I have made it to a tier-1 NLU this year, however as a consequence of some family issues I have horrendous grades in my 12th. This has given me some confidence issues even after reaching one of my desired law schools, plus I get extremely anxious to speak about this issue. I intend to know whether it will have any everlasting effect on my career? Can being in the top 20% of class compensate for the same? Will law school grades, moots, internships and publications help me get out of this mess? Most importantly, how will this effect my placements and how to compensate for the same? I shall be extremely grateful to the ones giving honest advise regarding my situation.

70% in 12th boards. Bang average CGPA in a top tier college. Got a PPO, stuck around and have done well in law firms. In my experience at least, your school grades will have zero effect if you want to join a law firm and build from there.

That said, it could potentially affect MBA/ foreign LLM admissions and scholarships. There are ways around it however, and great post-qualification work ex can often make up for it.

Most UK unis do ask for a CV as part of their application processes, so it would be hard to paper it over and any attempt to do so could actually lead to more headache than is required. But I'd imagine they'd go into questions of school grades a lot less than if they were looking at the same numbers for undergraduate admissions (in other words, as long as a CV is complete, I suppose they wouldn't care all that much about equivalences to their own system etc). But considering that Indian students going there for undergrad itself is a pretty not strange concept anymore, they will have a rough idea anyway without needing to go into the small details of exact equivalences of what some grade means. That said, however, I think any slightly sour taste left in their mouth because of potential issues with the school grades could be taken care of by very good law school grades, maybe followed by some average to above average work experience.

However, selection for training contracts in foreign law firms is completely another matter. While per my understanding some law firms are stopping this practice, many do still ask for school grades and are picky about that.

You're delusional to think anyone puts school grades on a CV. Hopefully, by the time you apply for graduate schools, you have more stuff to put on there than school grades. I have never seen a CV of a real life law graduate with school grades on there. There is a form that comes along with every graduate school application, UK or US. they ask for any number of particulars they think are important. They ask for your under graduate degree, gpa, they ask you to list out publications; they ask you to list out work experience. What do they not ask for? to list out your school grades. There's no space for that on the form itself. You would know this if you had filled out a single graduate school application.

No foreign law firm is looking at school grades either. They conduct their own tests and assessments to figure out if youre worth a vac scheme.

1. What would you include on a CV in the "education" section of before undergraduate degree? So what, you'd just show as if you went to an undergrad out of the blue? Of course they don't give spaces on the application forms for that because it doesn't matter all that much! But what do you think would happen if you actually tried to paper it over in your CV? Enlighten us about the conventions of CVs, oh omniscient one!

2. Of course they conduct their own tests, that everyone knows. Have you ever filled out foreign law firm (at least UK ones) applications in the past? Because if you had, you may have noticed they ask for "A Level" grades? Do you know what that even means? Stop being so nasty and randomly attacking people.

I’ve never seen anyone put their school grades on a CV. You put your gpa for undergrad, you put your internships, writing you’ve done, you put extra curriculars and you put references. If you don’t have any of those things - yeah you might have to put your school grades cause you haven’t achieved anything since school apparently. I’ve been around law schools for 15years now , I’ve seen hundreds of CVs. I have never seen a law graduates cv who is seeking jobs or graduate degrees have schooling information. Maybe when you’re a first year and you just started law school - but that goes away after first year.

I’m not being nasty for no reason. You’re discouraging someone from being ambitious for absolutely no reason. School grades are not a factor in any decision making for graduate schools or for hiring by law firms. They just aren’t.

They put A levels on that form because that form is usually used by folks coming out of the English education system. They would have no idea how to contextualise your grades. Think of all the state boards , icse, cbse, not to mention different standards between schools for a GPA. You can fill that information if you like ( not all firms even ask for it) but no one is making decisions based off of that.

The only place I’ve seen people ask for school grades is some stupid government jobs , and even there they aren’t using it evaluate- they’re using your school certs to identify you. And it’s only because it’s government jobs- they used to once be handed out to people with just high school certificates.

In order to get any meaningful university level education, you are expected to forget most of what you have been taught at school anyway, little of which have been either accurate or complete given our education system. Don't spare any additional thought about your school grades. Just focus on learning as much as you can and utilise every opportunity that you are getting now, and you will be fine.

1) 51% in 12th.
2) average person in Law School.
3) one unsuccessful domestic moot;
4) no publication;
5) decent non tier 1 internships; and
6) not very good at the English language.

Joined a tier 2 after law school. Worked there for 2 years, then moved to a tier 1 and been there for a very long time now. Moved up the ladder before others did (home grown or laterals) and doing well now.

No one asked and no one cared. Marks never has and never will make you a good lawyer, engineer, businessman, or anything else. Law School friends from best English Medium schools and colleagues from IVY leagues are all working at the same designation or lower.

What would matter is your command on the subject and focus on work. Do not focus on getting high CGPA, focus on understanding concepts and learning the law. Marks will follow and so will good jobs (if you decide on getting one) or if litigation, you will do well if you know the law.

All the best.

Unless I am missing out on something, my friends, colleagues and I (across firms, tier agnostic) when we hire, we really do not look into a CV for grades/ CGPA/ percentage. We interview based on what one has written and how much can her explain it.

In my opinion, 'scenario' for merit can never change unless robots with human sentients (who are near perfect to God) interview.