Hi all,
I have a VERY unique situation and I was hoping to get some insight about it. I attended a law school (ranked mid 50s) in 2015-2016 but was dismissed for not meeting the GPA requirement ( I got below a 2.0). I was very unfocused rather than I could not understand the material. I took summer courses through a study abroad program at another school in 2016 because I did not know I was going to be dismissed d and got 2 B+s and a B- for it. I was dismissed by my school in 2016.
In 2017, I applied to transfer to a law school called Golden Gate and they accepted me and my credits from my first law school and the summer program. I enrolled and choose not to continue by unenrolling because I thought I would not get a good law job and it wasn't worth only getting a small scholarship.
Fast forward, I got an MBA from a school ranked in high 20s 2020-2022. I spoke with law schools now because I am considering going and schools are saying I can apply as a transfer and get credit for the courses I took in 2015-2016 but I am not sure how many they will take and if it would take longer than 2L and 3L to finish if I do not get credit for the classes I did not do well in.
My question is, say I get into the law school and I know the rankings of the school matters, would I have any shot at all at getting a summer associate position after 2L? I ask because if I transfer I wouldn't even have grades as the school will accept my credits but not my grades (outside grades/GPA doesn't carry over when you transfer). When I apply to summer associate positions, I would have no grades to show until I complete fall of 2L or send in my transcript from 2015-2016 which is of course a horrible decision as it will show my dismissal.
I ask because I would not want my law school experience to be a bad experience and then I don't even graduate with a good job. Just something I wanted to address.
Would I be able to land a summer associate role if I return to law school as a 2L? Very unique situation. Forum
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affectionate_toe3722
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gingermilkman
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Re: Would I be able to land a summer associate role if I return to law school as a 2L? Very unique situation.
I do feel like you are a few steps ahead of yourself here. If you want to get a biglaw summer associate position, your are going to need to transfer to a top law school. You need excellent grades to transfer to a top law school, but here you have such poor grades you were actually academically dismissed. It seems incredibly unlikely that you would be able to transfer to a t-14 law school. I feel like going to Ohio State (or equivalent) for an MBA would not move the needle that much.
If you transfer to a lower tier school there is no way you would get a 2L summer position because big firms only hire at those schools for students with top grades and you would not have grades (or have very poor grades if you submit your previous transcript). Now there are other types of positions you could get from those schools, especially post graduation, that you may find worthwhile, but that is something you would need to determine before attending.
If you did somehow land yourself at a T-14 as a transfer it would still be a tough sell to say "I haven't been in law school in 10 years and I have no grades because I transferred from a school were I was academically dismissed but you should take a chance on me because X school did." You might have a fighting chance, especially if your at like Harvard and you apply to everywhere, but it would not be a guarantee.
You would be far better off if you could convince a school to ignore your past credits and treat you as a 1L. That way you would have a chance to do OCI normally, you would have 1L grades, and there would be no need to even bring up that you were academically dismissed somewhere else. But I don't know if that is an option.
If you transfer to a lower tier school there is no way you would get a 2L summer position because big firms only hire at those schools for students with top grades and you would not have grades (or have very poor grades if you submit your previous transcript). Now there are other types of positions you could get from those schools, especially post graduation, that you may find worthwhile, but that is something you would need to determine before attending.
If you did somehow land yourself at a T-14 as a transfer it would still be a tough sell to say "I haven't been in law school in 10 years and I have no grades because I transferred from a school were I was academically dismissed but you should take a chance on me because X school did." You might have a fighting chance, especially if your at like Harvard and you apply to everywhere, but it would not be a guarantee.
You would be far better off if you could convince a school to ignore your past credits and treat you as a 1L. That way you would have a chance to do OCI normally, you would have 1L grades, and there would be no need to even bring up that you were academically dismissed somewhere else. But I don't know if that is an option.
