Avoid Practice Area Due to Bad Grades? Forum

[Anonymous User]

So i'm going to a vault firm in NYC this summer. At OCI I pitched corporate, have always had the goal of doing corporate work, and can't imagine doing litigation (I hate it, have experience with it from before law school).

Problem is, ALL of my worst grades are in transactional-focused classes. In Contracts 1L year I got my worst grade (lowest in the class). I chalked it up to just a terrible test-day, and so I signed up for Secured Transactions and Contract Drafting for my next semester. Two B-'s. For some reason I can't seem to do well in transactional focused classes, even though I'm capable of doing well in law school in general (I have a bunch of A's and A-'s).

So my question is, would I be stupid to focus and gun for corporate at my firm this summer, given that I can't seem to do well in the subject? Or is my performance in the classes a separate beast than succeeding in that department?

[stillwater]

im going to go out on a limb here and say transactional practice is not like these "transactional" classes you are taking. so it may not be reflective at all.

[thesealocust]

Definitely avoid corporate. I practice corporate law and every day I'm applying Hadley v. Baxendale, thinking about the battle of the forms, or analyzing the business judgement rule as it applies to an offering of securities.

Without the invaluable skills I learned from law professors who never practiced law (as evidenced by my grade on a single exam) there is no way I could be as effective at swapping signature pages, reviewing printer proofs or using Microsoft Word's 'find and replace' feature.

[stillwater]

Definitely avoid corporate. I practice corporate law and every day I'm applying Hadley v. Baxendale, thinking about the battle of the forms, or analyzing the business judgement rule as it applies to an offering of securities.

Without the invaluable skills I learned from law professors who never practiced law (as evidenced by my grade on a single exam) there is no way I could be as effective at swapping signature pages, reviewing printer proofs or using Microsoft Word's 'find and replace' feature.

i heard you are a rising star in the niche area of bigCRANKSHAFTlaw.

[brotherdarkness]

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[thesealocust]

Sorry, I can't hear you over all of the SEC filings I'm reviewing right now. Once I'm done I have a big 'ol stack of documents with thrilling legal challenges (such as changing "2013" to "2014" and "January" to "February") to tackle.

[Anonymous User]

Ok yea I get it, but I'm still nervous that my ability to get into that practice group might be hampered by these grades. I think corporate is one of the more popular practice groups at my firm, and they ask for transcripts so if it was overly subscribed I feel like this could hurt me.

But I guess i'll just try to do my best this summer and see what happens.

[gk101]

Ok yea I get it, but I'm still nervous that my ability to get into that practice group might be hampered by these grades. I think corporate is one of the more popular practice groups at my firm, and they ask for transcripts so if it was overly subscribed I feel like this could hurt me.

But I guess i'll just try to do my best this summer and see what happens.

People at your law firm know that law school grades in a particular exam based on a professor's subjective grading is not relevant at all to how you would perform in that practice group.

[thegrayman]

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[Anonymous User]

I've only heard of one instance of a firm equating a grade in a particular class with success in a field... And that was when S&C told me not to do real estate law because of my property grade.

[stillwater]

I've only heard of one instance of a firm equating a grade in a particular class with success in a field... And that was when S&C told me not to do real estate law because of my property grade.

i have to imagine this was tongue-in-cheek somehow.

esp. considering most biglaw shops in NYC only do the financing related to real estate and not "dirt law"

[09042014]

Most associates you talk to in an interview are just as clueless as law students about things outside their practice area.

[Pokemon]

I've only heard of one instance of a firm equating a grade in a particular class with success in a field... And that was when S&C told me not to do real estate law because of my property grade.

[Old Gregg]

My lowest grades in law school were in corporate-related classes (and they were pretty, pretty low)... and I'm a transactional lawyer.

It doesn't matter.