Any advice for improving grades?

[stressedoutlawstudent]

Just got my grades back for Fall of 2L and once again am underwhelmed by my average results. To a certain degree I'm grateful for being at the very least average, but do want to improve (and still have half a degree to do so). I also understand that many law students who perform well have an innate talent for the law (ex. spotting issues) a gift I obviously lack. For the most part I try doing most of the readings and attend class but clearly the issue lies in other parts of my strategy. Rather than lament over being too dumb for law school, thought I'd finally ask around here to see if there's anything I should consider or incorporate into my studying strategy besides "working hard"? If not, I'll just start getting comfortable with my ever increasing collection of B range grades. 

Also, not sure if this really helps anyone here in answering my q, but I go to Osgoode.

Edited January 17, 2022 by stressedoutlawstudent

[bobloblaw]

This is maybe not possible for every course, but old exams / example fact hypos are extremely helpful for getting better at issue spotting if that is where you think your problem is!  

[MapleLeafs]

At a certain point I think it's innate ability. I probably do half the work that my peers do and perform above average with minimal effort. At this point in law school, if you didn't land in the recruit, as long as you're average, I think it's more important to start narrowing in on an area of law with ECs, course selection, etc. 

[123]

2 hours ago, stressedoutlawstudent said:

Just got my grades back for Fall of 2L and once again am underwhelmed by my average results. To a certain degree I'm grateful for being at the very least average, but do want to improve (and still have half a degree to do so). I also understand that many law students who perform well have an innate talent for the law (ex. spotting issues) a gift I obviously lack. For the most part I try doing most of the readings and attend class but clearly the issue lies in other parts of my strategy. Rather than lament over being too dumb for law school, thought I'd finally ask around here to see if there's anything I should consider or incorporate into my studying strategy besides "working hard"? If not, I'll just start getting comfortable with my ever increasing collection of B range grades. 

Also, not sure if this really helps anyone here in answering my q, but I go to Osgoode.

You're not obviously lacking in anything. Nor are you too dumb for law school. You're average amongst a group of Osgoode students. In a room full of smart, relatively high-achieving people, you're as smart as at least half of them. That is being smart and talented. Congratulations! You're doing great. 

Now you're not the smartest, most talented legal mind. And you're probably not going to get the kinds of jobs that go to the smartest and most talented exam writers. That's not a knock. It's the reality for 85-90% of law students, almost all of whom end up being at least fine.  

That's not to say you shouldn't try to improve. As professionals, we should be continuously working on ourselves. So yeah, it's good to see your profs to review your exams. It's good to do practice exams, and find ways to review more efficiently. But improvement above and beyond that of your peers shouldn't be the expectation, because your peers are also smart and diligent.

[Deadpool]

I highly recommend picking two areas of law to focus on moving forward. Osgoode has many clinical programs and experiential education opportunities. This can easily offset your average grades. You may not be successful in the 2L OCI recruit which is mostly made up of corporate employers, but you can get a good articling position with average and even below average grades if you play your cards right. This was my strategy in law school and despite having average grades, I still landed some decent government jobs and interviewed with a few in-house corporations and private practice firms. Outside of Big law, employers love to see a real passion and demonstrated interest in their work which you can evidence through clinics, course selection, club activities, etc. You can also still land Big law with average grades if you have other experiences that stand out in your resume and can network and socialize well. 

All that is to say, some doors are closed to you with average grades but most are not. If you find yourself lacking in one area, then just pound away at other areas you can control. After 1L I focused on taking more courses with practitioners so I can network with them and learn more about their work. I also got really involved in clinics and experiential education programs. This came up as a talking point in all my interviews. 

It is normal to feel imposter syndrome and that you are too dumb for law school. Many successful lawyers and legal academics have felt it. Don't be too hard on yourself. You already won half the battle by getting into a Canadian law school. Even if your grades do not remarkably improve moving forward, this should not prevent you from being a good and successful lawyer for your clients. At the end of the day, when clients thank you for your work that is when you know that you've done a good job - and not the fact that you got an A or a C in first year contracts. 

[stressedoutlawstudent]

1 minute ago, Deadpool said:

I highly recommend picking two areas of law to focus on moving forward. Osgoode has many clinical programs and experiential education opportunities. This can easily offset your average grades. You may not be successful in the 2L OCI recruit which is mostly made up of corporate employers, but you can get a good articling position with average and even below average grades if you play your cards right. This was my strategy in law school and despite having average grades, I still landed some decent government jobs and interviewed with a few in-house corporations and private practice firms. Outside of Big law, employers love to see a real passion and demonstrated interest in their work which you can evidence through clinics, course selection, club activities, etc. You can also still land Big law with average grades if you have other experiences that stand out in your resume and can network and socialize well. 

All that is to say, some doors are closed to you with average grades but most are not. If you find yourself lacking in one area, then just pound away at other areas you can control. After 1L I focused on taking more courses with practitioners so I can network with them and learn more about their work. I also got really involved in clinics and experiential education programs. This came up as a talking point in all my interviews. 

It is normal to feel imposter syndrome and that you are too dumb for law school. Many successful lawyers and legal academics have felt it. Don't be too hard on yourself. You already won half the battle by getting into a Canadian law school. Even if your grades do not remarkably improve moving forward, this should not prevent you from being a good and successful lawyer for your clients. At the end of the day, when clients thank you for your work that is when you know that you've done a good job - and not the fact that you got an A or a C in first year contracts. 

This is really good advice! Thank you very much. Last year I wrote myself off of the whole clinic experience but this year I'm just gonna go for it and apply. I plan on looking into experiential education too (thank you for reminding me). Currently my course load is pretty general, mainly because a lot of the courses that interest me are offered in the first term. But next year I'll have a pretty focused selection if I play the Osgoode lottery right.

[sunshinecoast]

Hey! I had below average grades in 1L (average was below 72%). My fall 2L average was 77%

I found the 3 biggest things that helped improve my grades were:

1. Tailoring my essays/exam responses to each specific professor. Most of my professors were very explicit about what they were looking for on essays/exams, I made sure that I hit every point they were looking for. I included these specific points in my CANs so that I would not forget.

2. I started making CANs way earlier than I did in first year and I tried to make my own CANs for each course. I also wrote some practice questions/exams without using any notes or materials. This was great for testing what material I actually knew from the course.

3. This might be obvious, but during course selection I played to my strengths. I took classes with 1L professors who I liked, and also chose classes I was genuinely interested in. This made studying so much easier and more enjoyable

 

[CleanHands]

1 hour ago, realpseudonym said:

You're not obviously lacking in anything. Nor are you too dumb for law school. You're average amongst a group of Osgoode students. In a room full of smart, relatively high-achieving people, you're as smart as at least half of them. That is being smart and talented. Congratulations! You're doing great. 

Now you're not the smartest, most talented legal mind. And you're probably not going to get the kinds of jobs that go to the smartest and most talented exam writers. That's not a knock. It's the reality for 85-90% of law students, almost all of whom end up being at least fine.  

Just to add to this, one thing that kind of sucks about this site is that there are a disproportionate amount of posters who did--or are doing--exceptionally well in law school, and/or who found they had to put minimal time and effort in to law school. These are also the people that are generally most eager to chime in when conversations about grades, workloads, and difficulty pop up. The conversations here will tend to make average students look and feel like stupid failures. I'm not saying this to fault anyone for answering questions and accurately stating what their experiences were, just commenting on the fact that by definition the average law student is average but you wouldn't know it by browsing here.

So @stressedoutlawstudent, I do appreciate you posting here and being candid about that not being your situation. We need more people to share experiences that don't involve getting on the dean's list by eating Doritos and playing Rimworld all day.

Others have addressed it already, but the bad news is that I'm in the "if you're a consistently average student by the time you're halfway through 2L, that's probably not going to change" camp. The good news is: that's okay.

FWIW a friend of mine was a dead average 1L and 2L and then top 10% of the class 3L, simply by switching to a full slate of paper-based courses, because he was much better at those than law exams. YMMV. But if you're coming here and asking for advice, I'm assuming you really did try so far, and I doubt there are any tips or tricks that will make you a better law exam writer that you simply have overlooked so far.

So I want to echo the advice to narrow in on what you want to do and build a really solid profile for it. I know plenty of people who weren't rocking the grades in law school but who you wouldn't be able to tell that about based on the CVs they carved out for themselves by knowing what they wanted and diving into it. I think this would be a more productive, less stressful, and more enjoyable focus than trying to bring your grades up.

Edited January 18, 2022 by CleanHands

[Ryn]

1 hour ago, CleanHands said:

Just to add to this, one thing that kind of sucks about this site is that there are a disproportionate amount of posters who did--or are doing--exceptionally well in law school, and/or who found they had to put minimal time and effort in to law school. These are also the people that are generally most eager to chime in when conversations about grades, workloads, and difficulty pop up. The conversations here will tend to make average students look and feel like stupid failures. I'm not saying this to fault anyone for answering questions and accurately stating what their experiences were, just commenting on the fact that by definition the average law student is average but you wouldn't know it by browsing here.

Well, I'll try to add to the mix to balance things out.

I was an average law student too (at Osgoode). I think my overall average was probably a flat B. I took home a few Cs over my time in school. But I also had a handful of above average grades, so it all balanced out for me in the end. I did not find law school exceedingly easy, but I also didn't find it impossibly hard. In the end, I was successful at OCIs despite my C (or was it a C+? I can't remember now) in constitutional law and I got one of those coveted Bay Street jobs. I did very well, got hired back, and worked as an associate for a few years before I moved in house. So, my point is, being middle of the pack doesn't mean you're going to end up articling for a sole practitioner in Stouffeville. You'll probably be just fine. And as @realpseudonym, you're a brilliant person among a population of generally brilliant folks. That will generally put you in the top quartile of nearly any mix of the general population. Not something to look negatively at, in my view.

How to improve your grades? Besides what others have already said, I found not only reviewing past exams to be helpful, but the model answers that went with them. Many profs will publish the best answers for a particular exam, and seeing what A students wrote will be very helpful to gauging just what the prof is looking for. Different profs look for different things to separate you from the rest of the class: spotting all the issues, applying certain important legal principles to facts, and so on. I'd give it a try and see if it helps.

 

[ZukoJD]

As someone who goes to a school that has virtually no practice tests available to students (uOttawa), what can I do? 
 

Would it make sense for me to take exams from other school’s test banks? 
 

[Hegdis]

That's an idea, or you can approach your profs and ask if they have old exams you can review.

[azure]

On 1/17/2022 at 3:28 PM, Deadpool said:

I highly recommend picking two areas of law to focus on moving forward. Osgoode has many clinical programs and experiential education opportunities. This can easily offset your average grades. You may not be successful in the 2L OCI recruit which is mostly made up of corporate employers, but you can get a good articling position with average and even below average grades if you play your cards right.

This is very good advice. If your grades aren't going to distinguish you amongst the pack of law students, find other things that will. This is especially true in niche areas of law, where employers want to see students who take an interest in that area. 

On 1/17/2022 at 4:01 PM, sunshinecoast said:

3. This might be obvious, but during course selection I played to my strengths. I took classes with 1L professors who I liked, and also chose classes I was genuinely interested in. This made studying so much easier and more enjoyable

Another tip with course selection, and I don't know about Osgoode, but at UVic where I went there were many courses in upper years that were not 100% finals. Some were completely assignment/essay based, others a mix of an assignments/exam. I always did much better on assignments than exams and got higher grades in those courses so I looked for those courses as much as possible. 

[BanzaiPipeline]

I was a marginal law school applicant who was a below average student for most of law school, until my 3L year when I received A's in exams of some of the most challenging courses available at the school. Everyone who struggles in law school struggles differently, however I think many of the students who have the hardest time in law school often share certain characteristics. In my case, I'm a bit restless, more entrepreneurial than process oriented. I struggle with the attention to detail and acute focus that the study of law demands. Some of my classmates would grasp from a single reading of a case what would take me hours to finally be able to comprehend. I pulled Cs through most of second year(had no 1L grades) and got B's and As in a lot of my 3L classes. Here is what helped me overcome my handicaps:

1) Make full use of multimedia: While reading case law is an important skill, a lot of us just aren't that good at sustaining attention on readings over a long period of time. Realizing my reading retention was low, I chose instead to rewatch lectures multiple times. Usually, watching a lecture for the third time is really what cooked the concepts into my memory. Setting a timer is usually a good way to commit to a certain amount of hours a week. 

2) Prioritize Face Time: The Biggest mistake I made in law school was to skip class because I didn't understand much of the lecture. A lot of learning is subconscious, and even if you don't get it the first time, you will at least have established some context. Secondly, meet with professors to go over concepts whenever you can, even once a week. If you struggle with concepts, profs have a way of distilling vital information in comprehendible one liners. Finding these ideas in office hours is really what provided me context in law school. Study groups are great too, but for me they were hit/miss. 

3) Hedge your classes. While it is commendable in principle to pursue a completely rigorous law school course-load, it's probably not wise for weaker students. However, in my case I also did not want to deprive myself of the rigour of complex black letter law classes, which I saw as a challenge. As such, I would recommend hedging your course-load. I think all law schools have classes about social theory, literature, philosophy, sports etc and the law. It's possibly to do most of law school as essentially a liberal arts degree. If you are like most law students, you were probably somewhat good at liberal arts courses to begin with. It's rare in most of these classes to get under a B. For a weaker law student they are important "filler" to balance your GPA.  At this point, focus your attention towards really mastering maybe two courses you identify as needing your attention the most. 

[RobsonHallHopeful]

On 5/20/2022 at 9:37 PM, BanzaiPipeline said:

I was a marginal law school applicant who was a below average student for most of law school, until my 3L year when I received A's in exams of some of the most challenging courses available at the school. Everyone who struggles in law school struggles differently, however I think many of the students who have the hardest time in law school often share certain characteristics. In my case, I'm a bit restless, more entrepreneurial than process oriented. I struggle with the attention to detail and acute focus that the study of law demands. Some of my classmates would grasp from a single reading of a case what would take me hours to finally be able to comprehend. I pulled Cs through most of second year(had no 1L grades) and got B's and As in a lot of my 3L classes. Here is what helped me overcome my handicaps:

1) Make full use of multimedia: While reading case law is an important skill, a lot of us just aren't that good at sustaining attention on readings over a long period of time. Realizing my reading retention was low, I chose instead to rewatch lectures multiple times. Usually, watching a lecture for the third time is really what cooked the concepts into my memory. Setting a timer is usually a good way to commit to a certain amount of hours a week. 

2) Prioritize Face Time: The Biggest mistake I made in law school was to skip class because I didn't understand much of the lecture. A lot of learning is subconscious, and even if you don't get it the first time, you will at least have established some context. Secondly, meet with professors to go over concepts whenever you can, even once a week. If you struggle with concepts, profs have a way of distilling vital information in comprehendible one liners. Finding these ideas in office hours is really what provided me context in law school. Study groups are great too, but for me they were hit/miss. 

3) Hedge your classes. While it is commendable in principle to pursue a completely rigorous law school course-load, it's probably not wise for weaker students. However, in my case I also did not want to deprive myself of the rigour of complex black letter law classes, which I saw as a challenge. As such, I would recommend hedging your course-load. I think all law schools have classes about social theory, literature, philosophy, sports etc and the law. It's possibly to do most of law school as essentially a liberal arts degree. If you are like most law students, you were probably somewhat good at liberal arts courses to begin with. It's rare in most of these classes to get under a B. For a weaker law student they are important "filler" to balance your GPA.  At this point, focus your attention towards really mastering maybe two courses you identify as needing your attention the most. 

Thanks a lot for posting this. This type of info was just what I was looking for 🙏🙏🙏

[goosie]

In addition to the advice you've already gotten, I highly recommend taking one or two courses in 3L that are genuinely just fun and interesting to you and not necessarily intended to contribute to your future career. This year I took Outer Space Law and made the decision to drop Evidence for Sports Law. Both really great courses on areas of the law I'll never work in, but that I had a lot of fun learning about. The rest of the classes I took were typical black letter law classes, and caveat that I did have an articling position lined up, so I was less worried about making sure my courses were indicative of an interest in a practice area. But it's your last year of law school - enjoy it! It was certainly easier for me to do well in classes that I had fun learning in.

Edited May 23, 2022 by goosie
rephrased for clarity