Oxford grad's suit claims bad teaching cost him the chance to attend an Ivy League law school
Radcliffe Camera and All Souls College at Oxford University/Shutterstock.com
A graduate of Oxford University claims his lower-than-expected grades there 17 years ago made it impossible to attend an Ivy League law school in the United States or to perform well in legal jobs in the United Kingdom.
Faiz Siddiqui claims his grades were affected by inadequate teaching in one course, report Bloomberg Business, the Guardian and the Telegraph. Siddiqui says teaching was disrupted because several staff members in the course were on sabbatical. As a result, Siddiqui alleges he didn’t receive Oxford’s top degree.
That caused depression and made Siddiqui “unable to achieve the professional career he had hoped for,” the suit says. He is currently unemployed.
Siddiqui’s lawyer argued the case for liability Nov. 21 at the High Court in London. If that portion of the case succeeds, Siddiqui will seek lost earnings in the damages portion of the case.
Siddiqui had trained at Clifford Chance after graduation but wasn’t asked to stay on, according to the suit. He also worked for three other law firms and at an accounting firm. The suit says he wasn’t able to perform as well as the employers would have liked because of depression and insomnia caused by the poor results at Oxford.
An Oxford spokesman told Bloomberg the university “is robustly defending the claim brought by Mr. Siddiqui.”
