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I am a 2L at a tier-4 law school. I have been clerking at a DA Office since I finished my 1L. However, I find my law school, albiet its low ranking, to be a lot tougher than I thought. I am at 49 credits with a 2.65 GPA. My ranking is 268/338. I think my bosses kinda like me, but there is an informal policy that the Ofiice will not hire bottow 50% of class.

Your chances of getting hired as a lawyer after graduation are slim, even assuming you pass the bar. I'd say your best bet is a staff attorney/doc review position with a firm, depending on your area and who's hiring next year. You can try and leverage your winning personality into a job at that DA's office, but if the standard is to only take the top half of the class, you're going to have to be in that top half.

But that said, you can still find a job. It just may not be as a practicing attorney.

Given your experience in a DA’s office, apply around to as many as you can - you may find one that doesn’t care about grades but value your experience, especially if you can get a good reference.

I got bored and looked at your post history. How are you a 2L if you already took the bar?

cavalier1138 wrote:I got bored and looked at your post history. How are you a 2L if you already took the bar?

Wow, super solid recon.

If you apply widely enough and are geographically flexible and, relatedly, are willing to take multiple bar exams with some pre-bar job uncertainty, I am pretty optimistic that you could leverage your das office experience and go somewhere that does not care about grades or school.

JohnnieSockran wrote:

cavalier1138 wrote:I got bored and looked at your post history. How are you a 2L if you already took the bar?

Wow, super solid recon.

What's amazing is he literally only has the one other post. I don't get it.

Auxilio wrote:

JohnnieSockran wrote:

cavalier1138 wrote:I got bored and looked at your post history. How are you a 2L if you already took the bar?

Wow, super solid recon.

What's amazing is he literally only has the one other post. I don't get it.

He deleted them then. He had far more than that.

I am a 2014 grad from a top 25 school, so my experience is obviously not apples to apples. But I’d say if you’re trying to break into a saturated market (Michigan, Chicago, California, commuting distance from a large town), you’re going to have a bad time. But my first job in Southeast New Mexico was mostly Cooley grads, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they’ve gotten even less picky now that Cooley has so many fewer students.

Law school is not apples to apples applicable to practice, but you are disadvantaged. If you will exceed six figures, you need a lot of common sense, salesman/saleswomanship and a strong work ethic. If you lack one of these skills, punt now. Law school succes requires book smarts, common sense and work ethic but even then is somewhat random. Being bottom third at a t-4 makes bar passage a 50-50 proposirion statistically so it’s a long road but the fact you care enough to post puts you above most students at those schools. The reality is the average t-4 student in my experience has an IQ dramatically below the national average in a profession where clients expect an above average IQ.

Keep the faith! Sometimes, things just have a way of working out. Trust that good things will come as long as you keep doing the right things.