Grades-question for biglaw employers Forum

[A. Nony Mouse]

This. Plus opportunity cost too high. I did more work in high school than I did during 1L. I likely did more hours of work at my summer gig post 1L than during the entire academic year.

Because there are more valuable learning opportunities.

Well, if you wanted a biglaw gig, that could have been a poor allocation of time.

Also don't post anon in two separate posts to make it look like more than one person is disagreeing with me.

[nick417]

This. Plus opportunity cost too high. I did more work in high school than I did during 1L. I likely did more hours of work at my summer gig post 1L than during the entire academic year.

Because there are more valuable learning opportunities.

Well, if you wanted a biglaw gig, that could have been a poor allocation of time.

Also don't post anon in two separate posts to make it look like more than one person is disagreeing with me.

Burn!

"I did more work in high school" hahaha! I wish we all had the intellect of an "anonymous" person.

[Anonymous User]

In high school it was much easier to fail than in law school, what can I say? This is not a reflection of my intelligence but of the law school exam process. Similarly, I'll probably put more effort into bar exam study than 1L courses because effort is required to pass (for me).

I brought up the example of high school only to make the point that 1L grades are not necessarily a reflection of one's intellect or academic capabilities.

[A. Nony Mouse]

In high school it was much easier to fail than in law school, what can I say? This is not a reflection of my intelligence but of the law school exam process. Similarly, I'll probably put more effort into bar exam study than 1L courses because effort is required to pass (for me).

I brought up the example of high school only to make the point that 1L grades are not necessarily a reflection of one's intellect or academic capabilities.

Not necessarily, but they can be. There are plenty of people who work their asses off in law school and do badly, or get great grades with little effort. And wow, your high school was different from mine, I didn't have to do jack in high school.

Edited to add: certainly choosing to put your effort into something other than grades 1L year is your choice, but then there's no real basis to complain when firms look for good 1L grades.

[Anonymous User]

In high school it was much easier to fail than in law school, what can I say? This is not a reflection of my intelligence but of the law school exam process. Similarly, I'll probably put more effort into bar exam study than 1L courses because effort is required to pass (for me).

I brought up the example of high school only to make the point that 1L grades are not necessarily a reflection of one's intellect or academic capabilities.

Not necessarily, but they can be. There are plenty of people who work their asses off in law school and do badly. And wow, your high school was different from mine.

Valid. And yeah, it was pretty intense. I guess my view is that top grades are a reflection of competence, but low grades do not necessarily signal incompetence. I can see why a recruiter with hundreds of choices would be more hesitant to choose the applicant with lower grades, all else equal. I went into law school (HYS) with the false impression that grades would only matter for the most elite firms and clerkships. It turns out that grades matter a heck of a lot more than some of my classmates and I realized.

[LaLiLuLeLo]

I generally think law students/lawyers are way over dramatic when they talk about how much work 1L is, but lol @ high school being more work. Just lol.

[Anonymous User]

I generally think law students/lawyers are way over dramatic when they talk about how much work 1L is, but lol @ high school being more work. Just lol.

To be clear, I said that "I" did more work in high school. I went to a school focused on STEM subjects. If I'd done all my work in 1L, it may have taken more time. I have no idea. I did not read all of the cases and made 0 outlines. I do know that if I had not put the time into my high school math and physics courses, I would have failed.

[Spot]

What do you mean by "substance"? Through all of my screeners and callbacks, I dont think I've discussed the "law" once.

Our experiences are different. I usually ask interviewees to tell me about an interesting legal issue they worked on over the summer. And I ask (reasonably easy) follow up questions. Someone who can clearly explain the legal issue they worked on and are reasonably thoughtful about their answers = impresses me on substance.

You can also impress on substance on all the other non-legal things we discuss. Most people have dumb canned answers to the normal questions -- why big law, etc -- and some really knock it out of the park. I don't knock someone down for having a bad answer but I do appreciate a very good answer.

How do we "wow" you on substance? Experience on resume? Intelligent and thoughtful answers? I would appreciate your honest feedback, as I'm not sure how to demonstrate intellectual firepower in a 30 minute law firm interview. I got into HLS and SLS, but my grades are likely bottom 15-20% of the class.

See my answer above. That said, and I say this to be helpful and not mean -- my firm doesn't hire below median, even at SLS or HLS -- so I don't know how helpful my answer is to you. My best advice is to get close to someone at a firm, ideally a partner, and get them to sponsor you.

[Anonymous User]

See my answer above. That said, and I say this to be helpful and not mean -- my firm doesn't hire below median, even at SLS or HLS -- so I don't know how helpful my answer is to you. My best advice is to get close to someone at a firm, ideally a partner, and get them to sponsor you.

Thank you. I appreciate the candid feedback. Does your firm ever consider undergraduate grades? Apparently some firms (not Cravath) do this as a means of contextualizing poor law school grades?

[Anonymous User]

deleted-not relevant

[Anonymous User]

My understanding is that undergrad grades matter minimally even at Cravath (which is, to my knowledge, the only firm that even requests an undergrad transcript). Anecdotally, at my Cravath screener, the partner looked over my law school transcript but did not even glance at my undergrad transcript. The classmates I spoke with reported similar experiences at their Cravath screeners.

At the end of the day, UGPA and LSAT are relevant as predictors of law school performance... but why would any firm look to UGPA and LSAT when they have actual law school grades in front of them? Obvs. there is an element of unpredictability to law school grades, and IMO relying on them too heavily* is far from ideal, but I also don't think relying more on UGPA or LSAT would help, considering the wide variability in different colleges' mean GPAs (not to mention variability across majors) - I won't even start on attaching too much weight to LSAT scores.

*I also don't think many firms outside a few of the uber-selective ones actually rely all that heavily on law school grades. Most firms will be mostly drawing from median and below and I haven't seen any evidence of those firms making fine-grained distinctions between, say, a 3.15 and a 3.25.

[lawlorbust]

In high school it was much easier to fail than in law school, what can I say? This is not a reflection of my intelligence but of the law school exam process. Similarly, I'll probably put more effort into bar exam study than 1L courses because effort is required to pass (for me).

I brought up the example of high school only to make the point that 1L grades are not necessarily a reflection of one's intellect or academic capabilities.

Not necessarily, but they can be. There are plenty of people who work their asses off in law school and do badly. And wow, your high school was different from mine.

Valid. And yeah, it was pretty intense. I guess my view is that top grades are a reflection of competence, but low grades do not necessarily signal incompetence. I can see why a recruiter with hundreds of choices would be more hesitant to choose the applicant with lower grades, all else equal. I went into law school (HYS) with the false impression that grades would only matter for the most elite firms and clerkships. It turns out that grades matter a heck of a lot more than some of my classmates and I realized.

As a disinterested commentator, you sound like an idiot who never should have been admitted to HYS. HTH.

[zhenders]

This thread has an obnoxious level of anon use without much of any justification. I see literally nothing posted in this whole thread that justifies it.

[Interficio]

In high school it was much easier to fail than in law school, what can I say? This is not a reflection of my intelligence but of the law school exam process. Similarly, I'll probably put more effort into bar exam study than 1L courses because effort is required to pass (for me).

I brought up the example of high school only to make the point that 1L grades are not necessarily a reflection of one's intellect or academic capabilities.

Not necessarily, but they can be. There are plenty of people who work their asses off in law school and do badly. And wow, your high school was different from mine.

Valid. And yeah, it was pretty intense. I guess my view is that top grades are a reflection of competence, but low grades do not necessarily signal incompetence. I can see why a recruiter with hundreds of choices would be more hesitant to choose the applicant with lower grades, all else equal. I went into law school (HYS) with the false impression that grades would only matter for the most elite firms and clerkships. It turns out that grades matter a heck of a lot more than some of my classmates and I realized.

As a disinterested commentator, you sound like an idiot who never should have been admitted to HYS. HTH.

Not sure why you feel this way. Grades at my HYS were definitely constantly sold as unimportant and arbitrary, and it was only halfway through OCI that any of us realized otherwise.

[lawlorbust]

Not sure why you feel this way. Grades at my HYS were definitely constantly sold as unimportant and arbitrary, and it was only halfway through OCI that any of us realized otherwise.

As at my HYS, by people with vested interests in saying those things. Did the alums with the super-special clerkships that you spoke to also tell you that grades were unimportant?

[Interficio]

Not sure why you feel this way. Grades at my HYS were definitely constantly sold as unimportant and arbitrary, and it was only halfway through OCI that any of us realized otherwise.

As at my HYS, by people with vested interests in saying those things. Did the alums with the super-special clerkships that you spoke to also tell you that grades were unimportant?

No, but then again, those things are different. And the quoted post already mentioned that certain clerkships were exceptions.