HELP ME!!!!!!!!! Academic Dismissal Questions

[smith123]

Hello! So this following scenario is happening to my friend at law school. (She has her meeting with the dean tomorrow and we don't know what to expect)

So my friend has been academically dismissed from law school due to an unfortunate mishap during the exam. She had an extra outline that she was not allowed to have apparently, and is facing an honor code violation. She was on academic probation the semester before, and with the suspect honor code violation the teacher decided to fail her, instead of hearing the outcome of the investigation. (which is totally his discretion anyways, but still). We go to a Tier 2/Tier 3 school. You need a 2.0 cumulative GPA (at least) your first year to be in good academic standing. She also got a D in another class due to her (Softest/ExamSoft) freezing and deleting an essay on her final. She hand wrote the rest of the final and the teacher had the discretion to admit portions, assign partial credit, disregard whatever he liked, etc. So now her GPA is a 1.4. Basically I am asking what should she do? Should she wait a year to petition the school and try to come back if her GPA will reset? Would her financial aid and in-state tuition still be available after an academic dismissal? Will she be in debt forever and not even bother with law school? Any advice will be super helpful.

[cavalier1138]

Your "friend" should be more specific about the school's rank and her level of debt. But short answer: dropping out now is going to be less expensive than somehow managing to stay in school, racking up more debt, and still not being an attorney.

[smith123]

Thank you ^^^ School is ranked in top 100 but I think specifically it is in the 80s range. I believe she has acquired $45,000 in debt from this first year. Total anticipated debt (if she regained her scholarship/ financial aid) would be $180,000. Will future employers look deeply into the honor code violation if it stands?

[Future Ex-Engineer]

Thank you ^^^ School is ranked in top 100 but I think specifically it is in the 80s range. I believe she has acquired $45,000 in debt from this first year. Total anticipated debt (if she regained her scholarship/ financial aid) would be $180,000. Will future employers look deeply into the honor code violation if it stands?

Won't matter. If she's that low on the totem pole GPA wise from a bad school, no one will hire her.

[pancakes3]

future employers won't look at her with that GPA and her honor code violation could/would keep her from getting barred in general.

she's in a bad spot and should definitely drop out.

[A. Nony Mouse]

This all sounds like an unusual amount of "bad luck" for one person to suffer during 1L. It honestly looks like they tanked first semester and panicked and tried to get an advantage during second semester (I'm not saying this is the case, just that that is how it might come across to people). It might make sense for your "friend" to drop out/at least take a leave of absence and consider maybe going back later when they're better prepared to handle it. Chances are good the scholarship is gone, but the school is the best source for an answer to that.

[smith123]

Thank you for all the input thus far! Keep it coming. Obviously law school isn't for everyone, but my friend is trying to pull every string she can to get another chance.

[Future Ex-Engineer]

Thank you for all the input thus far! Keep it coming. Obviously law school isn't for everyone, but my friend is trying to pull every string she can to get another chance.

What exactly are you expecting from 'keep it coming'. It's been pretty unanimous so far that your friend is boned...

[smith123]

^^^ mainly anyone that knows of someone who actually was academically dismissed. Then they reapplied. Chances of regaining financial aid/scholarship. GPA resetting/academic forgiveness. Etc.

[Mullens]

^^^ mainly anyone that knows of someone who actually was academically dismissed. Then they reapplied. Chances of regaining financial aid/scholarship. GPA resetting/academic forgiveness. Etc.

Seems like the friend has a very low chance of becoming a practicing lawyer. Even if she passes the bar somewhere after all of this, she might fail C&F and will really struggle to get a job even if the stars magically align.

[UVA2B]

^^^ mainly anyone that knows of someone who actually was academically dismissed. Then they reapplied. Chances of regaining financial aid/scholarship. GPA resetting/academic forgiveness. Etc.

If 1L is done, those grades will be set in stone. There is no GPA resetting in this case. Regaining financial aid/scholarship will be entirely dependent on the school that would make anecdotes from other schools irrelevant for your very unfortunate friend.

Your friend is in a really bad spot for becoming a lawyer, but if she really wants to be an attorney, getting anecdotes from TLS won't help her. She is at a decided disadvantage and needs to throw caution to the wind and just thrust herself into hustling for a legal career. But she should take the time off to reassess what happened during her 1L year before she jumps back in to legal academia, because she experienced/caused the two primary sins of legal academia: poor performance and honor issues. There isn't much room for either and your friend should do everything in her power to distance herself from that conduct/performance before reengaging law school and the legal profession (which isn't even getting at the C&F issue of the academic dismissal if the honor violation is in her record).

[smith123]

It does seem to be at the schools discretion, she is just anxious waiting for her meeting tomorrow with the Dean. I was hoping posting might give some hope in this disaster of a situation.

[HYPSM]

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[smith123]

I really don't care if you think it's me or not lol. That's fine. The subject is appropriate because I do need help since I am dealing with an emotional female and trying to do more than say "Idk." Meeting is at 9 am, so I suppose we will have answers soon enough.

[A. Nony Mouse]

The ABA requires finishing a JD within a set period (I think 5 years?). So if you take a longer-than-5-years break from law school, I'm not sure that your law school grades would be able to count towards anything and you might be able to start over (although of course you'd have to disclose them when reapplying). I don't know for sure that this is the case, but you might consider looking into it.

[Future Ex-Engineer]

The ABA requires finishing a JD within a set period (I think 5 years?). So if you take a longer-than-5-years break from law school, I'm not sure that your law school grades would be able to count towards anything and you might be able to start over (although of course you'd have to disclose them when reapplying). I don't know for sure that this is the case, but you might consider looking into it.

Nony as usual the real MVP

[HYPSM]

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[HillandHollow]

Hello! So this following scenario is happening to my friend at law school. (She has her meeting with the dean tomorrow and we don't know what to expect)

So my friend has been academically dismissed from law school due to an unfortunate mishap during the exam. She had an extra outline that she was not allowed to have apparently, and is facing an honor code violation. She was on academic probation the semester before, and with the suspect honor code violation the teacher decided to fail her, instead of hearing the outcome of the investigation. (which is totally his discretion anyways, but still). We go to a Tier 2/Tier 3 school. You need a 2.0 cumulative GPA (at least) your first year to be in good academic standing. She also got a D in another class due to her (Softest/ExamSoft) freezing and deleting an essay on her final. She hand wrote the rest of the final and the teacher had the discretion to admit portions, assign partial credit, disregard whatever he liked, etc. So now her GPA is a 1.4. Basically I am asking what should she do? Should she wait a year to petition the school and try to come back if her GPA will reset? Would her financial aid and in-state tuition still be available after an academic dismissal? Will she be in debt forever and not even bother with law school? Any advice will be super helpful.

Did you friend CALI any classes? Did she do extremely well on the exams that were not affected by whatever curse a witch obviously placed on her? If she is only doing average or below average in general, AND has to deal with this stuff, then I think it's time to call it a day. Even if she is doing very well otherwise, it's going to be a very long, hard road, and--unless her family has a law firm or something--she will almost certainly not find any employment as a lawyer.

[tomwatts]

The ABA requires finishing a JD within a set period (I think 5 years?). So if you take a longer-than-5-years break from law school, I'm not sure that your law school grades would be able to count towards anything and you might be able to start over (although of course you'd have to disclose them when reapplying). I don't know for sure that this is the case, but you might consider looking into it.

It's 7 years per Standard 311(b). (The only reason I know this is that it came up when I was looking into joint degrees.)

I quickly checked which schools would give you in-state tuition (i.e., public schools — do any private schools do this?) and would be ranked in about the 80's, and it looks like we're talking about schools like University of Oregon or University of South Carolina, i.e., flagships of states without deep legal markets. The employment outcomes from those schools are okay if you want to work locally, but you're in a much better position if you've networked well and if you've gotten good grades. A 1.4 GPA from your first year is really not going to cut it, especially with an honor code violation that might prevent you from being admitted to the bar.

So yeah, to the OP, it looks like law school didn't work out this time. That's not to say it never will, but you need a long break (at least a few years). If it's long enough, you might be able to reapply generally and maybe go to a higher-ranked school or get a redo on 1L. Also, one of the ancillary benefits is that character & fitness examiners might be more inclined to look on you favorably if you take a few years off; you can say that your honor code violation was a long time ago and you've learned and grown since then. (This is just a guess; you'd need to talk to a C&F lawyer to get legal advice on this point.)

[A. Nony Mouse]

Thank you for the correction! I realize I was thinking of the NY bar's requirement that you complete the requirements in 5 years. I should have said 7 years then.

[smith123]

Update to anyone who cares: Friend met with the dean, the teacher involved dropped the honor code violation but the F was final. No changing his mind on that. She still will be able to retain the scholarship/financial aid, BUT will need to redo 1L. So she is going to take a year or two off then reevaluate. She will get a fresh start and the GPA does not carry over. Now deciding if its worth the cost is all up to her. Surprising outcome.

[UVA2B]

Update to anyone who cares: Friend met with the dean, the teacher involved dropped the honor code violation but the F was final. No changing his mind on that. She still will be able to retain the scholarship/financial aid, BUT will need to redo 1L. So she is going to take a year or two off then reevaluate. She will get a fresh start and the GPA does not carry over. Now deciding if its worth the cost is all up to her. Surprising outcome.

Huh, I didn't think this was allowed at ABA schools, but just looked it up and schools do in fact allow/require poor performing students to retake their 1L classes if they are below a certain GPA to be on probation. Never know what new things you can learn from TLS.

[tomwatts]

Wow, really? That's about the best possible outcome here. Like the previous poster, I didn't even know that was possible.

[UVA2B]

Wow, really? That's about the best possible outcome here. Like the previous poster, I didn't even know that was possible.

This is entirely my conjecture, but I'm guessing retaking the 1L classes, regardless of the grade, will result in being brought up to the minimum GPA for good academic standing. But clearly I've been wrong before.

ETA: Looks this way if UCLA is any indication of a typical policy: "If a student retaking a course receives a letter grade of “C–” or better on the retake, the letter grades of “D+”, “D” or “F” (no credit) received initially will continue to appear on his or her transcript, but the new grade will be counted for purposes of scholastic dismissal. The initial grade and not the grade on the retake will be counted for purposes of computation of class standing, if any."

[smith123]

So basically the dean granted her full academic grade forgiveness, this will completely reset her GPA, so when she enters with the new 1L class, it's fair game for them all. The dean has the discretion to give partial, full, or no academic forgiveness. It is completely circumstantial. Typically, if for example I failed Torts, then retook it the following year and got an A, then the grades would be averaged out to something around a C. Since she is redoing all the classes, even the ones she got C+ in or better, she is getting full academic forgiveness.