Academic Dishonesty 5 years ago at time of app Forum

[smlawschoolhopeful]

Hello, I'll be applying this upcoming cycle. My stats are a 3.94 GPA and a 176 LSAT. Softs pretty good as I used to be premed and was very involved on campus and with research.

Near the beginning of my sophomore year, in organic chemistry lab, I let my lab mate copy a hw question for one of our lab reports. I had a pretty distinctly wrong answer and my lab mate had the same wrong answer. I later received a 0 for this assignment once the professor determined that we were working together.

Basically, my question is, how does this affect my chances at a t14 law school? I've worked pretty hard for my stats, and there's been five years since this incident, so I'm just hoping that this singular lapse of judgement on my part won't affect my chances much.

Thoughts? Thank you in advance!

[CanadianWolf]

Just disclose this on your applications and let each school decide.

Reactions may vary by admissions officer/committee.

[smlawschoolhopeful]

Do you think t14 is out of the question tho?

[smlawschoolhopeful]

Are t14 law schools out of the question? Also will this record affect job prospects in biglaw firms later down the road or will they not be able to know?

[cavalier1138]

Are t14 law schools out of the question?

Probably not. Academic misconduct isn't good, but this is a single minor incident from 5 years ago. I doubt it's an app-killer anywhere.

Also will this record affect job prospects in biglaw firms later down the road or will they not be able to know?

Firms generally don't ask about this stuff. It will come up in your bar application, but I've never heard of a firm asking for disclosure of non-law-school academic incidents.

[CanadianWolf]

Are t14 law schools out of the question? Also will this record affect job prospects in biglaw firms later down the road or will they not be able to know?

There is no universal answer to your question.

Each school will make its own decision and, as pointed out above, employers may not even inquire about such a minor transgression.

What's done is done. Stop beating yourself up about this.