Explaining B Grade in Ethics
Posted: Sat Aug 24, 2013 4:55 pm
To give a little background: I am a part-time evening student at a top 50 law school. I just completed my first year with relatively decent success -- I wrote on to the flagship journal, I am on the moot court team, and I finished the first two semesters in the top 10%.
As a requirement to graduate on time, part-time students must take classes over one summer. I took two courses this summer, Ethics for 2 Credits and a condensed 3 credit doctrinal (we covered 28 classes worth of material in just 8 classes. Very intense.). Additionally, I managed a full-time job and drafting a law review comment over the summer. I received an A- in the three credit doctrinal but unfortunately I received a B in Ethics. I am very surprised, bummed, and upset with myself for letting this happen. I am reaching out to the professor, but after talking with other students I think I identified my potentially poor performance on a multiple choice portion of the exam. My near 3.7 gpa dropped to a 3.6. Though I finished 1L year in the top 10%, I would likely rank in the top 20% if the rankings were drawn again today.
How badly will this hurt my employment prospects? Legal ethics is a very basic course, and I honestly think I did poorly because I neglected to focus on it. I plan to apply to mid-sized firms for this summer, and depending on how I perform this coming year I hoped to do OCI and see where I can land in a bigger law-firm setting for summer 2015. Is this a recoverable fumble? Is it worth explaining the intense summer to an employer? Personally, I don't like such excuses that "I had too much going on." I am adult, I should manage my workload professionally. Am I wrong to think this? What strategies should I use to address this in interviews if it comes up?
Any non-troll advice is appreciated.
As a requirement to graduate on time, part-time students must take classes over one summer. I took two courses this summer, Ethics for 2 Credits and a condensed 3 credit doctrinal (we covered 28 classes worth of material in just 8 classes. Very intense.). Additionally, I managed a full-time job and drafting a law review comment over the summer. I received an A- in the three credit doctrinal but unfortunately I received a B in Ethics. I am very surprised, bummed, and upset with myself for letting this happen. I am reaching out to the professor, but after talking with other students I think I identified my potentially poor performance on a multiple choice portion of the exam. My near 3.7 gpa dropped to a 3.6. Though I finished 1L year in the top 10%, I would likely rank in the top 20% if the rankings were drawn again today.
How badly will this hurt my employment prospects? Legal ethics is a very basic course, and I honestly think I did poorly because I neglected to focus on it. I plan to apply to mid-sized firms for this summer, and depending on how I perform this coming year I hoped to do OCI and see where I can land in a bigger law-firm setting for summer 2015. Is this a recoverable fumble? Is it worth explaining the intense summer to an employer? Personally, I don't like such excuses that "I had too much going on." I am adult, I should manage my workload professionally. Am I wrong to think this? What strategies should I use to address this in interviews if it comes up?
Any non-troll advice is appreciated.