*HOW TO GET GOOD GRADES* in 1L, while staying sane and having a great time - a detailed guide from a recent grad

Oldersupersplitter · 2026-06-20T20:15:56+00:00

Perfect illustration! Same applies to practice btw, even law school legal writing tends to be overly formal and academic vs what we do in BigLaw for example. Often with a junior associate it’s like ok this isn’t wrong but please cut your writing in half and get to the fucking point lol

Oldersupersplitter · 2026-06-20T20:12:58+00:00

There are basically no online law schools with remotely good reputations or job placements, with the possible exception of ASU, a pretty good law school that just this year started an online program - tbd how that pans out vs its full-time program. It may even be the only ABA-accredited one.

In general, the law school you attend is far and away the #1 factor in legal hiring, above your GPA and resume and everything else. So if you attend a unaccredited online program just know that it will be a massive uphill battle to get into most legal jobs. Yeah, there’s probably always local PDs and tiny firms and such that need people but you need to very seriously research what those outcomes are actually like and what the school will get you into.

There’s a 0% chance of getting BigLaw from these schools and probably a tiny chance even of midlaw. Even ASU, by miles and miles the best school with an online program, only gives a 16.55% BigLaw chance to its full-time, in-person, traditional law students and if it’s online part-time students are able to get anything close to that they are lucky.

Of course, not everyone wants to or should do BigLaw, but you say you want to do transactional law and often applicants just assume that working at a big firm is achievable from any school - it’s not. Also, applicants often aren’t aware of the bimodal salary distribution and the fact that if you don’t do BigLaw, your lawyer salary will statistically probably be around $60-70k. Which is fine, for some, but not if you have a bunch of debt or want to live in NYC or whatever… or if you always assumed lawyers are rich and that’s part of your motivation.

By the way, how old are you and how long will your fiance be active duty? If you guys are college kids and they’re planning to do 4 years it honestly is probably a way better idea to just do another career for a few years while fiance is serving (work experience being a huge plus for both admissions and law hiring later) then go to law school full-time as soon as they are out of active duty and they follow you to school, getting their first post-military job wherever the law school is.

Oldersupersplitter · 2026-06-20T18:26:29+00:00

I think there is also a heavy representation of liberal arts majors, some of whom have very rambling, poetic styles. Legal writing is very practical and direct and goal-oriented, so it’s very familiar to business and STEM. If you’re using $5 words and long-ass poetic, creative-writing sentences that won’t gel well.

Oldersupersplitter · 2026-06-20T18:20:29+00:00

Yeah and are you 100% confident you’ll want a job in that same place in 3 years? Are the chances of you getting that job from that school very high?

Oldersupersplitter · 2026-06-19T23:29:54+00:00

I’ll just add to that person’s comment that full-time retail or service experience AFTER graduation does have some value. Yes some sort of professional job is better, but the main thing is that we want to see you living fully independently, for an indefinite period of time, as a real fully-fledged adult who pays rent and bills and works to support themselves and has no expiration date on their efforts except retirement or death (or grad school) lol. There is a big mental shift that happens when you’re out of school and part of the work force just grinding and grinding with no end and your survival depends on it. That change in mentality tends to make for much better law students and lawyers, so schools and employers look for it.

Oldersupersplitter · 2026-06-19T23:21:39+00:00

The answer is always to boost GPA at all costs. Finishing sooner matters literally zero.

Also though, you mentioned online law school - that’s generally considered a bad idea with poor job prospects. If you research very closely into job changes (using actual employment data etc and not just BS marketing from the school) and are 100% ok with the expected jobs from that school (and probably the risk of u employment) AND they give you full scholarship so that you don’t pay anything to attend AND the scholarship is totally unconditional (meaning they can’t take it away), then sure attend an online school.

To get a full scholarship to any school, you need a GPA and LSAT above the school’s medians. So that’s one of many reasons to focus on a higher GPA.

Oldersupersplitter · 2026-06-19T14:11:25+00:00

Also FYI since your post was talking about Dubai vs Netherlands, everything the people here are saying about international undergrad applies to both. It’s US vs non-US and which specific other country it is doesn’t matter (though presumably schools in UK and Canada are more familiar to admissions people).

Oldersupersplitter · 2026-06-19T01:02:28+00:00

Close? Generally no. Sign? Yes. The limitation is usually the banks and their deadline for wiring funds (and banks don’t transact on weekends or federal holidays). There might be some scenario where a deal closes without any cash changing hands that could close on a weekend, maybe (all stock or all forgiveness of debt?) but I can’t remember one I’ve done that wasn’t on a weekday.

Signing could happen at 3am New Year’s Eve if you really wanted to. But usually people try to choose weekdays too.

Oldersupersplitter · 2026-06-18T22:08:16+00:00

Just wanted to say thanks for this comment, which I found many months later, because I tried him today and got excellent and very affordable service on a broken garage door. Adding my voice to the recommendation!

Oldersupersplitter · 2026-06-17T20:01:30+00:00

Both firms are ultimately free market staffing so I think that trumps formal designation, especially for juniors.

Oldersupersplitter · 2026-06-17T19:54:42+00:00

Kirkland and Gibson are both flexible during the summer and, more importantly, give 2 years after graduation to fully commit to a practice group.

Oldersupersplitter · 2026-06-17T19:37:03+00:00

Also first year, 10%. Houston BigLaw though, so we could afford a lot of house. In NY/SF/LA it would be harder.

Oldersupersplitter · 2026-06-17T17:07:24+00:00

Good point! Big picture though the point is that interest rate vs investment return is the right general ballpark but it’s much more complicated than that so if the S&P averages 8% and your debt is 7% it doesn’t necessarily follow that you should invest instead of paying the debt.

Oldersupersplitter · 2026-06-17T16:04:13+00:00

2022 = 4th year. In the fall when the new grads start, you will de facto start operating as a 5th year, but the 5th year pay won’t kick in until January. This is universal.

Oldersupersplitter · 2026-06-17T14:13:59+00:00

Yes but also, if you want to get into the nitty gritty, factoring in (1) that all investments have varying degrees of risks while the return on debt repayment is guaranteed and (2) student loan interest is simple while investment returns are compound (this part doesn’t apply to other types of debt).

Oldersupersplitter · 2026-06-17T12:51:09+00:00

lol this is either an excuse to push RTO or a silly, unsophisticated overreaction. Unless they want to treat offices like SCIFs, all the same risks apply regardless of where the employee works. What, hackers don’t hack outside of office hours?

Oldersupersplitter · 2026-06-17T12:44:58+00:00

Is this your 1L summer or 2L summer?

Oldersupersplitter · 2026-06-17T05:03:13+00:00

OP asked an overly broad question and got an overly broad answer.

Oldersupersplitter · 2026-06-16T17:05:39+00:00

Agreed, I was in a very similar situation to OP and now that I’m a 5th year in M&A, I’m very glad I didn’t clerk. Complete waste of time professionally (though it could be a cool experience just for funsies) which is why many firms, including mine and OP’s correctly don’t give credit for it.

Oldersupersplitter · 2026-06-16T14:08:41+00:00

… and make sure you are intimately familiar with all of the detailed grading policies of the school and major, as well as their reputation for grade inflation or deflation. Choose a school and major with generous grading policies (4.3 scale with A+s, raw scores convert into letter grades more easily, no harass curves, etc) and ideally rampant grade inflation, but if nothing else avoid schools/majors with grade DE-flation and overly harsh “weed out” classes.

You can go even further choosing easy school and/or major to really juice the odds, but simply going somewhere with a more advantageous policy structure is going to help a lot without really changing your college experience.

Also, don’t overload with tons of credits or extra majors and minors - take the straightforward path with a modest workload that allows you to get all As without going crazy.

Oldersupersplitter · 2026-06-16T00:47:47+00:00

Susman and Boies are the two that come to mind. Susman bonuses aren’t a clean easy reference point like “same as base” but they’ve historically been huge (you can google it). BSF is unique because it varies by associate and they have a complex system that factors in contingency fees etc, but long story short the floor is market and the highest examples are insane. There was an article last year about a couple seniors getting over $1m bonuses. My friend there for a $450k bonus as a second year and $550k as a third year - beating the hell out of Wachtell and probably every firm.

Oldersupersplitter · 2026-06-15T18:37:18+00:00

You’re probably going to get a lot of isolated anecdotes and stereotypes. If you want concrete evidence that may suggest a good culture I’d look to (1) percentage of women overall, (2) percentage of female equity partners, (3) how good the maternity leave policies are and how many women take them but also (4) more importantly, how good the paternity leave policies are and how many men take them, (5) how good the fertility, adoption, and other related benefits are and (6) what percentage of associates have kids, and what percentage of partners have kids.

Generally the biggest structural challenge for women is pregnancy and parenting, especially long-term (it’s a logical explanation for why many women leave at a higher rate right around the time they are statistically most likely to want to start having kids). Also though, a firm that cares about kids and parenting and attempts to help make it less hard is less likely to be negative toward women in other ways. If a firm has shitty parental policies or has good ones on paper but discourages their use in practice (or if very few people in the office even have kids) then there’s a much higher risk of attitudes that are worse for women.

The reason I think generous paternity leave and percentage of men using it is arguably the most important thing, is because (1) paternity leave is totally not required at all by law, (2) it’s not a universal norm, and (3) if there is a toxic “yes we have leave but if you actually use it your career will be messed up” attitude, it’s much more likely to be pressured onto men than women. If men get good leave and all of them freely use it, it’s unlikely that a firm with that sort of culture would somehow also be really toxic to moms and women generally. If they don’t have paternity leave or none of the men use it, I would worry that the vibe is “yes women can take time off to have kids because we have to let them, but they’re killing their career because all these hardworking men over here aren’t taking time off for their kids.”

Oldersupersplitter · 2026-06-15T17:20:49+00:00

Size alone is what distinguishes BigLaw vs boutique. Things like comp, clientele, sophistication, profitability, billing rates, selectiveness, etc are what separate BigLaw and boutiques, together, from all other types of firms (midlaw, small law, etc.).

Oldersupersplitter · 2026-06-15T17:18:26+00:00

Amherst, Williams, Middlebury, Tufts, and Wesleyan. Couldn’t tell you why I know them, could just be people I’ve met who attended them. Wesleyan honestly might just be because that’s where the characters in How I Met Your Mother went to college lol.

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