Impact of grad school transcript on law school applications Forum

[reup999]

Hello,

I am currently in my first quarter of grad school and I am finding myself less and less interested in my field of study. I have often considered law school, but haven't applied because I wasn't sure if that was the career path I wanted to go down. However, after working in my grad program, I feel like working as a lawyer or in the legal field is something I am more interested in and have a genuine passion for. With that said, will me dropping out look bad on a law school application in the future?

For reference, I majored in economics in undergrad and had a 3.7 gpa. However, I am now in a much more STEM focused economics grad program, and I am passing, but only with a 3.0 gpa so far. I still like econ, but the courses in my program are very coding and stats intensive. They don't feel like what I did in undergrad, and I am struggling since I never had to take any computer science type courses in undergrad.

I have thought about dropping out and earning my paralegal certificate in order to get some legal experience and maybe some good letters of recommendation. If I like it, I think I would want to pursue law school after a couple years on the job. Would this help offset my less than stellar grad school transcript, or is it something I shouldn't worry so much about in the first place?

Thanks for any help/advice on this subject!

[crazywafflez]

Hello,

I am currently in my first quarter of grad school and I am finding myself less and less interested in my field of study. I have often considered law school, but haven't applied because I wasn't sure if that was the career path I wanted to go down. However, after working in my grad program, I feel like working as a lawyer or in the legal field is something I am more interested in and have a genuine passion for. With that said, will me dropping out look bad on a law school application in the future?

For reference, I majored in economics in undergrad and had a 3.7 gpa. However, I am now in a much more STEM focused economics grad program, and I am passing, but only with a 3.0 gpa so far. I still like econ, but the courses in my program are very coding and stats intensive. They don't feel like what I did in undergrad, and I am struggling since I never had to take any computer science type courses in undergrad.

I have thought about dropping out and earning my paralegal certificate in order to get some legal experience and maybe some good letters of recommendation. If I like it, I think I would want to pursue law school after a couple years on the job. Would this help offset my less than stellar grad school transcript, or is it something I shouldn't worry so much about in the first place?

Thanks for any help/advice on this subject!

A few things:
1) No, law school won't care at all about your grad GPA or that you dropped- especially if you take a year or two off in between.
2) Paralegals don't do what lawyers do. At least not at my firm? Maybe they do in NYC or biglaw firms- somebody else will need to pipe in on that front. I think one of the best ways to see if you'd like law is ask a lawyer if you can shadow them. There are also huge differences between transactional and litigation work.
3) I'm a litigator. I spend my time (a) researching using our google like program to search court cases to see legal rulings; (b) writing motions that are mostly boiler plate but enter facts for a specific case; (c) occasionally discussing with clients "strategies"; (d) combing discovery.
My friends in transactional do combing of docs and mostly use boiler plate language for operating agreements etc. but probs talk to clients more often than I do. And their clients actually look forward to talking to them, hah.

[Saami]

2) Paralegals don't do what lawyers do. At least not at my firm? Maybe they do in NYC or biglaw firms- somebody else will need to pipe in on that front. I think one of the best ways to see if you'd like law is ask a lawyer if you can shadow them. There are also huge differences between transactional and litigation work.

Definitely depends on where you're working. I was a paralegal in the federal government and we definitely did work that attorneys do, such as document review and writing memos addressing legal questions. But, I chalk that up to budget constraints.