Law Students

Making Sense of First-Year Law School Grades

By Casebook Sherpa

So, our grades are trickling in… finally. Still waiting on two, though.

I’m still a bit miffed that I had to pay for my second semester of law school before knowing how I did in the first semester, but I guess I’ll just have to get over it.

Needless to say, I’ve had several discussions with people about how significant first-semester law school grades really are. Frankly, I’ve never put much stock in grades so long as mine were As or Bs. I did what I thought was the minimum I could do to get by and tried not to exert myself too much. Consequently, I mostly coasted through (i.e. squandered) undergrad and was fortunate enough to get by with decent grades. I don’t share that to toot my own horn. Quite the contrary - it was a terrible way to do it and I deeply regret the time and money I wasted doing it that way.

So, this whole “grades are everything” mentality is quite new to me - a) because I’ve never studied as hard as I have for law school classes and b) I’ve never before felt as though I was competing against my classmates. Grades were just what they were. Law school is different, so I’m told. Everything’s graded on a curve, so everything is “competing against your classmates.” I understand the concept; I don’t really like it.

When I try to detach from the whole thing, therefore, it’s difficult to get a good perspective. So, I’ve turned to some trusted sources (and some have turned to me) and here’s what I’ve learned and heard… (more…)

Full post as published by Fight The Hypo on January 09, 2008 (boomark / email).