Before I begin, I must mention that I have finished a 4-year undergraduate law school in my country (which has a legal system almost identical to that of Germany) and ended up with a GPA that is, sadly, a lot lower than my high school one. While I have been getting higher grades in the last 3 years of LS, the first year seemed to have ruined it for me. The reason being that as a freshman, I was too shy to participate in discussions on seminars (Seminar activity accounts for 20-30 percent of overall grade. Even if I got maximum on exams, the participation points were always low, causing an overall grade to lower as well).
Now, I have been interested in international law. One of my professors has mentioned that some of his colleagues have been pursuing studying in the USA or U.K because they wanted to have a double qualification in legal systems of both civil and common law countries in order to deal with international disputes and contracts much better and I have been wanting to do the same as well.
My question is the following: According to the aforementioned situation, would my chances of getting into decent (not necessarily top tier) U.S law schools be raised, lowered or not changed at all? After all, I do have a Bachelor’s degree in Germanic Law but on the other hand, the GPA seems quite disheartening. Would a professional experience or internship make it better? I have also been takin some 12-week courses under the auspices of Harvard Law School that are offered in my country after which one would receive a certificate of completion from Harvard University (P.S I have not taken LSAT, seeing as it does not exist here).
I’d like to hear your opinions and your help would be immensely appreciated.
All is not lost. If you take a semester or two of graduate school and score well, that could easily change your situation. I’ve seen people get into law school that way.
Are you talking about getting an LLM or a JD? If you are already a qualified lawyer in your country and intend to practice in that country, an LLM (which has different admissions criteria) would probably be the way to go.
I was actually thinking of JD, to be honest, because I want to learn Anglo-American law as well to better practice it on an international level. If any LLM program provides that knowledge, I suppose it would be a good idea… I will look into it. Thank you both for the info.
At the school with which I am most familiar (University of Chicago), there are no specialized programs for LLM students and they take classes alongside JD students. The curriculum is quite fluid and LLM students choose which courses to take. Most LLM programs are one year (as opposed to 3 years for a JD), which may be a consideration given the cost of US-based law schools and your goals.
How does the 3.0 GPA rank compared to your classmates in Germany law class? High, low, average?
They would not tell me until the semester ends, so in a couple of weeks, I might know. According to my observations though, 3.0 seems pretty average, or maybe only slightly below average…
I thought that graduate GPA won’t matter to law schools, only the undergrad is something they pay attention to. Am I wrong?
that is true. Only grades taken into consideration are courses up to your first bachelors. Gong to grad school will not help your cause
This is not about being in a graduate program, if I am reading the OP correctly. He says that he finished a 4-year undergraduate degree in law, and refers to it as law school. His 3.0 is in this undergraduate program. The Harvard extension course is not a graduate program and would not, to my knowledge, be part of his LSAC GPA if he were to be applying to a US JD program. My understanding is that LLM applicants are in a different category than JD candidates and his GPA may be viewed in a different light. The Harvard certificate (and how he performed in the courses) would be a “soft” factor, in any case.
Yeah, as you may know, Europian countries allow students to apply to law school straight after finishing high school. Which means that my undergrad. degree is a legit degree in law. It is called a bachelor’s degree here but by USA standards, I belive it would be equivalent to the JD. As for Harvard’s course, it is called CopyrightX and is offered outside of university and has no bearing on GPA, sadly (though I thought that maybe presenting its certificate would be good in some way…). Now I’m thinking of either applying for JD in usa and study (anglo-american) law all over or simply apply for LLM. I have no idea what to do so I asked here.
Many US law school LLM programs are geared toward those with foreign law degrees wishing to qualify to sit for a state bar exam in the US. If you take a US bar exam ,you will learn a significant amount of US law.
Don’t worry about your GPA as I do not believe that entrance into comparative law LLM programs is too competitive.
You can get into a law school with a low gpa. Even with a 2.5 gpa. question is: can you get into a school worth attending with a good scholarship money.
Law school is not for people with low gpa and unimpressive lsat scores. The true winners of the law school game are those that attend a top law school with huge scholarship money. (as a result of top gpa + top lsat)
If you don’t get into a top 20 law school with big scholarship money, I say you are better off taking any 30k /yr office job out of college rather than going to law school
Please don’t get a graduate degree for law school admission purposes. Just focus on the LSAT and whatever grades you have left in undergrad. You are correct that only undergraduate grades matter for LSAT purposes.
The real question should be:
Where do you want to work? Europe or the US?
What type of law do you want to practice?
Depending on the answers to those questions, a US law degree might be completely useless.
Basically, unless you plan to practice in the US or perhaps with a US firm’s branch office in Europe, I don’t see the benefit of a US law degree. As a lawyer, you practice the law of the jurisdiction where you are admitted to the bar (which is an additional process even after you have a US law degree) and you generally practice only your specific area of expertise.
Also, I graduated from Harvard Law School. I would not mention the CopyrightX courses. A lot of US schools offer classes through the online “EdX” platform. Anyone in the world can take them and get a certificate of completion. The certificate of completion and the Harvard name do not mean anything.
Sorry.
The only thing you need to care about at this point is a high LSAT score. You can get a graduate degree and do well, which will contribute to your application, but it will not replace your undergraduate degree. The major factor in law school admissions is still the LSAT. You may not get into Harvard, but with a high LSAT score, a good personal statement and credentials, you have a shot at a tier 1 school even with your GPA. Also, the older your undergraduate GPA is, the less relevant it is becomes, especially if there is a graduate degree to follow and a solid work experience.
Whether the OP could take a US bar exam would be up to the state. Most require citizenship or a right to work in the US. There have been some exceptions recently, but mostly from DACA type individuals who have had to sue to get the right, and I doubt those individuals would ever get to appear in federal court, which is where most international cases take place.
Can I assume you are not planning to settle in and practice law in the US? Because the US legal market is super-saturated. For most people, it’s not worth the debt burden.
Assuming that you feel the cost of law school is going to be worth it to you in your field, I would suggest you take a look at American University’s Washington College of Law. I believe the rating has been slipping of late because of loosening admissions requirements (the former Dean liked to chase tuition $$), but the clinical program as well as the International Law program is highly rated - and you could get your common law background. That said, couldn’t you also get a common law education in Canada or the UK?
Really, if you have a law degree in the country in which you intend to practice, ultimately, come and get an LLM in the US. It will expose you to US law and provide a credential for your clients when you go back to practice at home. Unless you intend to actually practice law in the US, there’s no need to take the bar exam anywhere.
Your GPA is a barrier for top law schools and it is not worth spending money to attend low ranked law schools. Besides it will be difficult to obtain a work permit to work in the US.