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Does anyone have any insight into the effect of a legal writing grade on a transcript for transfer purposes? As you may have guessed, I've done very well in all of my classes except for legal writing, which at my school is a graded class. I didn't bomb the writing class, but that grade sticks out like a sore thumb.

My thought (read: hope) is that this grade will be essentially discarded in a committee's review of a transfer application, but if that is not the case I'd like to know.

Thanks!

No, it probably will not be discarded in considering your transfer application.

Itinerant wrote:No, it probably will not be discarded in considering your transfer application.

you are either purposefully misconstruing my question or you don't pick up on subtleties.

going forward, what i am actually wondering is whether a legal writing grade is given less weight than a grade for a doctrinal or substantive class in a transfer application.

Anonymous User wrote:going forward, what i am actually wondering is whether a legal writing grade is given less weight than a grade for a doctrinal or substantive class in a transfer application.

No, it's not. The main thing schools will look at is your overall GPA including legal writing. Your legal writing class may be weighed less only in the sense that it is normally worth less credits than your substantive classes and will therefore not alter your GPA significantly.

Anonymous User wrote:

Itinerant wrote:No, it probably will not be discarded in considering your transfer application.

you are either purposefully misconstruing my question or you don't pick up on subtleties.

going forward, what i am actually wondering is whether a legal writing grade is given less weight than a grade for a doctrinal or substantive class in a transfer application.

lol.

Schools will consider your legal writing grade because you have noted that it is a graded course and thus relevant in calculating your GPA and class rank. I don't know of any schools, including those with c/nc 1L legal writing courses, that readjust or tailor transfer app GPAs to account for graded 1L lw courses.

Anonymous User wrote:

Itinerant wrote:No, it probably will not be discarded in considering your transfer application.

you are either purposefully misconstruing my question or you don't pick up on subtleties.

going forward, what i am actually wondering is whether a legal writing grade is given less weight than a grade for a doctrinal or substantive class in a transfer application.

Why would it be given less weight? (Apart from what someone already said, that it probably has literally less weight in your GPA because LW is usually fewer credits.)

yes, you all make valid points. or, rather, you all make the same valid point: since the class is graded, it affects my GPA, and schools evaluate my GPA, the legal writing class will likely affect a schools evaluation of my application.

i guess i thought that since not all schools grade legal writing, and the class is not substantive compared to, for example, crim or con law, a school might think it is unfairly punishing an applicant for the arbitrary fact that their school chose to grade legal writing since my GPA would be higher if it didn't grade it (all other things being equal). Or, the admissions committee could just discount that grade a bit, and try to evaluate my GPA in terms of the substantive classes, or at least give them more weight (besides the actual weight given in the calculation of my GPA).

I will try to stop hand-wringing about my writing class, and just try to do my best!

what do you want to hear? your gpa is your gpa, beyond that who knows how they'll decide to evaluate your individual transcript. even if you knew this information, it's not going to affect your transfer decisions in any way.

ha its the sole determinate of ur success as a lawyer...so yeah good luck on that one.

I have also heard any number of profs say that Legal Writing is the most important class in law school because it actually teaches you stuff you'll use in practice (at least in theory). I don't think the reason schools don't grade legal writing is because they don't think it's important (though I can see how they're sending a kind of inconsistent message in that respect).

dood wrote:ha its the sole determinate of ur success as a lawyer...so yeah good luck on that one.

Yeah. I've heard they grilled Thomas at his confirmation hearing because he got an A- in legal writing.

Or was that about something else? I forget.

A. Nony Mouse wrote:I have also heard any number of profs say that Legal Writing is the most important class in law school because it actually teaches you stuff you'll use in practice (at least in theory). I don't think the reason schools don't grade legal writing is because they don't think it's important (though I can see how they're sending a kind of inconsistent message in that respect).

Yup.. The reason they don't grade LRW is because LRW classes are small, so it's not large enough of a statistical sample size to be able to properly apply a curve to (i.e. you could have 7 students that are brilliant in one section and 9 students who are terrible in another section). Moreover, having a graded curved LRW class creates a cut throat environment with that small of a class size. It's possible that they could have grades without a curve, but then that creates problems as well (e.g. some profs might grade a lot easier than others and ideally your grades shouldn't be based on your luck of the draw).

OP- if anything, I think law schools you apply to transfer to will put more emphasis on a bad LRW grade (you realize legal research and writing is largely what lawyers do, right?)

I had a bad LRW grade 1st semester, then did a little better 2nd semester (C+ to B). LRW I and II were my lowest grades 1L except for my contracts II grade, which I still think was crap.

I slightly overperformed my stats. Maybe, the upward trend helped?? Either way you can't really control 1st semester now. Do the best you can 2nd semester, and apply to a range of schools.

PM if you want more specifics.