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I accidentally sent a biglaw firm the wrong transcript. My overbearing parents had also asked to see my grades and I had changed two grades (nothing major) on my unofficial transcript and then scanned it and saved it to my computer and sent it to them so that they wouldn't freak out about a B-. I then accidentally used THAT file and sent it to the firm when they asked for a transcript. I haven't accepted yet. Is there anything I can tell them at this point to salvage the situation? Should I even explain or will that make it look worse? Is my only option to have to decline the offer? Obviously they will find out about the wrong transcript as soon as I accept and they get my official transcript from the school.

I would just withdraw from consideration, unless you want to just fess up right now and see what happens. Either way, telling them now or later that you forged your transcript for whatever reason is likely going to cause you to lose the job.

That sucks. Hope you have another offer from a different firm you can accept because this is not looking good.

And sending the "wrong" transcript is not an accurate title to the thread. You sent a "fake" transcript.

Wtf. Don't tell the law firm why the transcript is wrong, because it makes you and your parents look like psychos. Just email them immediately with the correct transcript, inform them that the previous one contained errors and that this is the right transcript. It sounds like you already have an offer. If you already had an offer based on your real GPA then you might be able to salvage it.

Overbearing parents because they asked to see your grades? You altered your grades? Tsk tsk.

Ludovico Technique wrote:Wtf. Don't tell the law firm why the transcript is wrong, because it makes you and your parents look like psychos. Just email them immediately with the correct transcript, inform them that the previous one contained errors and that this is the right transcript. It sounds like you already have an offer. If you already had an offer based on your real GPA then you might be able to salvage it.

It sounds like they possibly made the offer based upon the fudged transcript.

Yeah, I'm assuming you just filled out a spreadsheet with your grades and didn't doctor an "official" transcript or an unofficial one that clearly looks like it was produced by the school (like a degree progress report.) If it's a self-created spreadsheet and your offer was based on your real GPA (like, your real GPA was on your resume and they only asked for the transcript AFTER making you the offer) then tell them you made a mistake on the transcript you sent. If this transcript influenced their decision, I'd withdraw but you could also just apologize and come clean, hoping it won't lead to a rescinded offer.

Of course, if you just altered an official looking document, like a degree progress report, then I'd withdraw because there's no way you could explain around that in any way that would make any sense.

If the offer was made based on the forged transcript then you're fucked and you should just decline immediately and hope there are no further repercussions

blurbz wrote:Yeah, I'm assuming you just filled out a spreadsheet with your grades and didn't doctor an "official" transcript or an unofficial one that clearly looks like it was produced by the school (like a degree progress report.) If it's a self-created spreadsheet and your offer was based on your real GPA (like, your real GPA was on your resume and they only asked for the transcript AFTER making you the offer) then tell them you made a mistake on the transcript you sent. If this transcript influenced their decision, I'd withdraw but you could also just apologize and come clean, hoping it won't lead to a rescinded offer.

Of course, if you just altered an official looking document, like a degree progress report, then I'd withdraw because there's no way you could explain around that in any way that would make any sense.

I read it differently. I read it that OP turned some B-s into B+s with a nice vertical line or at least Bs with some white-out. Most transcripts have some sort of "quality points" though to actually figure the GPA, so I am wondering how OP altered those so that the numbers matched the value of the grades. Still profoundly stupid. Just withdraw.

And stop blaming your parents, though they clearly didn't raise you right.

Nah I think the parents are to blame too. What kind of parents ask to see their kids law school transcript.

I would do the honorable thing and withdraw from the position

LawIdiot86 wrote:

blurbz wrote:Yeah, I'm assuming you just filled out a spreadsheet with your grades and didn't doctor an "official" transcript or an unofficial one that clearly looks like it was produced by the school (like a degree progress report.) If it's a self-created spreadsheet and your offer was based on your real GPA (like, your real GPA was on your resume and they only asked for the transcript AFTER making you the offer) then tell them you made a mistake on the transcript you sent. If this transcript influenced their decision, I'd withdraw but you could also just apologize and come clean, hoping it won't lead to a rescinded offer.

Of course, if you just altered an official looking document, like a degree progress report, then I'd withdraw because there's no way you could explain around that in any way that would make any sense.

I read it differently. I read it that OP turned some B-s into B+s with a nice vertical line or at least Bs with some white-out. Most transcripts have some sort of "quality points" though to actually figure the GPA, so I am wondering how OP altered those so that the numbers matched the value of the grades. Still profoundly stupid. Just withdraw.

Yeah, I think he either photo-shopped a real document or created his own. Creating his own isn't necessarily a problem: We get a transcript template at my school that we just fill in ourselves with info from our transcripts and send that to firms. My firm has not yet asked for an official one from the school.

Either way, if the firm relied on the fake transcript to make the offer, I think you should withdraw.

Depending on the facts, this could be more serious than you think. Several years ago an applicant's firm went to the bar over a misleading resume. The applicant said he was # 2 in his class. He was # 2 at a lower tier school but transferred and did not clarify that this ranking was at that school and not his new school. When it was discovered, the Biglaw firm fired him and got the bar authorities to ban him from taking the bar for several years.

Ludovico Technique wrote:Nah I think the parents are to blame too. What kind of parents ask to see their kids law school transcript.

I agree. (Unless OP's parents are footing part/all of the law school tuition; then I could see why it's not as strange of a request.)

All they did was ask. Maybe they are paying. Curious. Supportive. I don't know. Clearly they didn't do a great job if the response is to forge a document. My parents ask me about my grades among other things.

emptyflare wrote:

Ludovico Technique wrote:Nah I think the parents are to blame too. What kind of parents ask to see their kids law school transcript.

I agree. (Unless OP's parents are footing part/all of the law school tuition; then I could see why it's not as strange of a request.)

Maybe they have good reason to believe he'd lie to them if they don't see the proof...

Anonymous User wrote:All they did was ask. Maybe they are paying. Curious. Supportive. I don't know. Clearly they didn't do a great job if the response is to forge a document. My parents ask me about my grades among other things.

My parents ask about grades, too, but they've never once requested a transcript.

Anonymous User wrote:All they did was ask. Maybe they are paying. Curious. Supportive. I don't know. Clearly they didn't do a great job if the response is to forge a document. My parents ask me about my grades among other things.

My parents ask like normal parents 'how'd you do?' and I say fine. They don't say, hey grades are out when we can be expecting a transcript from you. Even if they were paying for it, that's unacceptable.

Ludovico Technique wrote:Nah I think the parents are to blame too. What kind of parents ask to see their kids law school transcript.

Parents who clearly don't trust their kid because he's lied to them too many times in the past and are probably providing support to the kid and want to make sure he's not just f'ing around.

OP- just withdraw; if you give them a replacement, they can compare the two and notice that at best, you were deceptive and at worst, you committed fraud. No point risking it.

Ludovico Technique wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:All they did was ask. Maybe they are paying. Curious. Supportive. I don't know. Clearly they didn't do a great job if the response is to forge a document. My parents ask me about my grades among other things.

My parents ask like normal parents 'how'd you do?' and I say fine. They don't say, hey grades are out when we can be expecting a transcript from you. Even if they were paying for it, that's unacceptable.

I had a friend in HS who changed his transcripts when he showed his parents. When they started to pay for his college, they demanded that he send them transcripts directly from the school and I can't blame them one bit. If he's telling you he's getting As when he actually is getting Fs, you have a right to know.

In this case, OP was stupid to go from a B- to a B+ because it's a small difference but I can still see why the parents would ask.

I wouldn't have paid for my kid to go to law school if I had to worry about his grades so much that I needed to demand a transcript. If I was still maintaining that much control over my kids life when they were 21+ I would feel like a huge failure as a parent

Ludovico Technique wrote:I wouldn't have paid for my kid to go to law school if I had to worry about his grades so much that I needed to demand a transcript. If I was still maintaining that much control over my kids life when they were 21+ I would feel like a huge failure as a parent

Dude, nobody cares what you think about OP's parents, he's fucked enough as is without you criticizing the relationship he has with his parents.

zozin wrote:

Ludovico Technique wrote:I wouldn't have paid for my kid to go to law school if I had to worry about his grades so much that I needed to demand a transcript. If I was still maintaining that much control over my kids life when they were 21+ I would feel like a huge failure as a parent

Dude, nobody cares what you think about OP's parents, he's fucked enough as is without you criticizing the relationship he has with his parents.

The relationship with his parents is part of the problem. Maybe he could avoid future fuck ups like this if he wasn't forging his report cards to avoid getting grounded

Was the GPA on your resume correct? Because if it was you could plausibly deny that this was intentional (who would fake a transcript with a GPA higher than what you put on your resume).

Is this for 1L or 2L summer? If 1L, then just decline and hope nobody ever notices. 20 grand ain't worth getting C&F pwnd.