James J. Brown, a/k/a Professor J.J. Brown, one of my teachers at Stetson Law School, is retiring. He taught Real Property. Stetson was Florida's first law school, and it is among the best trial practice law schools in the country. Professor Brown was part of the reason. 'Course, law school isn't a cake walk, and there was a time when its admissions policy was not as strict as its graduation policy. A lot of folks got in who didn't get out. When I arrived at Stetson, the admissions policy had become more competitive. They told us at orientation that only about one out of ten college graduates who applied to Stetson was accepted; however, some of the professors there- including Professor Brown- continued under the old model of weeding out the weak students. JJ graded on a bell-shaped curve to get rid of the dross- not what you find in most graduate school programs. A Bell-shaped curve meant that ten percent or so of the class would get A's, maybe fifteen percent would get B's, half the class would get C's, fifteen percent or so would get D's, and ten percent of the class would fail, regardless of what percentage of the material the class as a whole had absorbed. I had a reputation in law school- largely deserved- of being a party guy. My reputation for not studying was actually not deserved, though. I studied a lot. Sadly, since my study time was private and my party time quite public, the professors didn't tag me as a very serious student. I was a former football player, and I was frequently out on the school's softball field. This probably didn't help my reputation much, particularly with JJ. He was a physically slight man, who had MS, and walked with two canes. Add to that my badly timed attempt to work at night for a little spending money, and you have one pretty awful semester.
At the end of my first (or was it my second?) semester, JJ called my into his office and announced that I'd gotten an eighty in his class. An 80 would have been a "D", except that it was the fifth worst grade in the class of 50 students. Ten percent of fifty, if my math is correct, means... well, it meant I'd failed his mandatory class and had to take it again if I wanted to finish law school. I could, of course, leave. No one who'd retaken his class- and at least ten percent of every class he'd taught up to that point had failed it- had ever gotten higher than a "C". I'm no quitter, I told him. He talked to me at length. He was convinced I was a slow learner. "You have a disability", he said, "Just like I do". I'd been Magna Cum Laude at Florida State as an undergraduate, but the couple of years I'd spent at Sewanee hadn't been a wild academic success. Maybe he was right. I'd have to work harder, is all.
I quit my job as a dishwasher at Steak and Ale, told grandma I really did need her help after all, and buckled down. I met with JJ at least every week and reviewed the material. At the end of the semester, I had a 97 average. Of the fifty people in the class, my grade was the sixth best. Which meant I got... a "B plus". No "A". The bell-shaped curve kicked my butt again; however, JJ told me no one who'd ever re-taken his class had done that well. I even used him as a reference. Wait... I didn't get that job. Looks like I'm not that smart afterall.
