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In my 1L cover letters I always started with "I'm a first year student at XYZ and in the top P% in my class". Now that I'll be a transfer student, how would you approach that. I'm clearly going to lead with my new school, but should I mention the name of the 1L school at all? Or just say "At my previous school I was top P% in my class". Obviously they are going to get this info from my resume, I was just wondering how everyone else was handling it since I'm in between career service offices right now

samiseaborn wrote:In my 1L cover letters I always started with "I'm a first year student at XYZ and in the top P% in my class". Now that I'll be a transfer student, how would you approach that. I'm clearly going to lead with my new school, but should I mention the name of the 1L school at all? Or just say "At my previous school I was top P% in my class". Obviously they are going to get this info from my resume, I was just wondering how everyone else was handling it since I'm in between career service offices right now

I didn't - I would save it for the resume. I'll venture to guess that cover letters don't get as much lovin' as the resume, anyways.

I started off saying that I'm a 2L at my new school. Then I talked about their firm and why I want to practice there. Then I talked about my law school performance at my old school, and how my success enabled me to transfer. I think that putting it in a later paragraph, while saying that you did an amazing job at your old school, is a good way to approach it. I'm not sure about all out skipping it. You can turn something questionable into something great with just the right approach in your cover letter, instead of letting them interpret your resume.

Oh I never thought about using it as a positive to show 1L performance. That sounds pretty good. I had tried saying I was a "2L transfer at X school" but it just sounded awkward and I figured if they only bothered to read my opening paragraph it might put a firm off quicker.