GRADES ARE DONE, though I didn’t follow this advice from reader Doug Hutson:

Since Hahvahd (Harvard) is considered by many to be the epitome of educational institutions, and since any law professor worth his or her salt would strive to be a professor at said Hahvahd, doesn’t it make sense that you would give grades like they do at Hahvahd? Give them all A’s, which will prove you are truly worthy. Also solves your current problem of having to grade papers!

Sadly, I give real exams, and actually count off when students get things wrong. The grades in my paper-writing seminar were pretty good, but that’s because — with multiple drafts that I comment on — it’s hard not to write a good paper (or at least one that I’ll think is good) by the end of the semester. The Constitutional Law exams, however, were a more mixed bag and required some curving to bring them into line (since it’s a required course, we don’t like too much variation among sections).

As one of my colleagues says, the rest of the job we do for free — but it takes our whole salaries to pay us to do the damn grading.