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Writing a Law School Admission Essay 

A Law School Admission Essay tells a story.  Your GPA and LSAT score have told the admissions officials about one part of you—your job in the admissions essay is to complete the story.

Admissions officers want to create a diverse incoming class and they value a range of experiences, backgrounds, and outlooks.  They also try to ensure that their incoming class can succeed in law school.

It is a tall order to convince them that you are the right person for one of their coveted slots and the personal statement is the place for a well-told story that can convince them of your merit.  And the admissions officers and committees who read every single personal statement is the audience you must keep in mind.  Thus, a few tips:

Your Theme

What is the quality, trait or background experience that you are trying to convey to the admissions committee? Political engagement? Determination? Compassion for others? Hardworking nature? Ability to overcome adversity? The life lesson that set you on this path to law school? How your race/ethnicity/culture has shaped you? These are some of the most popular themes for law school applications, and they are good ones. Choose one of these, or another, as the backbone of your personal statement. Do not feel that you have to convince the committee that you want to go to law school – the presence of your application in their stack is ample evidence of that desire. Do, however make the explicit connection between your theme and your reason(s) for applying.

Show don’t tell

This basic principle of good writing is the most important one to follow in drafting your personal statement. Do not make conclusory statements about yourself like, “I’ve always been very hardworking” or “I have the ambition to excel” or “I really want to help people.” Rather, show the reader an example of your hardworking nature – tell the story of how you single-handedly reorganized the stock room into an efficient operation at your otherwise boring summer job. Relate your experiences tutoring underprivileged junior high students. Describe what it was like training for the big game, meet, or event. Don’t write, “I became committed to working in health care law when my grandmother was in the hospital.” Instead, describe your family’s experiences during that time.

Feedback

Don’t wait until your personal statement is polished and almost ready to submit before you show it to anyone else. Ask friends, family members, the Writing Center , professors or the Pre-Law Advisor to review an early draft to make sure you’re on the right track.

Prepare to write several drafts

Your personal statement is a crucial element of your law school application. It is worth spending a lot of time drafting, honing and polishing.

Answer the question(s) asked

Each school asks a slightly different question or series of questions for their personal statement. Make sure you are answering the question asked. This may mean making some fairly serious edits to your basic statement for each school.

Pay attention to grammar and spelling

One purpose of the personal statement is to gauge your writing skills. Bad grammar or misspellings will leap out at the attentive reader and merit an immediate, disdainful circle with a red pen. This is another good reason to prepare multiple drafts and to have others review your work.

Make it legible

Do not get clever with your margins, font or line-spacing. Use a basic, readable font in a normal size (12 is usually best). Your readers will be expecting one-inch margins and double-spaced lines. If you are going over the two-page limit, then you need to edit your work, not make your font smaller.

Common errors you must avoid

Do not use your personal statement to explain a negative GPA or other “bad” information unless it is your central theme (e.g., “flunking out of college was a turning point for me”). Use an addendum for explanations of this sort.

Do not write about how fascinating the law is or how you find it intellectually stimulating.

Do not start off any sentence with “I have always wanted to be a lawyer”. Again, of course you have, or you wouldn’t be applying.

Do not write a point-by-point essay on why you'd be a stellar law student or lawyer.  That is really not what the admissions committee is looking for.  Let your resume and the rest of your application speak to your accomplishments. 

Do not include meaningful quotations from famous philosophers or lawyers. This is an overused ploy that tells the admissions officer exactly nothing about you.

Do not get too clever – good writing speaks for itself.

How can the Pre-Law Advising Office help?

Reviewing personal statements is the first priority for the Pre-Law Advising Office in the Fall. Feel free to make an appointment to brainstorm about your theme. Email or drop off a draft for comments. Seek out assistance early in the process -- you don’t want to drop off what you think is a finished product only to hear that it’s way off base.