Does graduating law school with latin honors matter? Forum

[sawwaverunner]

This is obviously one of those questions that few people would really know the real answer to, but does graduating cum laude, magna cum laude, or summa cum laude from law school have any type of meaningful boost when it comes time to finding employment? I notice on a lot of firms' attorney bios, they list the latin honors not only for law school, but undergrad as well. Feel free to share any thoughts on this.

[DCDuck]

Doing well matters. Getting Order of the Coif matters. If you need to do well to get Latin Honors, then it probably matters.

[mel2010]

Yeah, what ^ said. Latin honors is equivalent to a certain GPA or class rank, so I don't see why it would add anything itself that the same GPA/rank wouldn't add. I suppose if the person making hiring decisions is unfamiliar with your school's grading system, it gives them a shortcut to see that you were top something...

[flcath]

It's a tangible prize to shoot for while you're in school, and--unlike your GPA--it stays on your firm bio for forever. I'd rather have LR.

Order of the coif is nice to *have*, but not that big of a deal to not have since about half of the schools don't have it.

[vamedic03]

It's a tangible prize to shoot for while you're in school, and--unlike your GPA--it stays on your firm bio for forever. I'd rather have LR.

Order of the coif is nice to *have*, but not that big of a deal to not have since about half of the schools don't have it.

Except for schools that don't have latin honors, where order of the coif is a bigger deal.

[flcath]

It's a tangible prize to shoot for while you're in school, and--unlike your GPA--it stays on your firm bio for forever. I'd rather have LR.

Order of the coif is nice to *have*, but not that big of a deal to not have since about half of the schools don't have it.

Except for schools that don't have latin honors, where order of the coif is a bigger deal.

Yeah I don't think it's that big of a deal to not have latin honors either: some schools don't do them, and many firms don't list them anyway.

For those schools that do have them (and this is equally true of order of the coif), it's a neat little thing for the LR kids to use to stay motivated over 2L and 3L.

[kalvano]

My school has fixed cutoffs for Latin honors. You pretty much know by the end of 2L unless you epic fail at 3L.

I would imagine it can't hurt, and like someone else said, if you're applying to a firm unfamiliar with your school, it gives them some sort of quick reference point.

[MrKappus]

We exist in a profession where people seriously consider choosing their school based on where it's ranked in a popular news magazine. Everything you can do to distinguish yourself and your CV in such a profession will probably help.

[emptyflare]

We exist in a profession where people seriously consider choosing their school based on where it's ranked in a popular news magazine. Everything you can do to distinguish yourself and your CV in such a profession will probably help.

180

[IAFG]

does graduating cum laude, magna cum laude, or summa cum laude from law school have any type of meaningful boost when it comes time to finding employment?

As G.T.L. Rev. already alluded to, if you know your latin honor status by the time you are looking for work, you're doing it wrong.