Nervous Junior who needs expert advice for Law School questions

Graduate School Law School
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<p>I am a Junior at the University of Michigan who plans to graduate a semster early. I am majoring in Psychology and I have an overall gpa of about 2.7. I screwed up my first semester in college because I took a bunch of pre-med courses not knowing what I wanted to do with my life, and I was having a some personal issues as well as a hard time adjusting to college life.</p>

<p>In late 2004, I got charged with a Shoplifting misdemeanor in Michigan. I went to court and I paid all the fines and fees and did 72 hours of community service. Under the H.Y.T.A (is this the one? I am not sure) I was told that if I completed the community service hours and paid the fine, the charges would be dismissed and would not show up on public records (only to courts and police systems) since it was a first time offense. I learned a lot from that experience and shortly after, I realized that I wanted to go into law. </p>

<p>I REALLY REALLY really want to pursue a career in law and I am planning to take the LSAT in either June or October so my applications can be ready by Novermber 1st for rolling admissions.</p>

<p>So, my questions are:
1. What are the chances of me getting into a good law school on the East coast? Can yu give me some examples of schools I can get into
2. Will my misdemeanor charge hurt my application/do I even have to write it on my application since it was dismissed?
3. If I do have to report it, how do I explain this misdemeanor in my application?
4. Will I be able to get a good job in corporate law after I graduate from a law school that is not first tier?
5. Do you recommend for me to take the LSAT in June or October, since I have not really begun to prepare for it? (I am also planning to take a Kaplan or Princeton review course for it in May)
6. How should I eplain my low GPA to law schools?</p>

<p>And I am would be so grateful for any extra advice or information. Thanks so much for reading this post!</p>

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<p>2.7 is bad news for good law schools. Maybe you should go to school that extra semester and bring it up a bit.</p>

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<p>The University of Michigan law school asks:</p>

<p>"Have you ever been convicted of a crime, including misdemeanors and infractions, but other than minor traffic violations, or are such criminal charges pending or expected to be brought against you?"</p>

<p>A Yes answer won't keep you out, but you will have to explain it.</p>

<p>Unless the charge was dismissed or perhaps the incident expunged in a juvinile proceeding, failure to answer yes could get you expelled from law school. And, some law school might asked if you were ever arrested or ever charged with an offense.</p>

<p>I found the following advice elsewhere on the Web:</p>

<p>"You say you were "convicted" - under HYTA, that is not actually the case. You entered a plea, but as you successfully completed your HYTA probation no conviction was entered. So accurately speaking, you were arrested, charged, but not convicted. </p>

<p>"This is a bit of a conundrum, as this is likely to again rear its head when you apply for admission to the bar. It probably won't exclude you from consideration for admission - you might be surprised at the misspent youths of some of this nation's lawyers. At that time, you don't want the problem to be magnified by any misrepresentation on your application to law school. </p>

<p>"My personal approach would be to indicate that I had once been charged with a criminal offense (at the age of... 17?), but that I was not convicted. It's less than ideal, but it is completely honest."</p>

4

<p>you should take as many courses as humanly possible to try to get that GPA over a 3 if you want any shot at top 14 law school. </p>

<p>you'll also need a top LSAT school, min. 165 maybe even higher to be in contention.</p>

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<p>A 2.7 is going to keep you out of a lot of top-tier schools. It's impossible to say what your chances are without an LSAT score.</p>

<p>Your conviction won't help at all, but you absolutely have to disclose it. You definitely don't want the bar committee to find out that you lied on your application.</p>

6

<p>FOR THE OP-- Some states have laws that wipe the record clean, and you dont have to report anything. Depends on the state. best thing I could recommend for you is to call up your local DA's office, or look up the penal law for your state and see what it says. </p>

<p>In NY they have a thing called Youthful Offender status, in which your record gets swept clean and you dont have to report anything</p>

7

<p>It's not going to do much good to explain your GPA. Law school adcoms see bad grades in math and premed courses in freshman and maybe sophmore years all the time. On the other hand, a steadly improving GPA would help if the final result is up there, and an explanation wouldn't hurt unless it is too whiney or something.</p>

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<p>Ok, I will try to bring up my grades to over a 3.0, thanks for your advice! The reason I was going to graduate early was because it has become a burden on my parents to pay the out of state tuition for Michigan. If I do stay for the four full years, will a 3.1 be sufficient for some schools?</p>

<p>I am also a NY resident, but the charge happened in Michigan. Should I call the NY DA office, since it is the state where I plan to take the bar exam, or should I call the MI office and see if the charges were wiped? Also, I was 19 at that time, so I guess I would not qualify under the Youthful Offense Act.</p>

<p>Another thing - do you recommend June or October LSAT? I start the summer in May and I will have about 30ish days to prepare while for october, I have a lot of time but will be taking classes and exams for those classes in the month before the LSAT.</p>

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<p>well under NY law YO status is btwn the ages of 16-19, so you may qualify... but if the charge happened in MI, then its a bunch of stuff im not familar with and you gotta do some research on it</p>

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<p>A 3.1 will not be sufficient. Few things short of a 4.0 in your last few years will be sufficient.</p>

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<p>What if I still decide to graduate early in December, and take a year off and work as a paralegal or work somewhere as an intern, and then apply to law school? Will my chances for Law school be better then?</p>

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<p>It doesn't matter what the state law says about whether you have to disclose or not disclose. What matters is the way the question is phrased on the applications of the particular law schools to which you apply. Answer the question truthfully because a less than truthful answer will get you in trouble with the character and fitness committee down the road.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
It doesn't matter what the state law says about whether you have to disclose or not disclose. What matters is the way the question is phrased on the applications of the particular law schools to which you apply. Answer the question truthfully because a less than truthful answer will get you in trouble with the character and fitness committee down the road.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Exactly. Don't bother doing all this research to try to figure out what the status of your record is. Just put it on the application, explain it as much as you can and hope they don't hold it against you. This is the kind of thing that can come back to bite you and make 3 years of school a waste of time.</p>

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<p>1.What if I still decide to graduate early in December, and take a year off and work as a paralegal or work somewhere as an intern, and then apply to law school? Will my chances for Law school be better then?</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Or, should I apply to a school I can get into in NYC, then tryto transfer to a better school after my first year? From experience, is it very hard/impossible to transfer into another law school? Do I have to pull straight A's in all my law classes?</p></li>
<li><p>In response to Americanski, I read somewhere that perhaps I should call the NY State Bar Exam board and ask them if my charges will prohibit me from taking the bar because I have "questionable" character. What do you think I should do? And how should I contact them? I looked online and I found emails and numbers for people, not a general phone line. </p></li>
</ol>

<p>Thanks again for all of you who have been such a great help!!!!</p>

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<p>What Jonri said is true. I will admit to having been caught with a "liitle" bit of MJ as a teen. I was told the charge would be wiped out, but never followed up. When it came time to take the bar exam, a little voice told me to call and find out if the charge was still there. Indeed it was. So, I acknowledged it, explained the circumstances, and never heard boo from the bar examiners. </p>

<p>Lying is a "crime" of moral turpitude, smoking is not. The former will keep you out of the bar, the later will not.</p>

16

<p>You apply to law school. Different schools ask slightly different questions about character and fitness. You MUST answer those questions truthfully. </p>

<p>After you finish law school, you take the bar exam. If you pass it, you fill out an application for admission. That application will ask you a lot of questions. My computer just crashed, but before it did, I found the actual form you have to fill out as of right now in New York State. (I googled "New York" + "bar admission" + "character and fitness".) Section F was about criminal conduct and it clearly states that anything other than minor traffic tickets must be listed and specifically says to include juvenile offenses even if they were expunged. </p>

<p>I suspect that nobody is going to tell you BEFORE you even start law school, whether four or five years from now, this infraction will/will not prevent you from being admitted to the bar. (Well, maybe somebody will answer you, but the answer you get will NOT be an enforceable promise.) The ONLY time you get a REAL answer is when you ACTUALLY APPLY TO THE BAR. There is a "Character and Fitness Committee" and, if necessary, after getting copies of all the papers from the court regarding the circumstances of your arrest and finding out whether you've ever gotten into trouble again, and taking into account things like whether you have a disciplinary record in college or law school, and interviewing you to determine how remorseful you are, and how much time has passed, THEN the decision will be made. </p>

<p>If the C&F committee finds that you failed to disclose this incident on any law school application which asked a question which should have lead you to make the disclosure, that IN AND OF ITSELF, will be taken into consideration and OFTEN the failure to disclose will end up keeping you out of the bar, even if the offense itself would not. </p>

<p>Back in the Iron Age, when I was in law school, I had a classmate who, while serving as an officer on a Naval vessel was asked by someone to take and deliver a package in return for a substantial sum, allegedly so someone could avoid paying customs on the contents. He agreed. Unfortunately, the requester was under surveillance. The envelope contained drugs. He was court martialled. He was busted from an officer to a seaman and forced to spend extra time in the Navy.(It was that or prison.) He received a dishonorable discharge. </p>

<p>He ended up taking THREE bar exams in THREE different states because he could NOT get an answer to whether or not he would be admitted to the bar given his dishonorable discharge UNTIL HE TOOK AND PASSED the bar exam. He then applied for admission in all three states--two refused to admit him, but one admitted him. </p>

<p>Bottom line: I suspect you aren't going to get an answer to whether this will keep you out of the bar in New York which you can rely upon to guarantee that you won't have a problem 4-5 years or more down the road. The committee just doesn't issue "theoretical" decisions.</p>

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<p>I'm not sure I explained well. In New York State, at least, you don't have to do much at all to take the bar exam. AFTER you take and pass it, THEN you apply to the bar and fill out paperwork in which you are asked to disclose things like a disciplinary record in college, criminal charges, unpaid judgments against you, bills overdue by more than 90 days, unpaid child support awards, etc. Among other things, the work load's a lot lower if you don't spend time screening the roughly 25% of the test takers who fail and there just isn't time to screen everyone who takes the bar exam before the actual date of the bar exam. Instead, you're screened AFTER you pass, and people without any "issues" will end up being admitted before all of the applications which do raise "issues" are processed. </p>

<p>The OP's question infers that if you have a criminal conviction you might not be able to "sit" for the bar. You can be a convicted of grand larceny and take the bar if you want--you're just very unlikely to get through the character and fitness screening afterwards.</p>

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<p>You're not going to have trouble with the bar over a misdemeanor shoplifting charge when you were in college as long as you're honest about it--plenty of people sail through with FAR worse than that on their records. It's simply not in the same league at all as being bribed to deliver mysterious packages to parties unknown while you're a Navy officer, though jonri is right: nobody is going to guarantee you you're safe. But it's not something I think you have to worry about.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
3. In response to Americanski, I read somewhere that perhaps I should call the NY State Bar Exam board and ask them if my charges will prohibit me from taking the bar because I have "questionable" character. What do you think I should do? And how should I contact them? I looked online and I found emails and numbers for people, not a general phone line.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Again, don't bother, just disclose it on your application. As I hope that you've gathered from this thread, the risk that this will come up later and get you denied admission to the bar after three years of school is too great to take a chance. Part of the reason schools even ask this is that they don't want to bother admitting somebody who will probably not be admitted to the bar for C&F reasons, but I don't think that would be the case for this offense.</p>

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<p>I didn't mean to imply the offenses were similar. The point was just that in three different states, my classmate couldn't get an answer as to whether those circumstances would keep him from being admitted to the bar without actually taking the bar exam and going through the application process.</p>