Top Law Schools

I did quite well in graduate school. However English is not my first language. I believe law school requires good command of the language. If I end up in bottom 10% in Top 6, but I have an advanced degree in science, will I still have a good shoot at Biglaw?

PhD isn't helpful for OCI purposes.

Also, if your English is good enough to get you into HYS, it's good enough not to hold you back with grades.

Also, if your English is good enough to get you into HYS, it's good enough not to hold you back with grades.

Good to know that.
Will it be easier if I just want to do patent prosecution in Biglaw?

dreamer wrote:

Also, if your English is good enough to get you into HYS, it's good enough not to hold you back with grades.

Good to know that.
Will it be easier if I just want to do patent prosecution in Biglaw?

Oh, your PhD is science related? I take back what I said - it can come in handy.

And, yes, focusing on IP makes life easier.

Because none of HYS uses standard grading, it's pretty hard to even tell if someone is in the "bottom 10%". It's all Honors/Pass/Fail. Nobody fails, and more than 10% have all Passes.

A good networker even in the bottom 10% can land mid or biglaw. Work on being personable and you'll be good.

nealric wrote:Because none of HYS uses standard grading, it's pretty hard to even tell if someone is in the "bottom 10%". It's all Honors/Pass/Fail. Nobody fails, and more than 10% have all Passes.

You can tell at Harvard. At least you could, I heard they were changing their grading system yet again.

You can tell at Harvard. At least you could, I heard they were changing their grading system yet again.

How? Their changes were regarding the percentage of "H" grades awarded. Then and now, more than 10% of the class got all "P" grades.

Just curious. What is the new change?

nealric wrote:

You can tell at Harvard. At least you could, I heard they were changing their grading system yet again.

How? Their changes were regarding the percentage of "H" grades awarded. Then and now, more than 10% of the class got all "P" grades.

They have HP/P/LP. And LP was something like bottom 8% in a class. More than one LP and you safely near the bottom of the class.

I don't know about their changes, I just now that as of a year ago you could tell who was doing very poorly.

Desert Fox wrote:They have HP/P/LP. And LP was something like bottom 8% in a class. More than one LP and you safely near the bottom of the class.

I think they've made LP more discretionary; up to the top 8% (or whatever percentage it is), not mandatory to that amount anymore. Anyone who gets multiple LPs now is really, really boned.

vanwinkle wrote:

Desert Fox wrote:They have HP/P/LP. And LP was something like bottom 8% in a class. More than one LP and you safely near the bottom of the class.

I think they've made LP more discretionary; up to the top 8% (or whatever percentage it is), not mandatory to that amount anymore. Anyone who gets multiple LPs now is really, really boned.

At that point why even have the LP. It's basically a "DON'T HIRE THIS PERSON" tag.

Desert Fox wrote:At that point why even have the LP. It's basically a "DON'T HIRE THIS PERSON" tag.

I love it when you answer your own questions.

vanwinkle wrote:

Desert Fox wrote:At that point why even have the LP. It's basically a "DON'T HIRE THIS PERSON" tag.

I love it when you answer your own questions.

But why would the school do that? Why create a system that hides mediocre students and then really fucks over a few idiots.

Desert Fox wrote:

vanwinkle wrote:

Desert Fox wrote:At that point why even have the LP. It's basically a "DON'T HIRE THIS PERSON" tag.

I love it when you answer your own questions.

But why would the school do that? Why create a system that hides mediocre students and then really fucks over a few idiots.

Harvard's goal is to make as many of their students employable as possible. If the trade off is "we'll scream bloody murder about how terrible the bottom few are, but otherwise you'd better assume these are upstanding students worth hiring" then that's worth it to them, I suppose.

Actually from what I've seen the system doesn't really hide mediocre students, because law firms aren't that stupid. They assume anyone who isn't a real standout is mediocre, so it just makes it harder for anyone but the very best to shine. That might actually be worse.

Desert Fox wrote:

vanwinkle wrote:

Desert Fox wrote:At that point why even have the LP. It's basically a "DON'T HIRE THIS PERSON" tag.

I love it when you answer your own questions.

But why would the school do that? Why create a system that hides mediocre students and then really fucks over a few idiots.

Isn't Harvard admissions kind of a grist mill? There have to be all sorts of duds that get through. It's sort of a mechanism that lets the law firms know that these guys didn't pass muster. The merely mediocre can push paper just like everyone else at these big firms. But Harvard has to protect its brand by marking the really bad eggs.

vanwinkle wrote:

Desert Fox wrote:

vanwinkle wrote:

Desert Fox wrote:At that point why even have the LP. It's basically a "DON'T HIRE THIS PERSON" tag.

I love it when you answer your own questions.

But why would the school do that? Why create a system that hides mediocre students and then really fucks over a few idiots.

Harvard's goal is to make as many of their students employable as possible. If the trade off is "we'll scream bloody murder about how terrible the bottom few are, but otherwise you'd better assume these are upstanding students worth hiring" then that's worth it to them, I suppose.

Actually from what I've seen the system doesn't really hide mediocre students, because law firms aren't that stupid. They assume anyone who isn't a real standout is mediocre, so it just makes it harder for anyone but the very best to shine. That might actually be worse.

Yea but I don't think labeling a couple people idiots will be of any befit to those at straight P's and it makes those other 5% unemployable.

Harvard should do what NU does. Create an egregiously inflated grade scale that nobody can figure out.

It looks like Harvards scale really does screw over the top of the class. If 37% are getting H's an awful lot of people must get nearly all H's for 1L. Getting all H's at Harvard compares to getting all A/A-'s and even some high end B+'s at northwestern. More than an insignificant number of people manage that.

ahduth wrote:

Desert Fox wrote:

vanwinkle wrote:

Desert Fox wrote:At that point why even have the LP. It's basically a "DON'T HIRE THIS PERSON" tag.

I love it when you answer your own questions.

But why would the school do that? Why create a system that hides mediocre students and then really fucks over a few idiots.

Isn't Harvard admissions kind of a grist mill? There have to be all sorts of duds that get through. It's sort of a mechanism that lets the law firms know that these guys didn't pass muster. The merely mediocre can push paper just like everyone else at these big firms. But Harvard has to protect its brand by marking the really bad eggs.

Yale and Stanford don't have to mark their bad eggs. Though maybe with the class size Harvard has to.

OP, TCR is that no one here knows.

It depends on the market you are trying for but, at Harvard at least, I have heard 1 LP can be kind of tricky come OCI time and more than 1 can be pretty toxic. I would imagine it is similar, but maybe not as severe, at Yale and Stanford b/c of their smaller class sizes. But, like people have said, there is no real way to know "bottom 10%" at any of the schools.

Bottom 10% at T6 is fucked.

Isn't it kinda weird that, no matter how brilliant a particular law class is, because of mandatory grading curves some of them have to be the "worst" and are thus practically unemployable?

Law school: Give us 150 thousand dollars. Remember, we have a policy of making sure 10 or 20 percent of the class is perceived as crap via our mandatory grading curve. Also, your classmates are all college educated, competitive, and reasonably intelligent.

Obviously this doesn't apply to the bare handful of law schools without mandatory grading curves and traditional grades.

Desert Fox wrote: Yea but I don't think labeling a couple people idiots will be of any befit to those at straight P's and it makes those other 5% unemployable.

Harvard should do what NU does. Create an egregiously inflated grade scale that nobody can figure out.

It looks like Harvards scale really does screw over the top of the class. If 37% are getting H's an awful lot of people must get nearly all H's for 1L. Getting all H's at Harvard compares to getting all A/A-'s and even some high end B+'s at northwestern. More than an insignificant number of people manage that.

imagine if they did not have discretionary LPs...worst someone could do is all Ps? there would be plenty of people who would not even try (or go to class) since you'd be indistinguishable from mediocre students anyways

now that LP is not mandatory, i always imagined it would be reserved for students who did really poorly on exams (i could be wrong, in which case, ouch!), to the extent that the professor believes they either 1) did not study or pay attention at all or 2) did not care at all

maybe they had an off day, iunno, but those always slip through the cracks

Veyron wrote:A good networker even in the bottom 10% can land mid or biglaw. Work on being personable and you'll be good.

Veyron wrote: Bottom 10% at T6 is fucked.

?

El_Gallo wrote:

Veyron wrote:A good networker even in the bottom 10% can land mid or biglaw. Work on being personable and you'll be good.

Veyron wrote: Bottom 10% at T6 is fucked.

?

Better to ignore Veyron than to try and figure out his retardation.