I’m currently in my third year of law school, about to enter fourth year, and honestly my CV is pretty bad right now. I’m from a tier 2/3 college and my CGPA is quite low. I’ve been trying to improve it, but nothing has really worked out so far.

I’ve only done internships in litigation and policy till now, and I haven’t had any corporate law firm experience. The thing is, I don’t even see myself going into corporate law long-term, but I still want to try it out at least once at a good firm, just to be sure and not regret it later.

I genuinely feel like I’m a hardworking person. If someone gives me work, I take it seriously and try to do it properly. It’s just that my grades don’t reflect that at all, which makes things harder.

Right now I feel a bit lost and behind compared to others, but I also feel like it’s not too late to fix things if I start now. I just don’t know where or how to apply with this kind of profile.

Would really appreciate any advice or guidance.

I've noticed people I was mentoring lying. Liars get careless and end up sending the CV to people who know they didn't actually show up for the internship or didn't actually do the work. I never touched or helped the person again. Luckily for them, they don't work in my exact area so no one asks me about them but you can burn a reputation pretty fast. Much better to be know as the person who did the work and reinvented themself after messing up in law school.

If you're from a bottom-tier college, your grades don't matter because no one trusts their grading anyway. People are looking to see if you are bright and have a good work ethic. That's what you want to be known for.

As someone whose really struggling to find just how to personalize without sounding stupidly overconfident and inflating their actual knowledge - could you tell how to write a 'damn good cover page - for niche practice areas or specialized areas to a firm'. I have a few publications on that front as well if it helps.

Let me first take a minute to point out that all is not lost, even with your actual CV. You will just need to write amazing cover letters tailored to the firms, and you will have to apply at more places than you can think of. And obviously, you will have to target boutique and Tier-4 firms for now. You may also have to call the HR numbers and repeatedly request for follow-ups. But if you apply to 50 boutique and Tier-4 firms well in advance, at least 10 will respond, and at least 5 will give assignment or positive responses. If you write a darned good cover letter and demonstrate your knowledge in the field, either through an attached publication or through recommendations from professors in your days of academic excellence, internship opportunities are definitely plausible.

Now, coming to your question regarding the lying, you need to understand this: unless one comes from a sterling college with top-class recruitments, your internships, jobs, and all forms of career progression will happen through the goodwill you create for yourself in law. All of this requires word-of-mouth appreciation, which means your first few years in the profession will revolve around a small set of network of seniors, employers, and co-workers, who have gotten/given appreciation/word-of-mouth popularity in the same firms and fields.
All it would take would be one conversation by anyone from the tons of people who have some idea of your academic struggles right now, and your legitimacy, reputation and quite possibly, your earnings, would be drastically ruined. The risk here is a real likelihood to lose pretty much every shot at betterment in your careee at some point in the future, even if you've spent a whole year or two working the hardest you could. And once that happens, for people without contacts, this would be an insane blow to get out of, for a huge number of years.

Right now, you're simply in a bad shape, but wherever you go, you will have the opportunity to do and get better. The risk is not worth it. Don't do it.

Put the past behind you and now prepare for CAT/GMAT and do an MBA. Every state now has an IIM plus there are tons of private colleges. The least you will get is an MBA from Manipal, Symbi, Nalsar or Jindal, so go ahead.

Also, I think you are an independent minded person. So during your MBA try to come up with ideas for a new startup. You will be far more successful than any lawyer if you put your mind to it.

Almost every CV I see, there are a lot of embellishments. Technically, those are not lying and are allowed.

If you make patently false statements like faking a publication or a moot win, it is possible that your lie will be found out very easily. Please remember that, people talk and gossip. If people figure out that you have lied on your CV, word will spread around within and outside the firm. I know may people (from my alma mater - a lower rung NLU with poor academic culture) who did this. Some of these people got caught but the most went scot free. Once people were able to secure a few good internships and publications they phased out the fake information. From the ones who went scot free -- they hid their CVs from prying eyes with a dedication that is matched only by the ISI and RAW. Please do that, because it is mostly other students / fellow interns who blow the cover on the lies and then word spreads like wildfire.

If you make false statements like the kind of work you did in a past internship, chances are high that it will not be caught. However, your employers will expect you to know the practical aspects of the topic you have agitated on your CV as a matter you have worked on. If you don't know what you are supposed to know, your mentor will think you are an idiot who did not learn the very thing you were doing. Therefore, there is a chance of reputational loss unless you really prepare your self on the lie you are selling. On the flipside, this is a great way to learn things in a short time frame which you should have learned before over a large swathe of time.

If you fake things like whole internships and all, you may get caught if your mentor knows someone in the firm where you have supposedly interned or if you do not know what you should have learned in the past internship. The slip up from the second is more probable, because in my experience, I have never discussed interns with my friends across firms unless that kid was extremely good or otherwise.

The long and short is: lying on CV is a low to medium risk affair if you are a good or an excellent candidate. Otherwise, it can blow up on your face spectacularly.

Good luck!

Don't do it. It won't work out like you think it will and you'll be found out soon enough. And the stigma of lying like that is something you'll carry for the rest of your life. Life doesn't play out the way it does in some TV shows and movies and the circle will come around someday. If your career is already ruined, at least let it get ruined with your integrity intact. You might be desperate right now but trust me when I say it does not last. If you are that desperate, write a good cover letter explaining your lacklustre CV instead of lying about yourself on it.

I am in my final year, have less than a month to graduate and absolutely no scope of getting placed anywhere at all. I don't really blame any firm though - I have a gap year, have studied law from a bottom-tier city based law college (which has always caused embarassment for me everywhere), my grades suck and my soft skills aren't great either. It's not that I didn't try hard/have always been dumb - I used to be really good in academics earlier, it's just that I went through a few things in the past few years which are have literally dragged me down completely and it's seems impossible to have the career I always dreamt of without any kind of support. Being in this field as a first gen (literally zero contacts) with these things complementing it is going to ensure that I remain unemployed till I can finally figure a way out of this or if a miracle happens. The latter is unlikely - honestly I've never had any good luck for anything at all & nor do I have the resources to wait for it to happen or even take more time to pursue higher studies which might open up doors for me. Atleast not right now. For now, opting to do something I never thought I'll even consider doing, seems to be the only way out of this mess. For some reason I think that I might increase my chances of getting atleast an internship opportunity if I tweak my CV a bit. I've never believed that my CV is a true reflection of whether I deserve a chance or not. I don't even plan on making major changes which make it obvious that those details aren't true (I ain't no Mike Ross lol) - just a few changes/additions here and there & tailoring it as per the firm's requirements/expectations. The firm anyways has the option of offering me further opportunities only after assessing my work, in which there are obviously no "jugaads" or shortcuts/hacks and I'll happily accept whatever their decision/feedback is, it's just that I don't want to be turned down on the basis of what I believe is not a fair evaluation of how I might turn out if selected. And yes, lastly, I am very well aware of the possibility of this thing getting detected and even the firm deciding to take action against me, doing this is very risky has the potential to backfire very badly but the only (weak) consolation I could come up with was that since I am already on the path of a ruined career, I might as well prefer to go down after attempting everything I could in my capacity. I can probably manage to live with the guilty conscience of doing something like this, but definitely cannot live with me beating down myself everyday for not doing the wrong thing to make the right thing happen.

Thank you for reading patiently. Please let me know your thoughts. Sarcastic/disruptive comments never contribute/always get ignored in a discussion thread where someone is asking for an honest opinion or seeking genuine advice. Please be mindful of that, atleast while replying to this post. Thank you.