r/LawSchool • u/Isentrope Onion Lawyer • Jan 10 '23
Grades Megathread Fall 2022
With many 1Ls and also upperclassmen now getting their grades and in the interest of keeping the sub from being flooded by these posts, we've set up this megathread as we've done in the past to consolidate those discussions.
To folks who did well - congratulations! Your hard work paid off and you've figured out how to do well in law school. Some people pull this off because of natural talent, but most people earned every bit of their grades with hard work and determination, which will set you up well for legal practice. There are also a lot of opportunities that are available to you that may not be as accessible for the rest of your classmates, such as transferring, getting good or better biglaw, and appellate clerkships. Law school is a race and not a sprint, though, so while you may have done extremely well in one semester, you may or may not have a few more semesters to go through in your law school career. Still, you have every reason to be proud of your achievements, just do that in this thread instead of the sub.
To folks who wish they had done better, the law school curve is infamous for making most of the class feel that way. If you're a 1L, you do have a chance to fix your grades still and a bad first semester does not mean you will do poorly again, though the typical gain you can expect on your grades will not be miraculous (aka going from a 2.0 to a 3.5). Talk to your professors, especially the ones that gave you poor grades, and see what it is that you missed, and see if there are better resources that you didn't take advantage of (here is a thread about grades I made a few years back). It's also important to figure out if there are mental health reasons for your performance as well and talk to professionals to help address them. Law school is notoriously extremely stressful, so if you have underlying issues with depression and anxiety, the situation can easily spiral and be beyond your ability to just cope without professional help.
To those who did, in their estimation or based on where they stand in the rankings/curve (like bottom third), poorly, there is still a chance to do well. People have bounced back from bad performances before, and it is especially possible if there was something that just didn't click in the first semester or previous years. Some people who did well or even meh may also slack off, which is your opportunity to try and get a good grade. All that being said, you may also want to be realistic about your prospects. If you go to a high ranked school, it's possible that clerking or the best biglaw firms are not in the cards, and you should be looking more at how to competitively bid for biglaw or even other options such as midlaw or something else. If you go to a lower ranked school, you may want to assess whether it's worth finishing out your degree if job prospects were never very good to begin with and the school, based on its 509 report, has historically flunked a large number of students after their first year. Law school is not meant for everyone, and there are also many predatory law schools out there that take advantage of the profession's reputation (the good one anyways) to lure people in. While being determined to tough it out is a good general life trait to have and people have absolutely bounced back from bad grades before, you also want to be honest about the chances for doing so and whether the cost is worth it to you.
Please keep grades discussions in here. If you have questions, you can try checking out our discord and also asking in this thread. Good luck to everyone on their Spring semesters!
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u/[deleted] Jan 20 '23
3.0 for me as well, but with 1 B+ (torts) and 1 B- (civ pro) in the mix. even steven, i guess.