Top Law Schools

I failed 2 courses during my 2L year which caused me to curve out. After two years out, I will be a 1L again at the same school. According to the school's rules, my current GPA will not be affected by my past grades, but my past grades will remain on my transcript.

Hypothetically speaking, let's say I do extremely well 1L year and earn top grades. Will legal employers (during 1L, 2L, 3L summers, and post-graduation) overlook my past grades for my current top grades? In other words, how much will my past grades haunt me, assuming I earn top grades this time around?

Your responses will be greatly appreciated.

Anonymous User wrote:I failed 2 courses during my 2L year which caused me to curve out. After two years out, I will be a 1L again at the same school. According to the school's rules, my current GPA will not be affected by my past grades, but my past grades will remain on my transcript.

Hypothetically speaking, let's say I do extremely well 1L year and earn top grades. Will legal employers (during 1L, 2L, 3L summers, and post-graduation) overlook my past grades for my current top grades? In other words, how much will my past grades haunt me, assuming I earn top grades this time around?

Your responses will be greatly appreciated.

If I were you I don't know if I would go back to law school, unless this is truly something you want to do so bad that you are willing to risk a lot in many other parts of your life.

What school do you go to? If it's not a srong regional (read: the best school in your hiring market) or t-14 then getting a job will be hard even without your past grades. It's going to be very difficult to explain to firms you failed out.

Br3v wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:I failed 2 courses during my 2L year which caused me to curve out. After two years out, I will be a 1L again at the same school. According to the school's rules, my current GPA will not be affected by my past grades, but my past grades will remain on my transcript.

Hypothetically speaking, let's say I do extremely well 1L year and earn top grades. Will legal employers (during 1L, 2L, 3L summers, and post-graduation) overlook my past grades for my current top grades? In other words, how much will my past grades haunt me, assuming I earn top grades this time around?

Your responses will be greatly appreciated.

If I were you I don't know if I would go back to law school, unless this is truly something you want to do so bad that you are willing to risk a lot in many other parts of your life.

What school do you go to? If it's not a srong regional (read: the best school in your hiring market) or t-14 then getting a job will be hard even without your past grades. It's going to be very difficult to explain to firms you failed out.

Yeah, I'm convinced that a career in law is the career that I want.
The school I went to is neither a strong regional school or a t-14, instead, it is a lower tier school.

I see. With what you are saying, it truly sounds like the hill will be a steep incline from this point on.
Any advice on the climb ahead?

What is your existing debt load? Are you going to be fully debt-financing sticker for the next 3 years?

So to answer your direct question, any employer worth their salt is going to look at your transcript and see that this is the SECOND time you're going to be taking these 1L classes. Any improvements you take that get you to the top of your class (which is kinda BS, tbh) is going to be taken with a large grain of the aforementioned salt.

Are you debt financing this second go at law school? I'm guessing there's no way online letters can talk you out of going back at this point

Wait, is this a lifehack if you strike out at OCI? Just fail out so you can try again with a new GPA, like the "adding a year with a joint degree" thing?

Please please please consider dropping out. At least from your current school.

Ultimately the decision is yours, but if you think the law is really for you, drop out --> work for a few years --> retake the lsat --> go to a better school and try it again. Have to distance yourself from these grades (and the low ranked school).

Honestly, I would guess your only options are going to be employers who wouldn't care about your grades anyway. You're setting yourself up for a real struggle. I hope you have a good story for what went wrong and how you fixed it, at a minimum.

dixiecupdrinking wrote:Honestly, I would guess your only options are going to be employers who wouldn't care about your grades anyway.

To be honest, from a lower-ranked school, that was likely to be the case anyway. I feel like I'm channeling Johann, but I think what you need to do is network and get as much experience as you can. You're likely looking at small firms or local government kinds of jobs where experience and knowing people matters more than grades. (Starting over may still be a black mark, but less so if the employer doesn't care about grades.

Monochromatic Oeuvre wrote:Wait, is this a lifehack if you strike out at OCI? Just fail out so you can try again with a new GPA, like the "adding a year with a joint degree" thing?

At schools that fail people in their 2L year, OCI isn't really a thing. And employers that hire through OCI will likely reject someone who failed out anyway, no matter what their new GPA is.