Follow the directions. Somebody put a lot of thought into the language each individual law school uses to explain what it is looking for in a personal statement. Drafts were written and rewritten. Committees were formed. Resolutions were passed. Give them what they want.
Unless the directions say so, don't wax on about your goals. Face it: You have only an imprecise idea of what law school will be like. Everybody's goals change over the years. Your goals are especially likely to change because law school will change you. As you change and grow, your goals will morph. Leave the seventy-five-year plan out of your personal statement.
Maintain the proper tone. Your essay should be memorable without being outrageous and should be easy to read without being too formal or too sloppy. When in doubt, err on the formal side. Law school is kind of a stuffy place.
Don't try to be funny unless it's actually funny. An applicant who can make an admissions officer laugh never gets lost in the shuffle, and no one will be able to bear tossing your app into the "reject" pile. But beware! Most people think they're funny. (We think we're funny.) But only a few are able to pull off humor in this context.
Stay away from anything remotely off-color. Avoid profanity. It's not a good idea to be irreverent (although you will find at least one statement in this book that was a little naughty and got the person that wrote it into a top law school-or at least didn't keep him from gaining acceptance). Also, there are some things admissions officers don't need to know about you. Guess what these things are.
Circumvent political issues if possible. We can imagine a situation in which political issues might be unavoidable. If you worked for the Dole campaign in 1996 or the Gore campaign in 2000, or if you've been working at City Hall for a while now, then it makes some sense to discuss politics because it has been so central to your experience. You don't, however, want to write a polemic about your pet issue, no matter how near and dear it is to your heart.
Admissions officers don't care about your particular political viewpoints as long as they're thoughtful. They don't care if you are a Republican or a Democrat or about your position on the issue of gun control. But here's the problem: If you write about some political issue, you might look like the kind of person who is intolerant, unwilling to consider other viewpoints, and generally unpleasant. Who wants someone like that in their law school community for three years? And since lawyers must learn to think about issues from different angles, that kind of person is unlikely to make a very good lawyer. Be very careful.
Don't make religion the focal point unless you're applying to a law school with a religious affiliation. Don't misunderstand us. Religion is not taboo. It's fine to mention religion in any personal statement; just make it part of the whole. There is an obvious exception here. If you are applying to Baylor, Brigham Young, or Regent University, for example, then you may want to focus on religion because religion is very important at these schools.
Put the fraternity bake sale behind you. The same goes for the juggling club juggle-a-thon and the Womyn's Action Group all-night fundraising vigil. Achievements in a Greek organization or any club or student group are not the kind of life-changing events that have made you the person you really are today. If you were the editor of the school paper, or if you personally facilitated the temporary housing of more than 200 victims of domestic abuse over a three-year period-well, that's different. Tread cautiously. Make sure whatever you did rises to the level of having an actual impact on your life.
No gimmicks; no gambles. Avoid tricky stuff. You want to differentiate yourself but not because you are some kind of daredevil. Don't rhyme. Don't write a satire or a mocked-up front-page newspaper article. Gimmicky personal statements mostly just appear contrived and they fall flat, like a bad Saturday Night Live skit. As far as content goes, law schools don't like gimmicks. They don't like personal statements written as obituaries. Do not make your personal statement into a poem or anything besides standard prose. It never works. Don't do the philosophical dialogue where you are a student of some Socrates who is asking you Really Profound Questions. Sure, you laugh. But we've seen it. Stick to a straightforward narrative.
Subject Matter to Avoid in Your Personal Statement
"My LSAT score isn't great, but I'm just not a good test taker." If you have a low LSAT score, avoid directly discussing it in your personal statement. Like the plague. Law school is a test-rich environment. Saying that you are not good at tests will do little to convince an admissions committee that you've got the ability to succeed in law school once accepted. Save any mention of a low LSAT score for an addendum.
"My college grades weren't that high, but . . . " This issue is a bit more complicated than the low LSAT score. Law school admissions committees will be more willing to listen to your interpretation of your college performance, but only within limits. Keep in mind that law schools require official transcripts for a reason. Members of the admissions committee will be aware of your academic credentials before ever getting to your essay. Just like with low LSAT scores, your safest course of action is to save low grades for an addendum.
"I've always wanted to be a lawyer." Sure you have. Many applicants seem to feel the need to point out in their personal statements that they really, really want to become attorneys. You know better and you will do yourself a great service by avoiding such throwaway lines. Do not convince yourself in a moment of desperation that claiming to have known that the law was your calling since age six (when-let's be honest-you really wanted to be a firefighter) will somehow move your application to the top of the pile. The admissions committee is not interested in how much you want to practice law. They want to know why.
"I want to become a lawyer to fight injustice." Let's be clear: If you really want to spend your life battling for cosmic justice, by all means write your essay about it. Just keep in mind that there are a lot of people who will use this topic as well. Though some of these people really do want to fight injustice, way down in the cockles of their hearts, most just say that because they want to look good but are motivated to attend law school by less altruistic desires. Many essays about fighting injustice will appear obviously bogus and insincere. Even if you are sincere, you might get flung into the same pile as all the insincere phonies. Admissions officers will take your professed altruistic ambitions (and those of the hundreds of other personal statements identical to yours) with a chunk of salt.
If you can in good conscience say that you are committed to a career in the public interest, you must show the committee something tangible on your application and in your essay that will allow them to see your statements as more than hollow assertions. Speak from experience, not desire. This is where those details we've already discussed come in handy. If you cannot show that you are already a veteran in The Good Fight, don't claim to be. Also, do not be afraid of appearing morally moderate. If the truth is that you want the guarantee of the relatively good job that a law degree practically ensures, be forthright. Nothing is as impressive to the reader of a personal statement as the ring of truth. And what's the matter with a good job, anyhow? |
