Advice needed? Forum

[feministmystique91]

I am going through the worst time of my life right now. I was permanently dismissed from a Tier 1 school. It is in the top 20. I passed most of my classes in 1l year except Property. A technical error occurred and threw off my timing. It did not do excellent. I mainly got Bs. In the spring, when Covid started, classes were graded on a pass-fail basis. I passed many credits. I failed one. During the summer of 1L year, I had severe issues that led to mental health problems. I have genetic depression that runs in my family. The 2L year was a mess. I withdrew from many classes and still managed to flunk a few. I was academically dismissed for the following fall. I came back during the spring and got a 3.1 for that semester. I was permitted to take three classes. Thus, I felt it might be a good idea to take three instead of four classes again. This time I could not get a letter from my doctor on time. Thus I was dismissed for noncompliance with the rules. To get reinstated, I had to show that I could comply with the regulations, and also I needed a 3.6 with three classes or 3.45 with four classes. Thus I hired a tutor and enrolled in therapy. The school stated I had not had enough time with them. I was let go halfway through the fall semester, and it took me one month to find counseling.
My school has a five-year timeline to finish the JD degree. I have completed 44 credits successfully. But at this point, I could not have completed my JD in the required fashion.

I would like to add I have suffered from depression before. When I first started college, I failed badly due to trauma from racist high school bullying. I went back to community college and then transferred to good public universities and got mostly As and Bs. I studied political science during both of my attempts at college, so it was not that the subject matter was too difficult for me. It was the difference in my mental health.

Also, as a community college graduate, I was competing against people who did their undergrads at Harvard and Princeton in law school. Even during my second attempt at college first, I got mostly low Bs. Then two As and 2 B+ and continued to make progress that way. I felt I would have continued to make progress in law school had mental health not come my way.

I want to know if there is any path forward. I applying to law schools right now because I still really would like to do litigation. I have a 166 LSAT score.

[crazywafflez]

I am going through the worst time of my life right now. I was permanently dismissed from a Tier 1 school. It is in the top 20. I passed most of my classes in 1l year except Property. A technical error occurred and threw off my timing. It did not do excellent. I mainly got Bs. In the spring, when Covid started, classes were graded on a pass-fail basis. I passed many credits. I failed one. During the summer of 1L year, I had severe issues that led to mental health problems. I have genetic depression that runs in my family. The 2L year was a mess. I withdrew from many classes and still managed to flunk a few. I was academically dismissed for the following fall. I came back during the spring and got a 3.1 for that semester. I was permitted to take three classes. Thus, I felt it might be a good idea to take three instead of four classes again. This time I could not get a letter from my doctor on time. Thus I was dismissed for noncompliance with the rules. To get reinstated, I had to show that I could comply with the regulations, and also I needed a 3.6 with three classes or 3.45 with four classes. Thus I hired a tutor and enrolled in therapy. The school stated I had not had enough time with them. I was let go halfway through the fall semester, and it took me one month to find counseling.
My school has a five-year timeline to finish the JD degree. I have completed 44 credits successfully. But at this point, I could not have completed my JD in the required fashion.

I would like to add I have suffered from depression before. When I first started college, I failed badly due to trauma from racist high school bullying. I went back to community college and then transferred to good public universities and got mostly As and Bs. I studied political science during both of my attempts at college, so it was not that the subject matter was too difficult for me. It was the difference in my mental health.

Also, as a community college graduate, I was competing against people who did their undergrads at Harvard and Princeton in law school. Even during my second attempt at college first, I got mostly low Bs. Then two As and 2 B+ and continued to make progress that way. I felt I would have continued to make progress in law school had mental health not come my way.

I want to know if there is any path forward. I applying to law schools right now because I still really would like to do litigation. I have a 166 LSAT score.

1) Make sure your mental health is okay. Before pursuing anything, just make sure you are doing okay. I'm sorry that this has unfolded on you and that you have been struggling, but prior to doing other parts, make sure you've got this.
2) As far as moving forward wit your current school, I'd make talk to an education/ disability attorney. I'm not sure you'll get enough good concrete advice from folks here and I'd consider reaching out.
3) Reach out to your school again and see what else could possbily be done to help keep you there, if that's what you desire.
4) I'm guessing you've already done number 3, I'd maybe reach out to some folks at LSAC or another law school or potentially even your school and see about starting a JD over. Idk if that's possible, but you could potentially try and show you've got depression etc under control.
5) You don't have to be a lawyer; there are plenty of other careers, and less stressful ones as well. Many of which are lucrative. Law school is stressful, the Bar is extremely stressful, and practice in stressful. It is not a profession for everyone- some of the most brilliant people I met from my class actually left during law school or right after and did consulting or PI work with organizations that could potentialyl more effectively help more folks.

I wish you the best of luck and hope everything works out.

[Access]

OP I feel bad for you, it sounds like you've been through a lot. But I'm also not sure this career is a good fit for you. The legal field is very stressful, demands strong attention to detail and good writing skills. From your post I think this might be challenging for you.

[cavalier1138]

Maybe let's not hijack threads addressing serious mental health issues with unhinged odes to Elon Musk and psychedelics.

I'm not interested in hearing any kind of "debate" about why it was very valuable to be an overt dick to the OP or to post flagrantly ridiculous things about just doing mushrooms. Find a different hobby (take up knitting, troll an off-topic thread in the Lounge, I don't give a fuck), because this is deplorably childish.