Business Student Concerned About Writing

[CainandAbel]

Hi, I’m a business student starting law school next fall. I’ve done very little essay writing during my undergrad and, in courses where I did have to do essays, I did very poorly on many of them. The longest essay I wrote was 10 pages and I got low 60s on it. Did well on business reports and analysis though.

My question is, should I be strongly considering going to law schools with more ambiguous or non-existent GPA/class-rank? This would lead to less scholarship money but it would result in my legal career being more assured, is this a reasonable consideration?

[BlendedUnicorn]

You’re going to have to be way more specific here regarding your choices. But generally, good legal writing is not really the same thing as good writing, and this is especially true for law school writing which is largely word vomit during exams. Also, employers know how to decode schools grading systems, so weird grades aren’t as much of a perk as they may seem. What may or may not be relevant is how much better the schools are, as weird grading systems tend to correlate with school prestige so if you’re considering eg harvard or Cornell then I think it’s at least an interesting convo.

[CainandAbel]

You’re going to have to be way more specific here regarding your choices. But generally, good legal writing is not really the same thing as good writing, and this is especially true for law school writing which is largely word vomit during exams. Also, employers know how to decode schools grading systems, so weird grades aren’t as much of a perk as they may seem. What may or may not be relevant is how much better the schools are, as weird grading systems tend to correlate with school prestige so if you’re considering eg harvard or Cornell then I think it’s at least an interesting convo.

Hmm, makes sense. So my current struggles with essay writing aren’t an accurate measure of how my time will be in law school, correct? Is there any way to predict how I’ll do?

[Nony]

Yeah, most law school grades will be determined by the content you include in an exam essay. Good writing isn’t really required.

As for legal writing, don’t assume you’ll do badly, just follow the instructions down to the tiniest detail and you’ll be fine.

And like BU said it really depends on what schools you’re talking about.

There isn’t really any way to predict how you’ll do in law school. GPA and LSAT are very imperfect predictors.

[Stranger]

The other "good" news is that the people doing well on writing assignments in humanities programs often struggle to adjust to legal writing, so to the extent that you do have a legal writing course (and you will, at least in 1L), you won't be at quite the disadvantage you may imagine.

And like Nony said, there's not much that predicts law school success. Those imperfect LSAT and GPA predictors are merely the best bad indicators we have.

[CainandAbel]

Thank you everyone for your response, this is all very helpful!

[Story]

Style matters much less than substance for law school tests. As long as the prof can understand what you’re saying, style matters little. I would spend your time reading good books about how to study for and write a good exam answer. I like Getting to Maybe.

[pancakes3]

are we foregoing the usual questions?

GPA/LSA?
Career Goals?
Debt?
What schools are being discussed here?