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So, I felt pretty good going into exams and unfortunately on the morning of my first exam I found out that a close family friend was diagnosed with aggressive cancer. This completely threw me off of my game for that exam and studying for the exams to follow. Because of the distraction of the bad news, I didn't perform as well as expected on some of my exams, and ended up with about a 3.19 overall GPA.

Do you think its appropriate to tell employers about this during job interviews? I didn't end up with any Cs or anything like that, but I know I would've performed better if not for the distraction.

This happened to me. My grandfather died right before my 1L fall exams, and my fiance's mother died during exams. My GPA wasn't great.

But there's no benefit to mentioning it. Just do better. I did, ended up with fed honors as a result.

as an OCI interviewer, i'd recommend that you never lead with the excuse. it's just not a good look.

however, i once interviewed a student with a pretty ingenious method. the student put something very unique in the interest section of their resume. (i'm sure they were asked about it in many, many interviews.) and, when prompted by questions about the interest, the student was able to tell a relevant story that, essentially, provided an excuse for their lower-than-desired first semester GPA. if too transparent, i'm sure this could come off terribly. but, in this case, we thought it was either (a) pretty genuine, or (b) a really slick way of getting the information out there. either way, it was a net positive for the candidate.

btw - at least for 2L OCI, if you're gonna make excuses or do something like the above, you'd damn sure better improve your GPA in your 2nd 1L semester.