2L Grades Forum

[Anonymous User]

How bad would our 2L grades have to be to lose our summer position? Or do the firms actually not even care? I'm not going to slack, but am curious!

[Anonymous User]

Also interested in this.

And what happened to the search forums bar on this site?

[Frayed Knot]

The issue with grades drop is not so much your summer job as it is everything after that.

By that I mean that even a significant grade drop is unlikely to get your offer revoked. It probably wouldn't even be related to a no-offer (though, if you are no-offered for other reasons that the firm doesn't want to talk about, they might blame the grade drop.)

But that doesn't mean grades won't matter. BigLaw isn't the end of your career—you will want/need another job soon. (Just read any of DF last million threads on BL attrition. It's not as bad as he makes it sound, but odds are really good that you'll want out soon.) And when you leave, grades will still matter to your prospective employer.

[lhanvt13]

Also interested in this.

And what happened to the search forums bar on this site?

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... start=7475
I beat the dead horse.

[Pikappraider]

Yeah I've been taking the 2LOL to a major extreme. Have read less than 100 pages so far this semester and have attended about 1/3 of my classes. Still early but need to step it up a little

[AReasonableMan]

Firm specific. Gibson is infamous for caring. At most it'd depend on how horrible your work product is. If you write like a horse on crack cocaine, and get all B's then you may be in trouble.

[Pikappraider]

Firm specific. Gibson is infamous for caring. At most it'd depend on how horrible your work product is. If you write like a horse on crack cocaine, and get all B's then you may be in trouble.

I couldn't tell if the horse on crack was good or bad until the line about the Bs

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

People absolutely have gotten offers revoked for excessively shitty grades. Firms that are reported to care include GDC, CSM, S&C, and K&E. Not sure about anyone else but I'd bet the kind of people concerned about it are the ones that had high GPA cutoffs in the first place.

Doesn't mean you have to work as hard. Most people take it a little easier and the curve is usually more generous. As with most things in life, the right answer is probably somewhere in the middle. Read more than 100 pages in September (although I'm not doing all that much better so I shouldn't throw stones).

[AReasonableMan]

Think about why firms would have GPA cutoffs, and what might be a better measure of your work product and value than grades are.

[CaptainQuaker]

Also interested in this.

And what happened to the search forums bar on this site?

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... start=7475
I beat the dead horse.

Retarded. Yet another reason TLS is on the decline.

[Anonymous User]

And when you leave, grades will still matter to your prospective employer.

I've read otherwise and have completely 2LOL'd in response. Can someone else back this up if it's true? I thought substance of WE (biglaw years 1-x) matter and grades don't?

[wiz]

And when you leave, grades will still matter to your prospective employer.

I've read otherwise and have completely 2LOL'd in response. Can someone else back this up if it's true? I thought substance of WE (biglaw years 1-x) matter and grades don't?

Like all other things, it depends on the firm. I've heard places like GDC remain relatively grade-snobby for laterals, but it's true that as you spend more years in biglaw, the importance of grades tends to decrease while the importance of work experience increases.

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

And when you leave, grades will still matter to your prospective employer.

I've read otherwise and have completely 2LOL'd in response. Can someone else back this up if it's true? I thought substance of WE (biglaw years 1-x) matter and grades don't?

Like all other things, it depends on the firm. I've heard places like GDC remain relatively grade-snobby for laterals, but it's true that as you spend more years in biglaw, the importance of grades tends to decrease while the importance of work experience increases.

True story: GDC's DC office dinged a fourth-year lateral candidate with a SEVEN MILLION DOLLAR BOOK OF BUSINESS for grades.

[Frayed Knot]

And when you leave, grades will still matter to your prospective employer.

I've read otherwise and have completely 2LOL'd in response. Can someone else back this up if it's true? I thought substance of WE (biglaw years 1-x) matter and grades don't?

TLS has debated this subject a lot. Here's what thesealocust had to say (and I generally trust him).

It's easy to dismiss the argument "grades/Latin honors would be irrelevant in all cases" but it's also very true that your career is going to be built on reputation, connections, serendipity and skill substantially more than resume line items from here on out.

You'll never see a clear answer because a lot of people cling to grades like a life preserver in a sea of reality, and because somebody always knows a friend's brother's cousin who ran up against Gibson Dunn's Iron Clad GPA Wall of Not Hiring Below Ever after being a partner for 20 years and then a federal judge.

It's probably generally true that grades and resume line items will be more relevant if you're doing a buck-shot job search (i.e. using a head hunter, trying to get out to any other firm, trying to get to any firm in a new market, etc.) rather than if you're doing a more 'natural' career hop (moving inhouse to a client, following friends/colleagues, shifting to a regulatory in an industry you worked in, etc.)

I've also heard that government jobs (especially AUSA/BigFed) can be especially grade-conscious even years later. (Which matters more for lit exit ops.)

[rickgrimes69]

And when you leave, grades will still matter to your prospective employer.

I've read otherwise and have completely 2LOL'd in response. Can someone else back this up if it's true? I thought substance of WE (biglaw years 1-x) matter and grades don't?

Like all other things, it depends on the firm. I've heard places like GDC remain relatively grade-snobby for laterals, but it's true that as you spend more years in biglaw, the importance of grades tends to decrease while the importance of work experience increases.

True story: GDC's DC office dinged a fourth-year lateral candidate with a SEVEN MILLION DOLLAR BOOK OF BUSINESS for grades.

Source? I find this hard to believe

[Anonymous User]

Know several people at places like Simpson, Latham etc who don't care about grades after they give you a SA offer get absolutely fucked when they tried to lateral because they let their grades go down the drain 2L and 3L. I guess the question you have to ask your self is whether being a fuck up for the last two years of law school is worth the POTENTIAL career injury

[Anonymous User]

At my firm, 2L + 3L grades will never get you no offered, but can affect what groups are willing to work with you and what partners are willing to work with you. We see the transcripts of everyone whos indicated interest in our group and, welp, if we have a choice between the guy who got gentleman's Bs for the last 2 years and the guy who got As, its an easy call, especially since the ability to perform well on meaningless drudge work (i.e., 2L and 3L classes) correlates nicely with the ability to do good work as a junior associate.

I've also been given the transcript for every lateral I've interviewed. So there's that, too. Since I have no idea how good the work you did was during your 2.5 years at your old firm, grades are the only proxy I have for work quality. Different if you're not a stranger when we hire you, but then you can never change cities or practice areas.

No firm is stupid enough to no offer for grades because no firm can afford the marketing hit of a no offer rep. Don't confuse that with thinking it doesnt matter.

[rickgrimes69]

At my firm, 2L + 3L grades will never get you no offered, but can affect what groups are willing to work with you and what partners are willing to work with you. We see the transcripts of everyone whos indicated interest in our group and, welp, if we have a choice between the guy who got gentleman's Bs for the last 2 years and the guy who got As, its an easy call, especially since the ability to perform well on meaningless drudge work (i.e., 2L and 3L classes) correlates nicely with the ability to do good work as a junior associate.

I've also been given the transcript for every lateral I've interviewed. So there's that, too. Since I have no idea how good the work you did was during your 2.5 years at your old firm, grades are the only proxy I have for work quality. Different if you're not a stranger when we hire you, but then you can never change cities or practice areas.

Because it makes total sense to judge the quality of someone's professional work on the basis of their pre-graduation performance on arbitrary exams which often concern an irrelevant subject matter.

[mw115]

Can confirm that Feds love the grades.

[TooOld4This]

At my firm, 2L + 3L grades will never get you no offered, but can affect what groups are willing to work with you and what partners are willing to work with you. We see the transcripts of everyone whos indicated interest in our group and, welp, if we have a choice between the guy who got gentleman's Bs for the last 2 years and the guy who got As, its an easy call, especially since the ability to perform well on meaningless drudge work (i.e., 2L and 3L classes) correlates nicely with the ability to do good work as a junior associate.

I've also been given the transcript for every lateral I've interviewed. So there's that, too. Since I have no idea how good the work you did was during your 2.5 years at your old firm, grades are the only proxy I have for work quality. Different if you're not a stranger when we hire you, but then you can never change cities or practice areas.

Because it makes total sense to judge the quality of someone's professional work on the basis of their pre-graduation performance on arbitrary exams which often concern an irrelevant subject matter.

It's better than tossing resumes in the air and seeing which ones land face up on the desk. Resumes don't tell you much. You can weed out people who can't figure out how to check the box. But if I have 50 resumes that all claim they have experience with the XYZ issues I have flagged in the job posting, I'm going to look at your past performance to narrow down the list. The A 1L who drops to a B 2&3L will get circular filed pretty quickly.

Grades and school will always be available as a sorting mechanism. You have to be fairly far down your career path before you have either the experience or reputation to really distinguish yourself from the rest of the pack.

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

True story: GDC's DC office dinged a fourth-year lateral candidate with a SEVEN MILLION DOLLAR BOOK OF BUSINESS for grades.

Source? I find this hard to believe

I agree it sounds too nuts to believe, but heard it independently from two GDC DC sources, one directly. Doesn't foreclose the possibility something is lost in the game of telephone. My guess is the number is exaggerated (what the hell kind of fourth year brings in $7M anyway?) but the general gyst is correct.