. This is an opportunity for law students to test themselves and for teachers to assess your work and how you are likely to perform before going into the real thing. Though not often compulsory, it is undeniably useful to do them, and take them seriously, as it is somewhat of a golden opportunity to get feedback on work that will not be graded. It helps you identify areas for improvement before your final assessment. Use this as a roadmap for development.
• Summative Assessment/Feedback: These assessments are graded and count towards your final mark for the module. Many do not see the feedback given in this instance as an opportunity to improve per se, especially when it is the final assessment of the module, However, it is important it is taken seriously as it reflects performance in general, not just for a single module, and it highlights key areas to focus on in the future.
• Classwork Feedback: This type of feedback is often less focused on and overlooked, because they are not always presented in a formal way for marking, like it would in summative assessments. However, they are equally as important as other types of feedback. They include remarks from tutors during seminars, tutorials, or class discussions and they are crucial for continuous improvement.

2. Reflect on the Feedback

• Take time to thoroughly read and understand the feedback. If you have received multiple feedback for different modules, highlight any recurring issues you notice. This helps you understand what your weaknesses are. Once you have done that, it is easy to target general support systems like your university’s academic writing support system or the law school writing support system and come to them with questions on how to improve going forward.
• If you have any specific feedback from specific modules, it is important to understand what might have gone wrong and how to avoid that in the future. Here, it is often useful to contact your tutor or professor and set up a time where they can discuss your feedback with you. This helps you identify those specific weaknesses, allowing you to strengthen them in the future, It does not matter if you have written the final assessment for that module, understanding feedback from one module will undeniably aid your performance in others.
• Consider the context: Did your work lack critical analysis? In that case how did it lack critical analysis? Were you stating out the law excessively without questioning it? Were you describing the facts of case law too much without explaining its implications in relation to the question asked? It could also be that you have misunderstood the question, or even simple things like mistakes in referencing style, too much grammatical errors. It can also be specific to a particular topic, maybe a point you raised does not exactly answer the question, even if it may be great critical analysis. Even some first-class answers will have feedback on ‘what to improve’, so try to understand them as they are always useful.
• You can also discuss unclear feedback with your peers to gain a better understanding of each other’s weaknesses. This is particularly helpful if a common problem affects a wider group, as sharing ideas can lead to practical solutions for improvement.

3. Implement Changes

• Make a plan for how to address each piece of feedback. For instance, if a tutor mentions a lack of critical analysis, incorporate more critical perspectives in your next assignment. If they mention inaccurate referencing, make sure you learn how to properly reference. If they mention that you have not answered the question, develop strategies to ensure you are directly addressing the question set.
• Practice the skills suggested in feedback through smaller tasks or practice essays/problem questions. If possible, ask your tutors to assess the practice questions you have answered. This extra step will help you gain a deeper understanding of how to produce the best answers.

4. Maintain a Growth Mindset

• View feedback as an opportunity rather than criticism. Approach it with a willingness to improve. This can be particularly challenging with summative assessments since the marks are final but remember that you have opportunities to improve in other modules.
• Recognise that improvement is a gradual process. Celebrate small victories, like fewer comments on structure or improved legal analysis.

5. Keep Track of Your Progress

• Maintain a feedback journal. Record the feedback you receive, the actions you take, and the progress you notice over time.
• It is not just about your assignments, but also how your approach to feedback is improving. Reflect periodically to see how your approach has evolved and what strategies have proven most effective.

By actively engaging with feedback, law students can enhance their analytical skills, writing techniques, and overall academic performance. Embrace the process and turn feedback into a powerful tool for your legal education journey.

Article written by Constance Eke, LLB graduate from the University of Leeds and a current LLM student at the University of Sheffield