how to deal with mixed law school grades

[vitaminquartet]

I am a current MA philosophy student, joint JD (law) student, and I did philosophy as an undergrad. I would like to apply to philosophy PhD programs for applied ethics, political philosophy, and jurisprudence and legal theory.

My situation is the following:

I have respectable but not excellent undergraduate grades (highish 2.i in the British system)

My law school grades are mixed (very poor first year, 2.75, but excellent second year, 3.8 with 4.0 in most recent semester) - law schools grade on strict curves and law students end up with much lower GPAs than philosophy grad students or undergrads. My poor grades are in traditional law classes (property, administrative law, civil procedure, stuff like that) and my high marks are in legal theory and jurisprudence courses (including classes where I had the highest paper grade).

In my philosophy MA, my grades have so far been consistently excellent (I would guess that I am probably at or near top of my class).

I have good relationships with numerous philosophy and law professors - but my strongest 'supporters' are law professors I had in my second year.

I have a dozen law and philosophy conference papers and two interdisciplinary law publications in reputable but not excellent journals.

Do I:

1. downplay my legal education since I have crappy 1st year grades.

2. talk about my legal education and ignore my 1st year grades.

3. talk about my legal education and explain my 1st year grades as being in subjects that are irreleovant to my research interests in legal philosophy?

And should I use all philosophy professors as letter of recommendation writers or a mix? Would it be okay to use 1 philosophy professor and 2 law professors?

Do I need to talk about my undergraduate philosophy grades (which, while respectable, are no where near as good as my most recent grades)

I am applying for 2012 entry

any advice on strategies would be appreciated