Different majors will have different requirements for students to submit when applying, among which the application of law school will attach great importance to the content of the statement.
How to prepare a personal statement for studying law?
1. Know Your Audience Who is the typical member of a law school admissions committee?
A lawyer.
It’s important to remember that.
Many people try to teach the admissions committee about the law when drafting their personal statement.
Some papers even discuss the flaws of the law, implicitly or explicitly arguing that only oneself can fix the legal system.
When discussing legal issues, the “know-it-all” tone is sure to annoy admissions committee members, many of whom are among the smartest legal scholars in the world.
Remember, even if you have legal experience, you didn’t go to law school — you’re too “green” in the eyes of the committee.
When revising your personal statement, any language that suggests you know more about the law or legal issues than your reader does is best reorganized.
Instead, present the legal discourse through a personal lens to help admissions committee members get to know you better, not the law.
2. Personalization doesn’t equal personalization In an age where social media gives us platforms to express immediate, unfiltered opinions, revision is your chance to pause and reflect.
Being candid is appreciated, but at the same time maintain a professional tone.
Law school is both an academic and a professional enterprise.
If you mention that Harry Potter, Disney, Glee, etc., have changed your life, it may come across as a little immature.
Be careful with criticism.
If your early draft of your personal statement contains too many reasons why your ambitions in your current career have not been fulfilled.
To be clear, hating your job does not make you a serious contender for law school.
Besides, writing a personal statement is not a diary.
Present yourself strategically.
A good test for this is if you’re willing to say it to the dean of admissions.
If the thought of it makes you cringe, try changing it.
That’s the beauty of modification.
3. Avoid absolutes It’s always surprising how often job seekers rely on absolute statements to convey serious messages, such as that they “always” want to be a lawyer.
But think, when they were babies, did they not know the law existed?
So many applicants use some version of this phrase that they must believe that the word “always” signals how serious they are about going to law school.
Ironically, words like “always,” “never,” and “only” can make your personal statement easy to refute.
Writing like a lawyer means using exact words.
Be clear about your intentions and don’t exaggerate.
This advice will help you not only in this stage of your law school application, but also in developing your entire legal career.
4. Pay Attention to Style Lawyers tend to be well-behaved people.
Pay attention to the formatting guidelines and adjust your personal statement as needed.
You can, and probably should, create a different version of the statement for each school to which you apply.
Some schools have strict page limits, while others may specify font and margin sizes.
When you ignore presentation format requirements, the admissions committee is likely to think one of two things: that you didn’t pay attention to the requirements, or didn’t care enough and take seriously enough to follow the rules.
That’s not the impression you want to give as an aspiring lawyer.
5. Catch Mistakes Finally, don’t forget to check your essay for spelling and grammar mistakes.
These problems, especially in legal practice, can sometimes affect the position of commas in a contract.
To ensure that you are submitting an error-free draft, ask a trusted consultant who can write well to read your statement.
The more you reread and revise, the less these mistakes will disappear.
One of the most common causes of common mistakes is overthinking the text.
This is understandable, since the personal statement is the most important part of the law school application besides GPA and LSAT scores.
This is one of the few opportunities to give the admissions committee a sense of your personality.
With that in mind, you might be tempted to focus on a plethora of topics: Why did you choose to apply to law school?
What do you want to do after graduation?
What are your strengths and skills?
What is your motivation or inspiration?
There’s a lot to cover in two or three pages, and if you try to squeeze several topics into your presentation, you’ll end up with a basic discussion of each topic, and your personal statement will be much less coherent than if you explore a few of them in depth.
As a result, applicants who are too eager to stand out from the crowd can struggle with their topic choices and, more importantly, how to connect them.
On the other hand, lack of thinking is equally challenging.
The last thing you want to do is write a dry statement, then it’s just a glorified resume that basically just describes your education and career path and future goals.
After all, members of law school admissions committees probably read dozens of such articles a day, and cookie-cutter articles are usually forgotten by the time readers have finished reading them.
However, a common complaint heard from applicants is that having put all their achievements on paper, they struggle to relate them to a narrative that the school will accept.
Perhaps surprisingly, the answers to both puzzles are the same.
The fundamental problem is that the author is trying to put the cart before the horse and decide the conclusion before doing the research.
Of course, you definitely want to mention some accomplishments and brag modestly about your good qualities.
But in that narrow view, you forget the more important part — how they came to be.
Your experiences have made you who you are today, especially the most meaningful ones, and they should be your guiding light for two main reasons.
First, if a personal experience unrelated to your academic or professional achievements is important enough for you to mention in your personal statement on your law school application, chances are you’re passionate about it.
Writing passion is what makes a personal statement — and any essay — truly fascinating.
Second, when you write the essay, leave only a vague ending in mind — usually, why you want to go to law school — and let the rest of it come out more naturally.
You’ll find that some stories don’t fit the narrative you’ve chosen, and it’s much easier to abandon them if you pick a certain person skill first and then try to find a story that fits them.
You may need to do some fine-tuning after writing the first draft, but many of the points you want to put in your law school personal statement are already in front of you.
Finally, keep in mind that while it’s nice to have a certain structure, you’re not writing an academic paper.
It’s a good idea to draw some conclusions that drive home your main points.
But beyond that, your essay will be much easier to write and much more readable if you start writing it in stream-of-consciousness form, rather than trying to disguise a paper as a personal statement.
