To do a thorough job with grading takes time. Professors who see all exams as formative assessment will include a lot of comments, which take time to write. Conscientious professors also want to make sure they are grading everyone consistently. This is especially challenging in a big class of over 100 students. So, faculty will often go back and re-grade exams that they did first, to make sure that the grading is fair.
— Allie Robbins, assistant dean for academic affairs at the City University of New York School of Law, told Law.com some of the details as to why grading law school exams takes so long. She also went on to note the impact this can have on students who are stuck waiting on exam grades, “I do think it is a big stressor for students not to have their grades for so long, particularly after the first semester, since everything in the beginning of law school is so new and overwhelming.”