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.
First you may not convert your GPA properly . Second, look into Canada and especially Quebec which offers excellent common law programs for people with civil system education.