Rising 3L, good 1L grades, ok 2L grades, no job, advice? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Hi, first post on the site so sorry if I break any rules/etiquette. Also sorry for length but I have a somewhat complicated problem with lots of specifics that I think are relevant.

I attend a lower ranked t14. I got quite good grades 1L fall semester (comfortably top 15%), which dropped to comfortably top 30% at the end of 1L. Despite my good first semester grades, I didn't really have much luck finding any 1L summer jobs, although I got interviews for 1L SAs and seemed to get pretty close with some of them, in the end, I struggled to find even a decent unpaid internship and ended up doing a fairly unprestigious job my 1L summer. I ended up striking out at OCI, even at firms who apparently take people from my school with far lower GPA's than mine. (Struck out hard - 0 callbacks).

OCI strikeout was tough, but since I was top 30% at a t14 I still felt optimistic. Did some massmailing once I realized I had struckout (I know too late), then spent 2L applying to every job I found that I was interested in. However, my prior optimism has been dashed by two things 1) pretty large grade drop 2nd semester 2L, 2) I ended up in the same situation as 1L summer, not even a decent unpaid internship, and am now doing the SAME unprestigious job I did 1L summer (PM me and I can say it, just worried about outing myself since I've put a lot of specifics).

What advice do people have for my 3L job search? Has anyone been in a similar situation? My job search went terribly when I had good stats, and now that I have a grade drop and am doing a job that it does not look good to be doing twice, I'm feeling pretty despondent about my prospects. I've always heard 2L grades don't matter, but I feel like good 2L grades don't matter, while poor 2L grades may give a bad impression. My 2L grades weren't objectively terrible, Bs and B+s. Will a downward trend mitigate the decent 1L grades I was banking on?

Other relevant stats, K-JD, basically no w/e, "useless" B.A. at a state school, URM, most people consider me very attractive looking, not great social skills.

[Anonymous User]

Hi, first post on the site so sorry if I break any rules/etiquette. Also sorry for length but I have a somewhat complicated problem with lots of specifics that I think are relevant.

I attend a lower ranked t14. I got quite good grades 1L fall semester (comfortably top 15%), which dropped to comfortably top 30% at the end of 1L. Despite my good first semester grades, I didn't really have much luck finding any 1L summer jobs, although I got interviews for 1L SAs and seemed to get pretty close with some of them, in the end, I struggled to find even a decent unpaid internship and ended up doing a fairly unprestigious job my 1L summer. I ended up striking out at OCI, even at firms who apparently take people from my school with far lower GPA's than mine. (Struck out hard - 0 callbacks).

OCI strikeout was tough, but since I was top 30% at a t14 I still felt optimistic. Did some massmailing once I realized I had struckout (I know too late), then spent 2L applying to every job I found that I was interested in. However, my prior optimism has been dashed by two things 1) pretty large grade drop 2nd semester 2L, 2) I ended up in the same situation as 1L summer, not even a decent unpaid internship, and am now doing the SAME unprestigious job I did 1L summer (PM me and I can say it, just worried about outing myself since I've put a lot of specifics).

What advice do people have for my 3L job search? Has anyone been in a similar situation? My job search went terribly when I had good stats, and now that I have a grade drop and am doing a job that it does not look good to be doing twice, I'm feeling pretty despondent about my prospects. I've always heard 2L grades don't matter, but I feel like good 2L grades don't matter, while poor 2L grades may give a bad impression. My 2L grades weren't objectively terrible, Bs and B+s. Will a downward trend mitigate the decent 1L grades I was banking on?

Other relevant stats, K-JD, basically no w/e, "useless" B.A. at a state school, URM, most people consider me very attractive looking, not great social skills.

You're not in as bad of a shape as you think you're in. You need to do a couple externships during your last year (e.g. judicial externship with a fed judge; big fed like SEC, DOJ--especially if you're at GULC; firm, etc.) and you need to take some bs courses that will boost your grades. If you can graduate cum laude, you'll be fine, at the very least you should focus on being comfortably above median. Finally, you need to brush up on your interviewing skills and start networking. The fact that you struck out at OCI with those grades suggest either you had a poor bid list or bad interviewing skills. Def. do some mock interviews with an OCS counselor.

Try to get a nice externship by August, then start massmailing (NY and any other place you have ties) for entry level positions with the externship on your resume. Grades will be important, stack up on units and take some bs courses if you have to. I was in your exact situation as a rising 3L except with a bottom 40% grades, but I stacked up on units and crushed my first semester of 3L (and second semester) and got a couple interviews during spring semester, including a V5. I would also suggest you specialize in something you might be passionate about. The job search will be easier if you've focused your coursework/internships on a specialized area of the law, e.g., tax/IP/derivatives, etc. Good luck, you'll be fine.

[Anonymous User]

I'm in the same boat. Decent 1L grades, bad 2L grades, except this

most people consider me very attractive looking

[Anonymous User]

Hi, first post on the site so sorry if I break any rules/etiquette. Also sorry for length but I have a somewhat complicated problem with lots of specifics that I think are relevant.

I attend a lower ranked t14. I got quite good grades 1L fall semester (comfortably top 15%), which dropped to comfortably top 30% at the end of 1L. Despite my good first semester grades, I didn't really have much luck finding any 1L summer jobs, although I got interviews for 1L SAs and seemed to get pretty close with some of them, in the end, I struggled to find even a decent unpaid internship and ended up doing a fairly unprestigious job my 1L summer. I ended up striking out at OCI, even at firms who apparently take people from my school with far lower GPA's than mine. (Struck out hard - 0 callbacks).

OCI strikeout was tough, but since I was top 30% at a t14 I still felt optimistic. Did some massmailing once I realized I had struckout (I know too late), then spent 2L applying to every job I found that I was interested in. However, my prior optimism has been dashed by two things 1) pretty large grade drop 2nd semester 2L, 2) I ended up in the same situation as 1L summer, not even a decent unpaid internship, and am now doing the SAME unprestigious job I did 1L summer (PM me and I can say it, just worried about outing myself since I've put a lot of specifics).

What advice do people have for my 3L job search? Has anyone been in a similar situation? My job search went terribly when I had good stats, and now that I have a grade drop and am doing a job that it does not look good to be doing twice, I'm feeling pretty despondent about my prospects. I've always heard 2L grades don't matter, but I feel like good 2L grades don't matter, while poor 2L grades may give a bad impression. My 2L grades weren't objectively terrible, Bs and B+s. Will a downward trend mitigate the decent 1L grades I was banking on?

Other relevant stats, K-JD, basically no w/e, "useless" B.A. at a state school, URM, most people consider me very attractive looking, not great social skills.

You're not in as bad of a shape as you think you're in. You need to do a couple externships during your last year (e.g. judicial externship with a fed judge; big fed like SEC, DOJ--especially if you're at GULC; firm, etc.) and you need to take some bs courses that will boost your grades. If you can graduate cum laude, you'll be fine, at the very least you should focus on being comfortably above median. Finally, you need to brush up on your interviewing skills and start networking. The fact that you struck out at OCI with those grades suggest either you had a poor bid list or bad interviewing skills. Def. do some mock interviews with an OCS counselor.

Try to get a nice externship by August, then start massmailing (NY and any other place you have ties) for entry level positions with the externship on your resume. Grades will be important, stack up on units and take some bs courses if you have to. I was in your exact situation as a rising 3L except with a bottom 40% grades, but I stacked up on units and crushed my first semester of 3L (and second semester) and got a couple interviews during spring semester, including a V5. I would also suggest you specialize in something you might be passionate about. The job search will be easier if you've focused your coursework/internships on a specialized area of the law, e.g., tax/IP/derivatives, etc. Good luck, you'll be fine.

Thanks, I definitely had a poor bid list (only got six oci screeners), and am not that great at interviewing, though I did get turned down from even some interviews that went great. I did actually specialize in something I'm really interested in though, and I kind of thought thats what hurt me. I didn't focus on something as practical as tax/IP, ... I'm really interested in white collar defense and investigations. I definitely told firms that (but that I was interested in trying other things), maybe they werent looking to hire in that area, or maybe that area is just more competitive.