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euphronius posted:My LS was a strict curve set at median 3.1 I think iirc (it should have been 3.0 but floated up). Mine was basically: A+: only 1-2 handed out per class. You likely got the top score and you'll also get some piece of paper saying you won an award. You might even get TWO awards! Slap those babies on your resume. Time to start looking for clerkships. A: you whipped rear end. You are probably employable! Enjoy OCI! A-: you did better than average! Lots of people get this grade though, so don't get too excited. If you're in the top 10% or thereabouts this might actually pull down your GPA slightly. B+: baseline. OK, but not "good" grade. Almost half of the drat class gets a B+. Welcome to the unwashed masses. Time to sign up for moot court etc. to shore up that resume. B: you screwed up to some extent and are in the bottom 40% of this class. B-: you really hosed up. You'll need to have an explanation ready for this one at OCI etc. C+ or below: May God have mercy on your soul, because prospective employers certainly will not. Don't even bother with moot court or other dippy resume-boosters--you are already dead.
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Jul 19, 2019 20:07
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I got a B- in one class and it was one of the most devastating days (at the time) of my sheltered-rear end life, lmao.
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Jul 19, 2019 20:10
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Vox Nihili posted:Mine was basically: This was pretty much what we used also. I was mostly in the A range but got one C+ because the professor decided he couldn't read my handwriting. Torpedoed my whole average. Yay. In retrospect I should probably be angrier about that than I was at the time. The same professor tried to hire me as an assistant later, I think because he'd seen me wearing a well-tailored suit that he commented on.
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Jul 19, 2019 20:18
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“Screwed up and in the bottom 40%” Lol
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Jul 19, 2019 20:21
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I haven’t thought about my grades and years and years . Feels good
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Jul 19, 2019 20:21
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After I got my first job out of law school, I quit caring about my grades and so did literally everyone else. I have a coffee mug that says "World's Most Okayest Law Student" and that more or less summed up my experience.
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Jul 19, 2019 20:24
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Kimsemus posted:After I got my first job out of law school, I quit caring about my grades and so did literally everyone else. I have a coffee mug that says "World's Most Okayest Law Student" and that more or less summed up my experience. apparently some midlevel jobs still ask for them i know this because i recall reading a story about someone who conned their way into a biglaw job by just flat out forging a transcript (which, in retrospect, is easy enough: all the jobs that got one from me got a printout i handed them) that said they had great grades. a few years after that, they got tired of the biglaw firm and applied somewhere else, which asked for their grades. figuring that of course now that they had years of job experience, who loving cares, they supplied the new firm with their real grades. that firm didn't hire him in part because his grades were bad, but also called up the original firm and asked why on earth they'd hired someone with such bad grades. the biglaw firm was like "wtf we'd never hire someone with these grades", figured it out, and reported him to the bar
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Jul 19, 2019 20:37
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evilweasel posted:apparently some midlevel jobs still ask for them that's a pretty bad move on a lot of levels! I didn't have amazing grades, but I worked the niche I had pretty hard -- I went into law school with a security clearance, which weighed heavily in my favor on picking up internships that required a clearance, of which I did two. I had a bunch of federal experience coming into law school and got more during it, because I knew that was what I wanted to do. Being a bit older and having a relatively robust probably helped offset my grades too. I think I would have done poorly if I sought employment at most firms, but focusing on and gunning for government employment worked out. The top feedback I got during the OCIs I did to was that my resume was great but my grades were below what they would consider. Since I was scraping the top 1/3 of the class, it gave me a deep sympathy for the people ranked below me. The fact that we did workshops were they were teaching students how to stretch spartan work experience to fit an entire full page on a resume bolstered my confidence tremendously.
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Jul 19, 2019 20:44
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evilweasel posted:apparently some midlevel jobs still ask for them Man, if you're gonna scam you gotta keep scammin'. Jesus christ. I had absolutely pedestrian grades. I deserved most of them and have only myself to blame, but my school did have a harder than necessary curve the first 1.5 years. The only grade I was really mad about was a B- I got in environmental law (3L year) that was taught by the school's most ancient professor who had never taught the class before, couldn't have given less of a poo poo, and admitted in the last class that he did a lovely job. Bro, give everyone an A then. My top 5 friend also got a B-, so that made me feel better. He already had his big law job though.
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Jul 19, 2019 20:55
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My only goal was to be over a 3.1 and I made that Top half !! Top half !! Woooo
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Jul 19, 2019 20:56
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:This was pretty much what we used also. I was mostly in the A range but got one C+ because the professor decided he couldn't read my handwriting. That's some bullshit even by usual law school standards.
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Jul 19, 2019 21:11
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Kimsemus posted:After I got my first job out of law school, I quit caring about my grades and so did literally everyone else. I have a coffee mug that says "World's Most Okayest Law Student" and that more or less summed up my experience. I can tell, your grades take up only 45% of your posts! (I'm trying to be the SV I want to see in the world)
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Jul 19, 2019 21:28
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Kimsemus posted:that's a pretty bad move on a lot of levels! Bolded is underappreciated. The only reason I got my first job was because I was working full-time for the entire 4 years between undergrad and law school and I was at a job that required specialized skills and expertise.
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Jul 19, 2019 21:29
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https://twitter.com/LiamWBZ/status/1152297350808969216 I mean, that’s pretty good.
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Jul 19, 2019 21:57
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There should be a colon after “you need to calm down” not a hyphen That is poor work.
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Jul 19, 2019 22:12
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Our curve for 1L is 8-12% A/A-, 55% B- or above. I think the median was meant to be set to a B- but in practice it was a hair higher. My undergrad did not have +/- grades and they never stop looking grade-school-ish to me.
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Jul 19, 2019 22:52
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Pinky Artichoke posted:Our curve for 1L is 8-12% A/A-, 55% B- or above. I think the median was meant to be set to a B- but in practice it was a hair higher. One of the cool things about law school is that lower ranked schools have almost universally harsher curves, so when the hiring committee at Firm X is looking at your grades you'll look worse than people at top schools with inferior performance. Your B+ is their A. Your C is their A-. You'll have a note on your resume about how you're in the top 10% of your class, but someone from a top 6 school didn't even bother to list their ranking, and they got an A in legal writing, which sure sounds a lot better than your B!
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Jul 19, 2019 23:01
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Pinky Artichoke posted:Our curve for 1L is 8-12% A/A-, 55% B- or above. I think the median was meant to be set to a B- but in practice it was a hair higher. Then what is the point of the rest of the letters in your mickey mouse grading system? Our average was C/D and you'd have to work the minimum 8 hours of study per day to even get that. A and B is reserved for phd students and upcoming career judges/biglaw career climbers only. A very healthy percentage failed out every year and you'd need near perfect grades from high school to get even a shot of getting into University.
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Jul 19, 2019 23:02
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Law school is dumb
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Jul 19, 2019 23:06
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Nice piece of fish posted:Then what is the point of the rest of the letters in your mickey mouse grading system? Our average was C/D and you'd have to work the minimum 8 hours of study per day to even get that. A and B is reserved for phd students and upcoming career judges/biglaw career climbers only. A very healthy percentage failed out every year and you'd need near perfect grades from high school to get even a shot of getting into University. A B- average is super punative compared to many American law schools. At Stanford they only award "Pass" or "Honors" for any given class. None of their elite cadre ever have to sniff a minus sign next to their results!
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Jul 19, 2019 23:06
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My favorite thing that combines law school grades with the "you may have made a mistake if you are in a court room" situation was a class on negotiation skills. Two students negotiated against two other students over some hypothetical. If you settled, the professor gave you a grade based on what you got in the settlement. That grade was zero sum (e.g. both teams were not going to get an A - one team might get an A and the other team would get a C, both teams could get a B for a more balanced settlement, etc.). You could choose to go to trial if you did not settle, in which case your grade would be drawn out of a hat (and it could be a devastatingly bad grade, or an A+ - it was luck of the draw).
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Jul 19, 2019 23:11
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Vox Nihili posted:A B- average is super punative compared to many American law schools. At Stanford they only award "Pass" or "Honors" for any given class. None of their elite cadre ever have to sniff a minus sign next to their results! Well then Tokelau All Star posted:Law school is dumb Yeah. We have "laudabilis" which is a grade average of B or better. The ones who graduate laud are the only ones qualified to be supreme court judges. I'd love it if basically everyone were qualified.
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Jul 19, 2019 23:13
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Vox Nihili posted:A B- average is super punative compared to many American law schools. At Stanford they only award "Pass" or "Honors" for any given class. None of their elite cadre ever have to sniff a minus sign next to their results! To be honest, American law schools should quit pretending and just do the same, but they wont, it would bruise too many fragile egos.
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Jul 19, 2019 23:18
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Tokelau All Star posted:Law school is dumb In some ways but I thought overall it was incredibly effective and one of the best experiences of my life. Just being around people who all (mostly) care about the law and the world and are smart is very cool.
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Jul 19, 2019 23:33
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My grades were average but I went to the bar with with the right people often enough so if I wanted to practice, I have a few doors open.
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Jul 19, 2019 23:50
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ActusRhesus posted:Have any of you had opposing counsel say something so completely wrong that you had a panic moment and thought you were reading the wrong file? A couple of years ago we had two med mal cases running. Same defendant doctors. Same attorneys on each side of the aisle. Plaintiffs had the same name. It took me an laughably long time to get them straight. Every time they'd come up for motions I'd have this moment of "wait, they need to adjourn so they can take her dep? I thought she died!"
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Jul 20, 2019 00:14
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SlyFrog posted:My favorite thing that combines law school grades with the "you may have made a mistake if you are in a court room" situation was a class on negotiation skills. This is awesome, except the “trial” option should also include a wild card in the hat that forces everyone take the course again in two years
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Jul 20, 2019 00:35
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At my university we use the fail/pass/credit/distinction/high distinction model. P = 50 - 65; C = 66 - 75; D = 76 - 85; HD = 86 - 100. I think our grades were generally scaled so that a pass was the average grade (maybe a credit by the time I left), but I don't think they ever officially capped it at like "you can only give out two HDs per class" or whatever. Is The Golden Key international honours society a big deal in the US, or even anything you've ever heard of at all? They told us it was but I don't believe them.
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Jul 20, 2019 01:00
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Whitlam posted:Is The Golden Key international honours society a big deal in the US, or even anything you've ever heard of at all? They told us it was but I don't believe them. In the US we have the "Order of the Coif." Many, but not all, law schools participate, and if you're in the top 10% of your class you qualify for membership. I mention this because you can order some sort of golden key from them if you're admitted, but mostly I think you just get a certificate and a line on your resume. Anyway, I've never heard of this Golden Key Society you mention, but it appears to be a similar thing but for the top 15% rather than top 10%.
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Jul 20, 2019 01:10
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There’s also the legal honor societies you can join, which is the law school equivalent of paying to be named a “SuperLawyer” or “rising star” from those legal orgs
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Jul 20, 2019 02:23
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I joined the Federalist Society 
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Jul 20, 2019 02:25
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euphronius posted:I joined the Federalist Society I wanted to join but never got around to it. Their lectures have pretty good food and are pretty frequent. I also learned a lot about the history of the 2nd amendment and the incorporation movement from a lecture titled "Lawful gun owners: the true oppressed minority in today's America" or some such.
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Jul 20, 2019 02:50
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Throatwarbler posted:I wanted to join but never got around to it. Their lectures have pretty good food and are pretty frequent. I also learned a lot about the history of the 2nd amendment and the incorporation movement from a lecture titled "Lawful gun owners: the true oppressed minority in today's America" or some such. Lol
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Jul 20, 2019 03:23
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Throatwarbler posted:I wanted to join but never got around to it. Their lectures have pretty good food and are pretty frequent. I also learned a lot about the history of the 2nd amendment and the incorporation movement from a lecture titled "Lawful gun owners: the true oppressed minority in today's America" or some such. This but ironically.
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Jul 20, 2019 03:45
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I would go get food at the federalist society meetings and leave before the lecture started.
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Jul 20, 2019 03:51
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euphronius posted:I joined the Federalist Society I joined every society that offered free pizza in their meetings.
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Jul 20, 2019 03:57
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i tried to join the lawyers guild but everyone was so ugly !!
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Jul 20, 2019 04:03
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euphronius posted:I joined the Federalist Society Same, and I also spun off our law school firearms law club from the Federalist Society, then a couple of us spun off a law club for veterans. We drew big crowds despite the law school being super lefty because we always had Chick-Fil-A at our events. 
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Jul 20, 2019 04:08
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Throatwarbler posted:I wanted to join but never got around to it. Their lectures have pretty good food and are pretty frequent. I also learned a lot about the history of the 2nd amendment and the incorporation movement from a lecture titled "Lawful gun owners: the true oppressed minority in today's America" or some such. lol ok throatwarbler is good again
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Jul 20, 2019 04:24
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You don't need to actually join the Federalist Society. Show up for free food and slap something about it on your resume if you want to apply for a clerkship with a Bush appointee or whatnot.
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Jul 20, 2019 05:05
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