I am a freshly minted 2L, from a T4 school who dropped from the top 25% of the class to the top 60%. My Avg is an 80.93 on a B- Curve. At this point what should I do. I realize that with the job market being in shambles, my school's ranking and my decline in academic performance I don't really have any promising prospects in terms of landing a job for fall OCI. Should I take a couple of years off and retake the LSAT and reapply to law school or continue into my 2L year with the hope that I can enhance my GPA and land a job in my 3L fall. I was shocked at my performance as I believed I had written A exams in 2 of the 3 classes that I received C's in.
Much easier solution that taking a few year off and retaking the LSAT. Start looking for a job like someone who knows what the ^&*% they are doing. Join your local bar association, start going to events, see if there is an inn of the court in your town, join. Get the hell out of school and out in the legal profession and start meeting real working lawyers and judges who might be able to help you find a job. START NETWORKING.
It takes time, but if you do it now and do it right for the next two years who you know will beat where you go and what your grades are. You can’t afford to rely on you schools name and grades to get you a job so you want to avoid at all costs mass mailing resumes, it’s a stupid way to find a job, even worse when you got no school rep or high rank to make you stand out. Get out there and get to know some legal people in your community. Pick up Guerilla Tactics for Getting the Law Job of your Dreams by Kimm Walton.
You need to be proactive in finding a job, not re-active (ie. Hoping for OCI or someone to just offer you a job from some resume you sent out, that’s how folks get stuck with crap jobs because that’s the only options they tried.) Your grades are what they are, no changing that, you should instead put more time into networking and meeting people and forming relationships with lawyers and judges in your town so that 2 years from now, when they know you well, they will recommend you for jobs to people they know, jobs that your classmates may not ever know about because 80% of the legal job market is done “internally” word of mouth stuff. People would much prefer to hire someone that someone they trust has personally recommended over putting out a want add and interviewing tons of people and hope in that 30 mins they can actually pick the right person for 100s of unknown applicants. Who you know can make all of that much easier.
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