STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

can you retake the course? I know that thought probably makes you want to shoot yourself, but at my school if you retake a class the new grade replaces the old.

I wouldn't worry too much.  I went to law school and definitely had a grade my first semester that wasn't my proudest moment.  Everyone has a couple of bad grades, and interviewers understand that.  Hang in there! 

The main guy who donated all the money to my law school (named a wing after him, etc.) got a D in Torts and is a plaintiff's attorney (hence all the money). While I don't recommend getting a lot of Ds, one won't kill you. On my transcript there are a couple of not-so-great grades (okay, bad). No one has ever asked me about them. In the interest of full disclosure (sorry for the law talk), I've never pursued a big firm job or anything like that. I work for government and I've only ever sought out gov't and non-profits as job sources.

Oh and here's another tidbit to make you feel better: There was this total ass in my class who was on law review. We graduated and he didn't have a job. He had great grades but was such a whiny baby about everything (his "oh my god, i'm on law review - i should have tons of great job offers!" complaint really sucked), that no one wanted to hire him. So it definitely isn't all grades.

I'd say try to get a better grade in that class if you can - talk to the prof, see if you can retake it and substitute your new grade - but if not, it's not the end of the world. It goes both ways, ya know? Some good graders got nothing, some bad graders got everything. It's most certainly not everything, especially one bad grade in all of your law school career. Don't worry about it.

Law school sucks, doesn't it? Why isn't there grade inflation like in other grad school programs?

Thank you for all your support and encouragement, ladies! I feel SO much better thanks to all of you.

I received an email from my professor, saying that he was sure that I was dissappointed in my grade (as was he), and that it would be beneficial to come review my test with him. So, I guess there's no way to change my grade. But I'm sure reviewing will help me a lot, especially in answering the question: How could I possibly have done so terribly?

I will try not to dwell on my grade anymore - everyone makes mistakes.

bluebirde - if only there was grade inflation! Gah.

domino - thank you for making your first post on my behalf! I hope you post more in the future.

Oh, and I definitely do not want to go into criminal law! I'll be happy to never think about criminal law ever again!

Law is weird. You can know a lot about the subject, but because you put it down in the wrong order. Seriously. You will be marked down. And IRAC doesnt' really help much because everyone does it, and the classes are graded on a curve. I highly recommend the book, "Scoring High on Bar Exam Essays," by Mary Campbell Gallagher. It teaches you how to write and analyze like a lawyer, which is what your profs are looking for on the exams. They really, really don't care how much material you know. You need to know the black letter law, the rules, in order to do well. But it's more important to put the rules in the right format than it is to know them because that is legal analysis, and that is what you're really being tested on.

Good luck! Oh, and start looking for a job NOW. Don't leave it up to OCI or chance. Research obsessively what you can do and where you can work. There's a lot out there. But you need to start showing an interest and initiative in a field in law school, in order to be hired after. I graduated and May and now I know people with good-to-great grades who don't have jobs and people with not-great grades who do. Their law school activities and contacts made the difference.

The school's advice is tailored for law firms, who sort by grades. And they're right, as far as it goes. In my school, two people were hired as 1Ls by top firms. The rest of the top 30 or so people in the class were hired through OCI second year. Everyone else was on their own. The ones who knew people and had an identified area of interest were fine. The ones who sort of coasted, trying to do what everyone else was doing, are still unemployed. (And if you want to see stress, talk to someone who has a $1,000 a month loan payment and works as a waitress.)

To expand on what I said about looking for a job, I didn't mean "Find a law firm to hire you now." I meant, "Develop a network of people who like you and want to help you." And "Develop an area of law to focus in." These two things will get you a job.

Employers want something of value from a new hire. If you can't give them a perfect transcript and a judicial clerkship, you need to show passion, experience and contacts in a particular field of law. For example, a girl I know started a Health Law Society at my school, and used that as an opportunity to network and get published, then hired by a firm with a big health care component. Another guy I know with a background in computers focused on talking to people in IT Law and developed a bunch of contacts, got published, then hired for way more than most first year associates by a large firm, that way.

wetbandit42 wrote:

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Thanks again ladies! I feel much much better knowing that most of you have had similar experiences.

Dizzy - I ordered the book you recommended. Thanks for the recommendation! Also, thanks for the tip about looking for jobs now.

Did any of you find jobs as 1Ls? I went to a career center presentation and they told us that very few (only a certain number of people in the top 5 or 10% of the class) will be able to get jobs (paid and unpaid) this summer, but that all of us will be able to find them as 2Ls. Is this true? They said that this is the summer that you should do study abroad, because most of us will not have law-related jobs/interships/etc.

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Most people in my law class got summer internships as a 1L. It's not the same as your 2L summer, i.e. working to get an offer for after law school, but people worked at small firms, big firms in other states, non-profits, etc.

Career services will barely help you in getting a job your first summer but do some networking, send out some resumes, scour the job websites, etc., and see what you can find. For me I worked at a small firm where I knew some people and took classes to get a leg up on the next couple of years (I worked and schooled so I could use the extra hours and money).

But if you don't get a job, it won't hurt anything. The 2L summer is the one that matters irt getting a real job after law school. If you want to waitress and take some time off from law school, do that. It doesn't matter.

Regarding studying abroad, people did that during the school year, not the summer. I think it was the 1st semester of our 3rd year, if I remember correctly.

The one good thing about getting a job your first summer is that it gives you a leg up on all the other applicants for 2L jobs. And you can use any advantage you can get when looking for a job. It gets ugly and dirty - beware. (I'm not saying other law students are ugly and dirty, just the process.)

Good luck and seriously, don't worry about the grade. It's not a make or break.