lsat personal statement help

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Law School Personal Statement Tips

In your personal statement for law school you want to present yourself as intelligent, professional, mature and persuasive. These are the qualities that make a good lawyer, so they're the qualities that law schools seek in applicants. Your grades and LSAT score are the most important part of your application to law school. But you shouldn't neglect the law school personal statement. Your application essay is a valuable opportunity to distinguish yourself from other applicants, especially those with similar LSAT scores and GPA.

How To Write a Personal Statement for Law School

1. be specific to each law school ..

You'll probably need to write only one basic personal statement, but you should tweak it for each law school to which you apply. There are usually some subtle differences in what each school asks for in a personal statement.

2. Good writing is writing that is easily understood.

Good law students—and good lawyers—use clear, direct prose. Remove extraneous words and make sure that your points are clear. Don't make admissions officers struggle to figure out what you are trying to say.

3. Get plenty of feedback on your law school personal statement.

The more time you've spent writing your personal statement, the less likely you are to spot any errors. You should ask for feedback from professors, friends, parents, and anyone else whose judgment and writing skills you trust. This will help ensure that your statement is clear, concise, candid, structurally sound and grammatically accurate.

4. Find your unique angle.

Who are you? What makes you unique? Sometimes, law school applicants answer this question in a superficial way. It's not enough to tell the admissions committee that you're a straight-A student from Missouri. You need to give them a deeper sense of yourself. And there's usually no need to mention awards or honors you've won. That's what the law school application or your resume is for.

Use your essay to explain how your upbringing, your education, and your personal and professional experiences have influenced you and led you to apply to law school. Give the admissions officers genuine insight into who you are. Don't use cliches or platitudes. The more personal and specific your personal statement is, the better received it will be.

Applying to law school? Use our law school search to find the right program for you or browse our law school ranking lists .

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A Sample Structure for Your Law School Personal Statement

Over the past 12 weeks, I’ve written a series of LSAT lessons that should be enough to get novices up and running. These lessons will also disabuse refugees from other LSAT programs of any bogus notions—race the clock, read the question stem first—they picked up elsewhere.

Today I’m going to shift gears a bit. Applications open in early September at most law schools, and forward-looking students have started asking questions about their personal statements. “Where the hell do I get started?” is by far the most common of these.

Last Wednesday, I guest-taught the Admissions Hour with LSAT Demon tutor (and soon-to-be Yale 1L) Carl Lasker. In that session, we brought back our “Personal Statement Woodchipper,” wherein we read one brave applicant’s draft personal statement. And, well, we shredded it. Like always.

The biggest problem with this one, like so many others, was that it left us with no real picture of who the person is or what they do. There was too much cinematic scene-setting, too much industry jargon, and too much Tarantino-style timeline-skipping.

There was not enough of the actual applicant we were supposed to be learning about. In short, the personal statement wasn’t personal.

We each have a dozen different stories, any of which could make the foundation of a strong personal statement. So it’s less important that we pick the perfect topic, and far more important that we get our bad first draft out of the way ASAP. Until we have a draft, we can’t start cutting the worst parts and teasing out more of the good stuff. The purpose of this lesson is to help you get started.

This isn’t the only way to get started—it’s just one way. If you’re stuck, this might be a good way to get the words flowing.

The basic formula: I am. I did. I do. I will.

Ben and I talk endlessly about showing, rather than telling, any time a personal statement comes up on the Thinking LSAT Podcast. The point is to demonstrate your strengths and achievements via facts, rather than forcing conclusions down the reader’s throat. Fact-driven writing is far more powerful than conclusion-driven writing. So the bulk of your statement needs to consist of sentences that follow the basic formula of “I did X.” We want your statement to be stuffed with sentences that feature you as the star of the show—don’t be shy about using the word “I” as the subject of your sentences—with active verbs. Here are some examples:

I wrote. I managed. I researched. I reorganized. I developed. I created. In short, I killed it.

Generally, you should avoid passive construction using forms of the verb “to be.” Steer clear of be, am, is, are, was, were, being, and been. When you see these verbs, replace them with something active.

Why, then, do I suggest starting with “I am”?

As Carl and I discovered in the Admissions Hour last Wednesday, the emphasis on active verbs can sometimes fail to give readers the necessary footing. We dive right into an action scene, without any background. So in this formulation of “how to write a personal statement,” it’s okay to start with a very brief statement of who you are, to help us understand the action to follow. Then skip back in time, just once, to discuss some background. Then progress into the modern day. Finally, if necessary, talk about the future. We’ll start in the present.

Ben Olson doesn’t let me use italics any more, but if I were allowed to use them I would italicize the “very” in “keep this section very brief.” I’m talking one or two sentences. See how it looks as a short, standalone paragraph. Using myself as an example:

I am the co-founder of LSATDemon.com, an LSAT preparation program with students and teachers from around the world. I’m also the co-host of the Thinking LSAT Podcast, which published its 296th episode last week.

This tells the reader who I am today, priming them for the story arc I’m planning to take them on. Don’t do more than a sentence or two of this, because it’s telling rather than showing. But the reader now has a picture of who I am in the world, which will help them comprehend the following sections.

Immediately, we transition back in time to provide some background. We’ll only do one such shift in the timeline—generally, chronological stories are much easier to digest. Readability is key, so we’ll only go forward, never backward, from here.

After graduating from Babson College in 2006, I began moonlighting as a GMAT teacher. My employer at the time needed an LSAT teacher, so I started teaching that as well. In 2008, in the summer between my 1L and 2L years of law school, I started Fox LSAT. I rented the back room of a Mission District cafe for my first class, which struggled to enroll a dozen students. But strong Yelp reviews and word of mouth filled subsequent classes.

From here, I’d continue to progress through my career. I’d talk about books I wrote, my in-person classes, the podcast, and founding LSAT Demon. This section can be anywhere from one paragraph to a page, depending on how much history is relevant.

Law schools are keenly interested in the person you are today. If they admit you, that’s the you who’s actually coming to class—not the you from five years ago. So we’ll shift to the present tense here to show the reader the strong, positive, winning applicant they’re looking for.

I now teach LSAT classes three days a week, and I love teaching now more than ever. I am especially proud of our free resources, including the Thinking LSAT Podcast, which have reached tens of thousands of students. I hire and manage a staff of two dozen freelance teachers, writers, and editors. Together, we offer multiple live classes seven days a week.

Here I could write about favorite students, or interactions I have with the teachers I mentor, or the laughs I have recording each week with Ben. You don’t have to choose the one perfect story, and each anecdote doesn’t have to be wildly impressive. Just demonstrate that you are capable, reliable, creative, thoughtful, resourceful—in other words, someone with their shit together.

Many excellent personal statements—especially for anyone who already works in anything even tangentially related to business or law—can end right here. You’ve shown who you are, what you’ve done, and what you currently do. Your reader is in the business of selling law school. They can put the pieces together between what you’re doing now and the opportunities they believe their law school can offer you. They already know you’re applying to law school, so don’t waste time with “I am applying for matriculation at your fine law school blah blah blah.”

But if you’ve been a musician for 15 years, or you studied chemistry in college, or your history-to-present doesn’t exactly scream law school, you may want to add a fourth, extremely brief section:

If it’s obvious that you’re changing career paths completely by applying to law school, try closing with a very brief statement about what you plan to do. One or two sentences is plenty, as you haven’t actually done any of this stuff yet—and it’s all just kind of BS until you actually do it. But you want your story to make sense (and hopefully it does, in fact, make sense), so go ahead and tell them what you’re trying to do.

I hope to gain experience in trade secret and copyright law. Eventually, I might explore a legal practice in the licensing of digital educational materials.

Boom, that’s it. Shitty first draft of personal statement complete.

I am. I did. I do. (And optionally, I will.)

That’s one or two sentences to introduce yourself. Then a paragraph to three-quarters of a page of what you did, leading up to three-quarters of a page of what you do now. End it there, or, if necessary, add one or two sentences of what you hope to do.

This isn’t by any means the only way to write a personal statement. But it’s at least a framework for getting something on the page that isn’t a complete mess. From here, if you find the glimmer of something you like, it’s all about the rewrites and editing.

LSAT Lessons

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The law school application process may seem like it’s only a numbers game, but the personal statement is your chance to share your voice, experiences, and writing skills. Not only is this the portion of your application that should humanize you, the personal statement must also reflect your abilities as a potential law school student. This may sound very daunting, but keep reading for LSAT Engine’s crash course on the Personal Statement.

THE RUNDOWN

The personal statement is your chance to tell the admissions committee about yourself.
For example, Harvard University requires the personal statement has a two page limit using a minimum of a 11-point font, while University of California Berkeley allows up to four pages.

PLANNING YOUR PERSONAL STATEMENT

Compile a list of the law schools to which you are applying along with each school’s personal statement requirements.
This way, you with a few alterations, you can use the longer version as a template for schools with longer personal statements and the shorter version for schools with shorter personal statements.
Think back to college admissions essays--what were some topics you talked about?
Try to find topics that are not apparent on other aspects of your application.
Write down possible ideas and jot down notes about how they could pertain to reflecting your abilities as a potential law school student.
Describe a personal challenge you faced and/ or a hardship you overcame.
Discuss your proudest personal achievement or a unique hobby that reveals who you are.
Tell about how becoming consciously aware of a personal value or characteristic has changed the way you view yourself.
Describe your passions and involvement in a project or pursuit and the ways in which it has contributed to your personal growth and goals. Do not rehash what is already on your resume.
Note that describing the event should at MOST take up ⅓ of your actual essay. As compelling as the story may be, you need to be able to tie the event back to who you are as a person and the effect it has on you.
Choose a narrow topic. Generalities do not perform as well as concrete experiences. Use your limited words wisely!
Be yourself. Cliche, but do not pretend to be someone you are not. These advisors have read through enough of these essays to discern what is genuine and what is not.
You want your essay to be easy to read and understand, not bogged down by unnecessary dramatics and big words.
There should be absolutely no grammatical errors or spelling errors.
Focus the essay on you. It may be easy to drift off, writing about an event or another person, but in the end this is your personal statement, and the committee wants to learn about you.
A past admissions committee member from Berkeley Law warns against an excessively dramatic opening sentence that bears no relevance to the rest of the essay.
The committee will read your resume in detail, and this is your chance to share something new.
These are misused too often, and it may make you seem pompous to the committee.
These essays usually do not give committees a deep look into the individual, and it is not necessary to demonstrate knowledge of the law in your personal statement.
These essays come off as unfocused and fail to make an impact on the reader.
That is what the addendum is for.
A common trope used is how “I love to argue” translates into being a good lawyer.
Use a TV show or parents as the reason you want to go to law school.
References to high school achievements are less effective because they are less relevant to who you are now. If it is relevant to your discussion, be brief.

ONES THAT WORKED:

If you are curious to see some personal statements that worked, linked below are a few essays. Don’t copy any of these ideas, but use them to get an idea of how these students were able to structure and frame a compelling personal statement.

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

BOSTON UNIVERSITY

Posted: 8-21-2018

(844) ENGINE-1

How to Format Your Law School Personal Statement

Woman proofreading law school personal statement format - image by Magoosh

How do you write your law school personal statement? Well first of all, let’s make sure that we’re on the same page about what your personal statement is. Your personal statement is the one part of your law school application package and law school requirements that you have complete control over, so you’ll want to put your best foot forward. A personal statement will often focus on why you want to go to law school (or transfer law schools ), but it can also focus on a personal story or aspect of your life.

It shows what makes you unique and why a school should admit you. The personal statement should focus on you, your background, and your goals more broadly. Make sure that it adds something new to your application materials – the school already has your transcript, resume, etc. Think about what you really want the application committee to know about you.

Before anything else, a quick clarification: the law school personal statement is different from an optional essay , which can take on a variety of forms. This could include diversity statements, addendums, or other essays. Here are some examples of law school personal statements that may help you understand the task at hand better.

How do you format a law school personal statement?

In brief, here’s what your law school personal statement will need in terms of format:

Overall : No title, 11- or 12-point Times New Roman font, one-inch margins.
Header : Your name, your LSAC number, and “Personal Statement” with a page number, formatted as either one or three lines. Check with your school’s requirements.
Body : Double-spaced, left-aligned (or justified), paragraphs indented 0.5 inches and not separated with an extra line, single space after periods.
Ending : End as you would a normal essay. This isn’t a letter; no signature is needed.

Personal Statement Header

The header of the personal statement deserves a closer look. There are two ways of formatting this: either on one line, or on three. One line gives you more space on the page, but can look busy. Three lines have the opposite effect. Weigh the pros and cons based on the length of your statement, then format accordingly.

If you choose the one-line format, be sure to space your information out equally or separate it with punctuation (commas, dashes, and slashes work well) so that it reads clearly.

If you use a three-line format, separate information by line like this:

Name, Page Number LSAC # Personal Statement

Law School Personal Statement Format: FAQs

What should be included in a law school personal statement.

Who you are. Show readers that you’re an interesting person who brings experiences and skills that will benefit not only the campus community, but the larger legal community.You’re applying in a pool of thousands of candidates, so be sure to highlight what makes you stand out from your peers.
Your true voice. There’s a reason why the personal statement isn’t just called a statement or an essay. Sometimes applicants feel that they should write pieces about public policy or social issues, but these too often fall short of showing an applicant’s true voice. Have someone you know well review your personal statement objectively. If they can’t tell you were the one who wrote it, it’s probably time for a rewrite .
Specific information about that school. It’s not sufficient to say that you want to attend Santa Clara Law School for its good curriculum, strong faculty, and numerous clinic opportunities. Notice how you could replace “Santa Clara Law School” with any other law school’s name, and the sentence could still make sense? That tells Santa Clara admissions officers that you don’t know very much about their school. Which leads us to our next point…
Research on the school itself. Figure out what makes the schools you’re applying to different from others. This is a great opportunity to reach out to alumni, and talk to the admissions staff! You can also use the Internet, visit your local bookstore and check out some guide books, or search around on online forums. Some schools are known for their strength in a certain area of law (think international law or intellectual property law ). Some schools are known for their commitment to pro bono work . Some schools’ faculty are renowned for their research in a specific discipline. Others offer distinctive programs or fellowships to their students. Identify what really interests you about the school, and tie that back to the academic and career interests you discuss in your personal statement.
Reflections on the school’s environment. Perhaps you’re looking for a collegial law school environment that mirrors your own undergraduate experience at a small liberal arts school. Or perhaps you’re looking for a large law school so you can take advantage of the network and breadth of resources and alumni that a law school of that size can offer. And don’t forget about the environment outside the school building! Is it important that you have access to hiking trials? Or a ski slope to enjoy over winter break? Environment is often a key factor students consider when deciding on a particular law school, so don’t forget to mention it as a way to express your interest!
Concise writing. Check your school’s website to determine how long your personal statement can be, and take it seriously. Law schools are not only looking at whether you can write concisely and effectively, but also whether you can follow posted instructions. Most schools only allow 2-5 pages for personal statement submissions. As a lawyer, you’ll need to write briefs and be able to clearly present client cases. Now’s the time to show that you are capable of honing your communication skills.
Authenticity. Law schools aren’t asking you to establish your own NGO or be an Olympic athlete. Rather, they’re looking for candidates who help round out a class and contribute positively to their school. Plenty of people get admitted to law school each year who aren’t superhuman, so don’t feel a need to pretend you’re more accomplished than you are (or stretch the truth). Be yourself – and view this as part of helping the reader understand who you are.
Correct writing. Maybe for class assignments, you’ve been able to submit the first draft you write as final. Or maybe one edit is typically sufficient for you to call an essay complete. For the law school personal statement, you want to commit at least two rounds of edits to perfecting your writing. Not only should you review your work, you should also ask both a friend and a fully objective reviewer (like a career center counselor or a campus writing tutor) to give feedback. Once you have at least two rounds of edits, read it out loud to yourself. This will help you identify any awkward phrases and typos. The more time you spend editing your writing, the more confident you’ll be in the strength of your personal statement.

What should you not write in a personal statement for law school?

Repetition . If your resume shows that you were vice president of your college’s botany club, general secretary of Basket-Weavers Anonymous, and founder of a campus-wide Pizza Appreciation Day, your personal statement need not repeat these things. Now, if founding Pizza Appreciation Day was such a transformative experience for you that you need to highlight it in your personal statement, be sure you’re telling admissions officers something new that your resume doesn’t already tell.
Your autobiography . Admissions officers don’t need a play-by-play of your entire life’s events from day one. Autobiographies become long and rambling – two things your personal statement shouldn’t be. Focus on aspects of your life that truly differentiate you from others in a meaningful way.
Academic issues . Law schools offer you space in a separate essay to explain academic discrepancies. Your personal statement is your chance to focus on the positive and show admissions officers you’d be an asset to their school. Don’t use your personal statement to go into detail about how your dog’s unexpected chronic migraines prevented you from getting a good GPA during your first year of college.
Legal jargon . No, you’re not a lawyer yet – and law school admissions officers are not going to be impressed by legal jargon that’s used incorrectly or used as a way to show off. Keep your tone and language simple. Remember that your personal statement is meant to show your own voice.
Cliches . Don’t be the student who bores admissions officers with another essay about how you want to be a lawyer because you like to argue. Avoid clichés – by definition, they’re overused and don’t add value. They make your personal statement generic, and you’ll fall flat when compared with other candidates.
Other people . Your personal statement should keep the focus on you. It’s great if you want to write about how your famous lawyer uncle inspired you to join the legal profession, but make sure the essay remains true to your story – not your uncle’s.
Slang . Admissions officers view the personal statement as a showcase of your best writing – so slang and casual English are best left behind. While you want your tone to be friendly, you don’t want to sound like you’re chatting with a best friend on a Friday night. Keep things professional.

How do I write a statement for law school?

There are three main steps to the writing process, and they’re no different here! Namely: brainstorm, write, and edit. In this case, though, we’ll add a fourth step: format and proofread.

Brainstorming is one of the most crucial things you can do for your personal statement. You want to make sure your ideas are strong, following the guidelines above. It can be helpful to spend a little quiet time alone or in a cozy coffee shop to start brainstorming. Check out some of our law school personal statement examples to spark ideas!
Once you’ve brainstormed and organized your ideas, the writing itself will go pretty quickly. After you’ve written the first draft, leave the personal statement aside for a day or two (a week or more is better!). Then, come back. What parts don’t flow well? What ideas need more (or less) elaboration? Cut—and add—brutally! Editing is not the same as proofreading; this is the point at which you ensure the ideas themselves are sound.
Now, it’s time for the final line edit-format-proofread. In a line edit, you’ll work to make sure you’re using the best possible words correctly, rephrasing and rewriting as needed. Then, use the law school personal statement format discussed above to organize the writing. Finally, read through for errors in spelling, grammar, and formatting.

Voila! Your law school personal statement is now ready. If you’re planning to send it off to a T14 law school, check out our post on the top law schools for more tips and information. And no matter what, check out our post on how to get into law school !

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Rachel is one of Magoosh’s Content Creators. She writes and updates content on our High School and GRE Blogs to ensure students are equipped with the best information during their test prep journey. As a test-prep instructor for more than five years in there different countries, Rachel has helped students around the world prepare for various standardized tests, including the SAT, ACT, TOEFL, GRE, and GMAT, and she is one of the authors of our Magoosh ACT Prep Book . Rachel has a Bachelor of Arts in Comparative Literature from Brown University, an MA in Cinematography from the Université de Paris VII, and a Ph.D. in Film Studies from University College London. For over a decade, Rachel has honed her craft as a fiction and memoir writer and public speaker. Her novel, THE BALLERINAS , is forthcoming in December 2021 from St. Martin’s Press , while her memoir, GRADUATES IN WONDERLAND , co-written with Jessica Pan, was published in 2014 by Penguin Random House. Her work has appeared in over a dozen online and print publications, including Vanity Fair Hollywood. When she isn’t strategically stringing words together at Magoosh, you can find Rachel riding horses or with her nose in a book. Join her on Twitter , Instagram , or Facebook !

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Excellent Law School Personal Statement Examples By David Busis Published May 5, 2019 Updated Feb 10, 2021

We’ve rounded up five spectacular personal statements that helped students with borderline numbers get into T-14 schools. You’ll find these examples to be as various as a typical JD class. Some essays are about a challenge, some about the evolution of the author’s intellectual or professional journey, and some about the author’s identity. The only common thread is sincerity. The authors did not write toward an imagined idea of what an admissions officer might be looking for: they reckoned honestly with formative experiences.

Personal Statement about a Career Journey

The writer of this personal statement matriculated at Georgetown. Her GPA was below the school’s 25th percentile and her LSAT score was above the 75th percentile. She was not a URM.

* Note that we’ve used female pronouns throughout, though some of the authors are male.

I don’t remember anything being out of the ordinary before I fainted—just the familiar, heady feeling and then nothing. When I came to, they were wheeling me away to the ER. That was the last time I went to the hospital for my neurology observership. Not long after, I crossed “doctor” off my list of post-graduate career options. It would be best, I figured, if I did something for which the day-to-day responsibilities didn’t make me pass out.

Back at the drawing board, I reflected on my choices. The first time around, my primary concern was how I could stay in school for the longest amount of time possible. Key factors were left out of my decision: I had no interest in medicine, no aptitude for the natural sciences, and, as it quickly became apparent, no stomach for sick patients. The second time around, I was honest with myself: I had no idea what I wanted to do.

My college graduation speaker told us that the word “job” comes from the French word “gober,” meaning “to devour.” When I fell into digital advertising, I was expecting a slow and toothless nibbling, a consumption whose impact I could ignore while I figured out what I actually wanted to do. I’d barely started before I realized that my interviewers had been serious when they told me the position was sink or swim. At six months, I was one toothbrush short of living at our office. It was an unapologetic aquatic boot camp—and I liked it. I wanted to swim. The job was bringing out the best in me and pushing me to do things I didn’t think I could do.

I remember my first client emergency. I had a day to re-do a presentation that I’d been researching and putting together for weeks. I was panicked and sure that I’d be next on the chopping block. My only cogent thought was, “Oh my god. What am I going to do?” The answer was a three-part solution I know well now: a long night, lots of coffee, and laser-like focus on exactly and only what was needed.

Five years and numerous emergencies later, I’ve learned how to work: work under pressure, work when I’m tired, and work when I no longer want to. I have enough confidence to set my aims high and know I can execute on them. I’ve learned something about myself that I didn’t know when I graduated: I am capable.

The word “career” comes from the French word “carrière,” denoting a circular racecourse. Perhaps it shouldn’t surprise me then, that I’ve come full circle with regards to law school. For two college summers, I interned as a legal associate and wondered, “Is this for me?” I didn’t know if I was truly interested, and I was worried that even if I was, I wouldn’t be able to see it through. Today, I don’t have those fears.

In the course of my advertising career, I have worked with many lawyers to navigate the murky waters of digital media and user privacy. Whereas most of my co-workers went to great lengths to avoid our legal team, I sought them out. The legal conversations about our daily work intrigued me. How far could we go in negotiating our contracts to reflect changing definitions of an impression? What would happen if the US followed the EU and implemented wide-reaching data-protection laws?

Working on the ad tech side of the industry, I had the data to target even the most niche audiences: politically-active Mormon Democrats for a political client; young, low-income pregnant women for a state government; millennials with mental health concerns in a campaign for suicide prevention. The extent to which digital technology has evolved is astonishing. So is the fact that it has gone largely unregulated. That’s finally changing, and I believe the shift is going to open up a more prominent role for those who understand both digital technology and its laws. I hope to begin my next career at the intersection of those two worlds.

Personal Statement about Legal Internships

The writer of this essay was admitted to every T14 law school from Columbia on down and matriculated at a top JD program with a large merit scholarship. Her LSAT score was below the median and her GPA was above the median of each school that accepted her. She was not a URM.

About six weeks into my first legal internship, my office-mate gestured at the window—we were seventy stories high in the Chrysler Building—and said, with a sad smile, doesn’t this office just make you want to jump? The firm appeared to be falling apart. The managing partners were suing each other, morale was low, and my boss, in an effort to maintain his client base, had instructed me neither to give any information to nor take any orders from other attorneys. On my first day of work, coworkers warned me that the firm could be “competitive,” which seemed to me like a good thing. I considered myself a competitive person and enjoyed the feeling of victory. This, though, was the kind of competition in which everyone lost.

Although I felt discouraged about the legal field after this experience, I chose not to give up on the profession, and after reading a book that featured the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, I sent in an internship application. Shortly after, I received an offer to work at the office. For my first assignment, I attended a hearing in the federal courthouse. As I entered the magnificent twenty-third-floor courtroom, I felt the gravitas of the issue at hand: the sentencing of a terrorist.

That sense of gravitas never left me, and visiting the courtroom became my favorite part of the job. Sitting in hearings amidst the polished brass fixtures and mahogany walls, watching attorneys in refined suits prosecute terror, cybercrime, and corruption, I felt part of a grand endeavor. The spectacle enthralled me: a trial was like a combination of a theatrical performance and an athletic event. If I’d seen the dark side of competition at my first job, now I was seeing the bright side. I sat on the edge of my seat and watched to see if good—my side—triumphed over evil—the defense. Every conviction seemed like an unambiguous achievement. I told my friends that one day I wanted to help “lock up the bad guys.”

It wasn’t until I interned at the public defender’s office that I realized how much I’d oversimplified the world. In my very first week, I took the statement of a former high school classmate who had been charged with heroin possession. I did not know him well in high school, but we both recognized one another and made small talk before starting the formal interview. He had fallen into drug abuse and had been convicted of petty theft several months earlier. After finishing the interview, I wished him well.

The following week, in a courtroom that felt more like a macabre DMV than the hallowed halls I’d seen with the USAO, I watched my classmate submit his guilty plea, which would allow him to do community service in lieu of jail time. The judge accepted his plea and my classmate mumbled a quiet “thank you.” I felt none of the achievement I’d come to associate with guilty pleas. In that court, where hundreds of people trudged through endless paperwork and long lines before they could even see a judge, there were no good guys and bad guys—just people trying to put their lives back together.

A year after my internship at the public defender’s office, I read a profile of Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, and my former boss. In the profile, he says, “You don’t want a justice system in which prosecutors are cowboys.” The more I saw at the public defender’s office, the more I rethought my experience at the USAO. When I had excitedly called my parents after an insider trading conviction, I had not thought of the defendant’s family. When I had cheered the conviction of a terrorist, I hadn’t thought about the fact that a conviction could not undo his actions. As I now plan on entering the legal profession—either as a prosecutor or public defender—I realize that my enthusiasm momentarily overwrote my empathy. I’d been playing cowboy. A lawyer’s job isn’t to lock up bad guys or help good guys in order to quench a competitive thirst—it’s to subsume his or her ego in the work and, by presenting one side of a case, create a necessary condition for justice.

Personal Statement about Cultural Identity

The writer of this essay was offered significant merit aid packages from Cornell, Michigan, and Northwestern, and matriculated at NYU Law. Her LSAT score was below the 25th percentile LSAT score and her GPA matched the median GPA of NYU.

By the age of five, I’d attended seven kindergartens and collected more frequent flier miles than most adults. I resided in two worlds – one with fast motorcycles, heavy pollution, and the smell of street food lingering in the air; the other with trimmed grass, faint traces of perfume mingling with coffee in the mall, and my mom pressing her hand against my window as she left for work. She was the only constant between these two worlds – flying me between Taiwan and America as she struggled to obtain a U.S. citizenship.

My family reunited for good around my sixth birthday, when we flew back to Taiwan to join my dad. I forgot about the West, acquired a taste for Tangyuan, and became fast friends with the kids in my neighborhood. In the evenings, I’d sit with my grandmother as she watched soap operas in Taiwanese, the dialect of the older generation, which I picked up in unharmonious bits and pieces. Other nights, she would turn off the TV, and speak to me about tradition and history – recounting my ancestors, life during the Japanese regime, raising my dad under martial law. “You are the last of the Li’s,” she would say, patting my back, and I’d feel a quick rush of pride, as though a lineage as deep as that of the English monarchy rested on my shoulders.

When I turned seven, my parents enrolled me in an American school, explaining that it was time for me, a Tai Wan Ren (Taiwanese), to learn English – “a language that could open doors to better opportunities.” Although I learned slowly, with a handful of the most remedial in ESL (English as a Second Language), books like The Secret Garden and The Wind in the Willows opened up new worlds of captivating images and beautiful stories that I longed to take part in.

Along with the new language, I adopted a different way to dress, new mannerisms, and new tastes, including American pop culture. I stopped seeing the neighborhood kids, and sought a set of friends who shared my affinity for HBO movies and Claire’s Jewelry . Whenever taxi drivers or waitresses asked where I was from, noting that I spoke Chinese with too much of an accent to be native, I told them I was American.

At home, I asked my mom to stop packing Taiwanese food for my lunch. The cheap food stalls I once enjoyed now embarrassed me. Instead, I wanted instant mashed potatoes and Kraft mac and cheese.

When it came time for college, I enrolled in a liberal arts school on the East Coast to pursue my love of literature, and was surprised to find that my return to America did not feel like the full homecoming I’d expected. America was as familiar as it was foreign, and while I had mastered being “American” in Taiwan, being an American in America baffled me. The open atmosphere of my university, where ideas and feelings were exchanged freely, felt familiar and welcoming, but cultural references often escaped me. Unlike my friends who’d grown up in the States, I had never heard of Wonder Bread, or experienced the joy of Chipotle’s burrito bowls. Unlike them, I missed the sound of motorcycles whizzing by my window on quiet nights.

It was during this time of uncertainty that I found my place through literature, discovering Taiye Selasi, Edward Said, and Primo Levi, whose works about origin and personhood reshaped my conception of my own identity. Their usage of the language of otherness provided me with the vocabulary I had long sought, and revealed that I had too simplistic an understanding of who I was. In trying to discover my role in each cultural context, I’d confined myself within an easy dichotomy, where the East represented exotic foods and experiences, and the West, development and consumerism. By idealizing the latter and rejecting the former, I had reduced the richness of my worlds to caricatures. Where I am from, and who I am, is an amalgamation of my experiences and heritage: I am simultaneously a Mei Guo Ren and Taiwanese.

Just as I once reconciled my Eastern and Western identities, I now seek to reconcile my love of literature with my desire to effect tangible change. I first became interested in law on my study abroad program, when I visited the English courts as a tourist. As I watched the barristers deliver their statements, it occurred to me that law and literature have some similarities: both are a form of criticism that depends on close reading, the synthesis of disparate intellectual frameworks, and careful argumentation. Through my subsequent internships and my current job, I discovered that legal work possessed a tangibility I found lacking in literature. The lawyers I collaborate with work tirelessly to address the same problems and ideas I’ve explored only theoretically in my classes – those related to human rights, social contracts, and moral order. Though I understand that lawyers often work long hours, and that the work can be, at times, tedious, I’m drawn to the kind of research, analysis, and careful reading that the profession requires. I hope to harness my critical abilities to reach beyond the pages of the books I love and make meaningful change in the real world.

Personal Statement about Weightlifting

The writer of this essay was admitted to her top choice—a T14 school—with a handwritten note from the dean that praised her personal statement. Her LSAT score was below the school’s median and her GPA was above the school’s median.

As I knelt to tie balloons around the base of the white, wooden cross, I thought about the morning of my best friend’s accident: the initial numbness that overwhelmed my entire body; the hideous sound of my own small laugh when I called the other member of our trio and repeated the words “Mark died”; the panic attack I’d had driving home, resulting in enough tears that I had to pull off to the side of the road. Above all, I remembered the feeling of reality crashing into my previously sheltered life, the feeling that nothing was as safe or certain as I’d believed.

I had been with Mark the day before he passed, exactly one week before we were both set to move down to Tennessee to start our freshman year of college. It would have been difficult to feel so alone with my grief in any circumstance, but Mark’s crash seemed to ignite a chain reaction of loss. I had to leave Nashville abruptly in order to attend the funeral of my grandmother, who helped raise me, and at the end of the school year, a close friend who had helped me adjust to college was killed by an oncoming car on the day that he’d graduated. Just weeks before visiting Mark’s grave on his birthday, a childhood friend shot and killed himself in an abandoned parking lot on Christmas Eve. I spent Christmas Day trying to act as normally as possible, hiding the news in order not to ruin the holiday for the rest of my family.

This pattern of loss compounding loss affected me more than I ever thought it would. First, I just avoided social media out of fear that I’d see condolences for yet another friend who had passed too early. Eventually, I shut down emotionally and lost interest in the world—stopped attending social gatherings, stopped talking to anyone, and stopped going to many of my classes, as every day was a struggle to get out of bed. I hated the act that I had to put on in public, where I was always getting asked the same question —“I haven’t seen you in forever, where have you been?”—and always responding with the same lie: “I’ve just been really busy.”

I had been interested in bodybuilding since high school, but during this time, the lowest period of my life, it changed from a simple hobby to a necessity and, quite possibly, a lifesaver. The gym was the one place I could escape my own mind, where I could replace feelings of emptiness with the feeling of my heart pounding, lungs exploding, and blood flooding my muscles, where—with sweat pouring off my forehead and calloused palms clenched around cold steel—I could see clearly again.

Not only did my workouts provide me with an outlet for all of my suppressed emotion, but they also became the one aspect of my life where I felt I was still in control. I knew that if it was Monday, no matter what else was going on, I was going to be working out my legs, and I knew exactly what exercises I was going to do, and how many repetitions I was going to perform, and how much weight I was going to use for each repetition. I knew exactly when I would be eating and exactly how many grams of each food source I would ingest. I knew how many calories I would get from each of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. My routine was one thing I could count on.

As I loaded more plates onto the barbell, I grew stronger mentally as well. The gym became a place, paradoxically, of both exertion and tranquility, a sanctuary where I felt capable of thinking about the people I’d lost. It was the healing I did there that let me tie the balloons to the cross on Mark’s third birthday after the crash, and that let me spend the rest of the afternoon sharing stories about Mark with friends on the side of the rural road. It was the healing I did there that left me ready to move on.

One of the fundamental principles of weightlifting involves progressively overloading the muscles by taking them to complete failure, coming back, and performing past the point where you last failed, consistently making small increases over time. The same principle helped me overcome my grief, and in the past few years, I’ve applied it to everything from learning Spanish to studying for the LSAT. As I prepare for the next stage of my life, I know I’ll encounter more challenges for which I’m unprepared, but I feel strong enough now to acknowledge my weaknesses, and—by making incremental gains—to overcome them.

Personal Statement about Sexual Assault

The writer of this essay was accepted to many top law schools and matriculated at Columbia. Her LSAT score matched Columbia’s median while her GPA was below Columbia’s 25th percentile.

My rapist didn’t hold a knife to my throat. My rapist didn’t jump out of a dark alleyway. My rapist didn’t slip me a roofie. My rapist was my eighth-grade boyfriend, who was already practicing with the high school football team. He assaulted me in his suburban house in New Jersey, while his mom cooked us dinner in the next room, in the back of an empty movie theatre, on the couch in my basement.

It started when I was thirteen and so excited to have my first real boyfriend. He was a football player from a different school who had a pierced ear and played the guitar. I, a shy, slightly chubby girl with a bad haircut and very few friends, felt wanted, needed, and possibly loved. The abuse—the verbal and physical harassment that eventually turned sexual—was just something that happened in grown-up relationships. This is what good girlfriends do, I thought. They say yes.

Never having had a sex-ed class in my life, it took me several months after my eighth-grade graduation and my entry into high school to realize the full extent of what he did to me. My overall experience of first “love” seemed surreal. This was something that happened in a Lifetime movie, not in a small town in New Jersey in his childhood twin bed. I didn’t tell anyone about what happened. I had a different life in a different school by then, and I wasn’t going to let my trauma define my existence.

As I grew older, I was confronted by the fact that rape is not a surreal misfortune or a Lifetime movie. It’s something that too many of my close friends have experienced. It’s when my sorority sister tells me about the upstairs of a frat house when she’s too drunk to say no. It’s when the boy in the room next door tells me about his uncle during freshman orientation. It’s a high school peer whose summer internship boss became too handsy. Rape is real. It’s happening every day, to mothers, brothers, sisters, and fathers—a silent majority that want to manage the burden on their own, afraid of judgement, afraid of repercussions, afraid of a he-said she-said court battle.

I am beyond tired of the silence. It took me three years to talk about what happened to me, to come clean to my peers and become a model of what it means to speak about something that society tells you not to speak about. Motivated by my own experience and my friends’ stories, I joined three groups that help educate my college community about sexual health and assault: New Feminists, Speak for Change, and Sexual Assault Responders. I trained to staff a peer-to-peer emergency hotline for survivors of sexual assault. I protested the university’s cover-up of a gang-rape in the basement of a fraternity house two doors from where I live now. As a member of my sorority’s executive board, I have talked extensively about safety and sexual assault, and have orchestrated a speaker on the subject to come to campus and talk to the exceptional young women I consider family. I’ve proposed a DOE policy change to make sexual violence education mandatory to my city councilman. This past summer, I traveled to a country notorious for sexual violence and helped lay the groundwork for a health center that will allow women to receive maternal care, mental health counseling, and career counseling.

Law school is going to help me take my advocacy to the next level. Survivors of sexual assault, especially young survivors, often don’t know where to turn. They don’t know their Title IX rights, they don’t know about the Clery Act, and they don’t know how to demand help when every other part of the system is shouting at them to be quiet and give up. Being a lawyer, first and foremost, is being an advocate. With a JD, I can work with groups like SurvJustice and the Rape Survivors Law Project to change the lives of people who were silenced for too long.

📌 Further reading:

Six Law School Personal Statements That Got Into Harvard
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Law School Admissions Essay

Tips to make the personal statement drafting process less painful, table of contents, law school admissions essay timing.

Step-by-Step Essay Strategy

Many people underestimate the law school personal statement. Writing two pages about yourself, without any topic constraints, often sounds like a fairly easy task at first – especially in comparison to tackling the LSAT. Do not fall into the trap of leaving your personal statement as a task to handle after applications have opened in September of your application year. Try to start the essay (at the latest!) by July of the summer before you plan to apply. Don’t forget that along with the personal statement, you will likely need to write interest statements, supplemental essays (i.e., the Yale 250), and potentially a diversity statement and/or addenda (for C&F or GPA explanations). Ideally, I recommend giving yourself at least 2 months of time to plan out, write, and edit your law school admissions essay – meaning that an ideal timeline would include starting work on the personal statement sometime around May or June of your application year.

Law School Admissions Essay Step-by-Step Strategy

The first step in the personal statement process should be research . Before you apply, I recommend (at a minimum) googling successful personal statements, and reading through law school admissions essays that have done well in prior years. This can be helpful as a source of motivation, and may demonstrate some qualities that admissions committees have sought out previously. Aside from reading through essay examples, there are many other free resources online that you can take advantage of. For example, many law schools have free seminars / information on their admissions website specifically discussing what they look for – I would recommend looking through the admissions sections of at least a few of the schools you apply to, to search for their specific guidance regarding the personal statement. Additionally consider signing up for virtual information sessions or seminars regarding applications from schools that offer them. It may also be helpful to look at the HLS/YLS podcast (Navigating Law School Admissions podcast, available on Spotify) for admissions materials, or to attend one of their informational sessions to get an idea of what top law schools look for in application materials, even if you are not applying to T3 schools. While doing research, keep in mind that you shouldn’t be looking for a strict template to follow, but rather building out an understanding of how others have successfully structured a compelling narrative about themselves in the past, and what law schools tend to want to see–to thereby start to generate ideas for your own essay.
After completing some research and starting to orient yourself with ideas about how to write a successful personal statement, step two should include a brainstorming session. List out multiple themes or ideas around which you might be able to center your personal statement. Keep in mind while doing this that personal statements often have a specific thematic focus that answers one or both of the following two questions: (1) Why do you want to become a lawyer/why do you want to go to law school, and/or (2) How have your experiences developed you into a person for whom law school/being a lawyer is the right path? I have listed out some additional questions/prompts below to help orient you in your brainstorming session:
Temporal Narrative : Some personal statements follow a past→ present→ future narrative. It can be helpful to utilize this type of structure to focus on (a) past: what have you done in your past that either motivated you to become a lawyer, or helped you to develop skills that will make you a good lawyer in future, (b) present: what are you currently doing with your life that makes law school the right next step for you, or how has your current employment (or academic experience) developed you into a person with the right skills to become a lawyer, and finally (c) future: why do you want to become a lawyer and how will law school help you achieve your goals in the future (what are your future goals?).
Persuasive Essay : It can be helpful to view the personal statement as a platform through which you are given the opportunity of 2 pages to write about the single most compelling reason for which you deserve to be admitted to a given law school. What is the most interesting accomplishment in your past? What makes you unique from everyone else, and uniquely qualified to become a lawyer? What is an event you have experienced from which your motivation to become a lawyer directly grew? What is the achievement for which you struggled or sacrificed the most to achieve?
Coherent Narrative: One other strategy in approaching the personal statement may be to look at the entirety of your application materials, and attempt to weave a common theme between all of them. What is one unique quality, desire, belief, experience, or set of experiences, that links all of your professional/academic experience (resume), your unique approach, background, adversity you have overcome, or perspective to life (diversity statement), the qualities that other people first think of when they describe you (recommendation letters), and how does that quality/experience/belief support your desire to become a lawyer, and create the person you are? How can you explain that quality or thought to an outside individual, and explain how it has motivated or created who you are?
After listing out ideas, take a day and try to decide which idea will be the most compelling to an admissions committee, and that feels the most genuine, personally significant, or compelling to you– which essay truly represents the story that you want to tell about yourself? Consider asking some friends, peers, family, or a mentor to read through your list and provide some feedback about your options while narrowing down your choices. Finalize the two best options, and start outlining . Take a day or 2 to write a brief (No more than a half page) outline for each of the two ideas you have chosen. After this, decide on the strongest contender between the two.
The next step is to start a first draft based off of your winning outline. Set yourself a specific deadline by which to finish your first draft, and hold yourself accountable to that date. Move the environments in which you write – try writing in a local coffee shop, outdoors, anywhere that helps you to feel inspired and motivated.
After getting a solid first draft, the final step is to edit . Wait at least 24-48 hours between finishing your first draft and starting your second. This is also the time to determine with certainty that you want to continue with the topic that you chose. If you have now realized that the first draft you wrote doesn’t have the zing you expected, or doesn’t fully convey what you hoped it would, it may be time to switch to your second place contender, consider adding in additional material from your brainstorming list, or to start the process over entirely. Do not be afraid of starting over – the reason that we started the writing process back around June, was to ensure that you would have enough time to submit the best personal statement possible in your application packet. Once you have given this decision full consideration, begin a round of edits. After completing your second draft, try to find a mentor or another trusted individual to read through your statement and provide honest feedback/edits from which to generate a third draft. Finally, for a fourth round of editing, read your essay out loud to yourself, and look for any other areas that can be further improved.

The personal statement can be a daunting task, but if you ensure that you have ample time to write, approach it in a methodical, structured, step-by-step way, and reach out to others for help and feedback, hopefully the process will become more approachable, and maybe even enjoyable by the end of the drafting process.

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I graduated from college in 2020, and took one gap year of work as a paralegal before starting at Harvard Law. I never expected to be admitted to Harvard when I started my law school application process, and I’m incredibly grateful to be here now. I spent a LOT of time researching law school admissions during my application year, and took on the role of a part time admissions/LSAT tutor last year with the goal of spreading the knowledge that I gained through my app process to hopefully help others with similar aspirations!

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Tips For Law School Personal Statements: Examples, Resources And More

Updated: Mar 22, 2024, 4:48pm

Tips For Law School Personal Statements: Examples, Resources And More

Tens of thousands of undergraduates pursue law school every year, and the competition for admission is fierce.

When it comes to admissions, your law school personal statement is not as impactful as your LSAT scores or undergraduate GPA. Still, a personal statement can be the deciding factor when competing with other applicants.

In this article, we discuss how to write a law school personal statement that demonstrates why you belong in a Juris Doctor (J.D.) program.

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What Is a Law School Personal Statement?

A law school personal statement is a multi-paragraph essay or narrative highlighting the reason you are pursuing a J.D. degree . This essay is an opportunity to share your identity with an admissions committee—beyond just transcripts and test scores.

Personal statements are typically two to four pages long. Most law schools do not provide specific prompts for applicants’ statements, but some do. Either way, the content of your statement should leave a strong impression.

Why Do Law Schools Ask for Personal Statements?

Law schools receive a high volume of applications and typically do not contact applicants for interviews until after reviewing their applications. As a result, personal statements largely act as a substitute for the applicant interview process.

Your personal statement serves as a writing sample that shows your ability to communicate ideas effectively. In addition to demonstrating your ability to write well, a personal statement can give an admissions committee a clear picture of your motivations for attending law school and indicate how well you might fit into their program.

If you’re wondering how to become a lawyer , law school is the first step—and your personal statement is important to the law school application process.

How To Write a Law School Personal Statement

Writing a law school personal statement can be a challenging part of the application process, involving hours of planning and drafting. However, with solid brainstorming and prewriting strategies, you can craft an effective personal statement that illustrates how you are a strong candidate for law school.

Picking What to Write About

If your prospective school does not provide a prompt, choosing what to write about can be frustrating and time-consuming.

Start with a serious brainstorming session to get your ideas on paper. Give yourself the license to explore every experience or idea before deciding on your final topic.

Consider spending time jotting down every idea that falls into the following categories:

Life events or experiences that motivated you or changed your perspective
A meaningful personal achievement and what you learned from it
How you became interested in the law
Your passions and how they contributed to your individual goals

Structuring Your Law School Personal Statement

The structure and method you use to craft your statement is important. It might be tempting to follow a rigid formula and write a personal statement that methodically unpacks your reason for attending law school, your qualifications and the relevance of your extracurricular engagements. However, some of the most effective personal statements are crafted through a narrative approach.

Well-written narratives are engaging and illustrate why law school would benefit your career path. Your essay should exhibit your dedication and passion for the law and highlight the relationship between your values and your target law school. By creating a narrative with a common theme woven throughout, you can captivate your reader while informing them of your qualifications and goals.

Rather than overtly telling the reader why you should be accepted into law school, a narrative allows its audience to make connections and engage at a personal level. Your anecdotes and specific examples should reveal the traits you want the admissions committee to see and appreciate.

What Makes a ‘Good’ Law School Personal Statement?

Law school admissions teams read hundreds, even thousands of personal statements, so it’s important to write one that stands out. Ultimately, a good law school personal statement engages the reader, provides a unique perspective and demonstrates why you would make a good candidate for law school.

Choose a Unique Topic

A personal statement is exactly that: personal. Crafting a memorable narrative is paramount and dependent on your story and unique life experiences, especially since reviewers read so many personal statements with similar stories and themes.

Unfortunately, certain topics can come across as cliche. This is not to say that your lived experience of overcoming adversity or your time spent volunteering to help those in need is undervalued. However, those narratives have motivated thousands of aspiring attorneys to pursue law—meaning they have appeared in thousands of law school personal statements.

Give Specific Examples

Once you’ve selected a topic, take time to unpack the examples you plan to share and how they tie into the “why” behind your pursuit of law school. General statements are not only boring to read but lack the depth of meaning required to make an impact. Specific examples are critical to creating interest and highlighting the uniqueness of your personal experience.

According to law school admissions consultant and founder of PreLawPro, Ben Cooper, “It is always great to have a story that speaks for you. A story that demonstrates certain qualities or a key lesson learned is always more compelling than simply saying, ‘I am dedicated, responsible etc.’ ”

Be Personal and Reflective

Law schools want to see critical thinking skills and deep reflection in applicants’ personal essays. Before you write, consider a few questions. Is your story unique to you? What was the primary conflict in your story? How did you develop over time? How does this story reflect who you are now and how law school suits you? Take time to ponder what challenges you’ve overcome and what events and experiences have shaped your worldview.

Common Pitfalls for a Law School Personal Statement

Before you invest hours writing an essay just for it to fall flat, make sure you’re aware of the most common pitfalls for law school personal statements.

Failing To Follow Instructions

Law schools set specific formatting and length guidelines. Reading comprehension and attention to detail are key skills for law school success, so failing to meet these expectations could count against your application or even result in an automatic rejection.

Length and formatting requirements vary among law schools. For example, if a school expects no more than two pages, 11-point font, 1-inch margins and double spacing, make sure to format your personal statement precisely according to those specifications. We advise tailoring your personal statement to each individual school to avoid violating any formatting requirements.

If a law school asks you to answer a specific prompt or write multiple essays, make sure to follow those instructions as well.

Not Revising And Proofreading

Nothing screams a lack of effort, interest and commitment like an unpolished personal statement. Admissions teams will quickly notice if you skip proofreads and revisions, even if the content of your essay is exceptional.

This step entails much more than running a spelling and grammar check. You must ensure that the order of information is purposeful and logical. Each word you use should be intentional and add value to the story you are trying to tell.

Revising an essay is not a one-person job. Have others provide feedback, too. Your peers and mentors are a great place to start, as long as they give objective feedback.

Also ask people you do not know to provide feedback. You might start with your university’s writing center . Writing centers employ trained writing tutors who are skilled in providing feedback across disciplines. A writing center tutor will not proofread your essay, but they assist in making it reach its full potential.

Using Flowery Or Overly Academic Language

The voice and tone of your personal statement should flow naturally and reflect who you are. This doesn’t require flowery or overly academic language, which can make your essay sound more obtuse and less personal.

As we stated earlier, your personal statement should use specific examples and stories to generate interest and reveal why you want to attend law school and become a lawyer.

Likewise, you should avoid using excessive legal language or famous quotes in your statement. Admissions reviewers are academics, so if you use a term improperly, they will catch it. Use language that you feel comfortable with, without being too informal, and allow your narrative to convey your intended themes and ideas.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Law School Personal Statements

What is a good personal statement for law school.

A good personal statement for law school is original, engaging, truthful and well-structured. When composing your personal statement, take time to reflect on your life experiences and how they led you to pursue a legal career. Follow each school’s required format, make sure to proofread carefully and use natural-sounding language.

How much does a law school personal statement matter?

Law school admissions committees typically place more emphasis on your LSAT performance and undergraduate academic record—including your GPA and the rigor of your course of study—but a personal statement can still have a powerful impact on the success of your application. A strong essay can help you stand out from the crowd, and conversely, a clichéd, poorly written or incorrectly formatted essay can hurt your chances.

Do law schools fact-check personal statements?

Assume that law school admissions officers may fact-check any verifiable information in your personal statement. They may not know if you are presenting your motivations for applying or your career plans honestly, but they can—and will—check whether, for example, you participated in a particular student organization or attended a specific conference.

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Brandon Galarita is a freelance writer and K-12 educator in Honolulu, Hawaii. He is passionate about technology in education, college and career readiness and school improvement through data-driven practices.

Brenna Swanston is an education-focused editor and writer with a particular interest in education equity and alternative educational paths. As a newswriter in her early career, Brenna's education reporting earned national awards and state-level accolades in California and North Carolina. Since 2018, she has worked in the higher-education web content space, where she aims to help current and prospective students of all backgrounds find effective, accessible pathways to rewarding careers.

Ben Cooper the founder and CEO of PreLawPro, a law school admissions and career consulting firm. He is a former international lawyer who spent much of his legal career as a litigator in London’ financial district. After leaving private practice he oversaw the Pre-Law program at Baylor University, where he taught college classes on the legal profession, law school admissions, careers, and academic success. He has also helped students explore careers in diplomacy, intelligence and national security. After almost a decade of working with college students and young professionals, Ben has helped hundreds of law school applicants gain admission to law schools all over the country. Ben also coaches and mentors college students and young professionals (across a broad range of industries) as they navigate their education and careers.

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Law School Personal Statements: What Not To Do

Granted, they don’t yet know who you are. But many law school admission reviewers are secretly rooting for you, hoping that you’ve written a good statement, an interesting statement, a statement that will leave them saying, “Wow, what a unique and impressive applicant!”

Unfortunately, in most cases, they are sorely disappointed. Not only do most personal statements fail to meet the criteria of being “good,” but they actually cross the line and into the realm of “bad” or even “ugly.”

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

How important is a law school personal statement?

Why writing law school personal statements is hard, what not to do with your law school personal statement.

What to avoid when formatting a law school personal statement
Law school personal statement topics to avoid

Bad law school personal statement opening lines

Bad law school personal statement example.

Law school personal statements are an incredibly important part of your law school application because they offer you the chance to illustrate who you really are and why law school is the logical next step in your education.

Knowing how to write a law school personal statement is difficult because it requires you to write a story that illustrates the reasons why you want to go to law school. You’ll need to reflect on your personal experiences and translate that into a convincing statement that is well-organized and persuasive.

Avoid writing a bad personal statement by staying away from the items below.

DO NOT Submit an essay version of your resume in your Personal Statement

You will submit your resume in a separate portion of your law school application, so there is no need to expand on that in your personal statement.

One of the most common mistakes everyone involved in admissions has seen is the “everything but the kitchen sink” personal statement.

Unfortunately, it also almost always leads to a weaker personal statement. Rest assured, law school admissions offices will be looking at every single aspect of your application, including your resume. Use your personal statement to provide that extra context your resume cannot.

DO NOT Use the same personal statement for every law school

The majority of law schools have relatively broad writing requirements, but they often differ. Even though the prompts may seem similar, 99% of the time they are different in a way.

It’s best to change your statement just a little and tailor it to the school, even if you do encounter two identical prompts.

DO NOT Include Dramatic Tales of Romance in your Personal Statement

A dramatic tale of romance would read like something from Romo and Juliet or Pride and Prejudice. Lofty, pretty words that come off as vague should not be included in your law school personal statement. Be specific and look for overly abstract phrasings. If you notice one, try to determine if it’s necessary and if so work on clarifying the point you are trying to get across.

DO NOT Curse in your Personal Statement

Avoid cursing in your law school personal statements. If you must, do it sparingly and make it count.

DO NOT Include Absolute statements in your Personal Statement

Absolute statements tend to sound more unreasonable than reasoned—and law school is all about reason.

Absolute statements are assertions that some fact or idea is completely, undeniably true. Here’s an example: “I’m going to create the best possible life for us.”

More than likely, this thought could have been rephrased to “I’m going to create a good life for us.”

Scour your essay for any absolute terms (perhaps even marking them with a highlighter) and then consider each one individually, asking yourself:

Is this necessary?
Is this true?
Can I say this in a more tempered way?

Doing so will strengthen your law school personal statement.

DO NOT Talk too much about “the world” and/or too little about yourself in your Personal Statement

Your personal statement is meant to be about you, not about how the world works. Of course, you may need to share some facts about the world around you and the people in your life to make your story clear and meaningful, but you should be writing much more about yourself than about anything else.

Here are a few ways to tell if you may be talking too much about “the world” and/or too little about yourself:

You have several sentences in a row describing life (or the universe, or society, or the world) in abstract terms.
You spend a full paragraph talking about something or someone else without reflecting on your topic from your own perspective.
You get to the end of the personal statement and realize you do not know how what you have read reveals something significant about you as a person.
You spot very few uses of “I” in your personal statement.

If any of these describe your current draft, look for ways of introducing yourself more frequently in it.

DO NOT Forget to Edit and Proofread your personal statement

Proofread your statement and have a close friend or colleague with fresh eyes – one who hasn’t read lots of drafts – review it closely before submitting. The statement isn’t solely about content. The writing itself is important.

Some key elements to look for when proofreading your law school statement are:

Improper word usage
Poor organization of paragraphs
Bad punctuation

Forgetting to remove/fix these will sink the application even before the reviewer has finished reading it.

DO NOT Ignore the personal statement guidelines

If an application lists essay page limits, word limits, margin limits, font limits, or even character limits, follow these guidelines unless otherwise directed by an admissions officer at the schools in question. And, when in doubt about an application rule, make a 3-minute phone call to the admissions office to confirm the requirement.

While there may be an admissions officer or two who are kind about overlooking a rule here or there, there are others – especially at the end of a long day after just having read dozens of awful essays – who will not be so forgiving. Also, don’t forget – you’re planning on becoming a lawyer, and it is expected that you will play by the rules. Don’t give reviewers an easy reason to downgrade your application.

What To Avoid When Formatting A Law School Personal Statement

Do not title your personal statement.

Law School personal statements do not need a title unless specifically asked for in your law school application, so you should not title your law school personal statement.

DO NOT Use unconventional spacing or formatting in your personal statement

Avoid using unconventional spacing or formatting in your law school personal statement to emphasize your point. Having these issues present can turn an admissions reader off. Stick with 11- or 12-point font (ideally Times New Roman), indent your paragraphs, and do not put an extra line space between them.

DO NOT Use lots of exclamation points in your personal statement

Try to keep your use of exclamation points to a minimum in your law school personal statement.

Law School Personal Statement Topics To Avoid

Below are some approaches and topics to avoid in your law school personal statement.

The Inappropriate Downer

Here’s a personal statement intro that exemplifies an inappropriate downer:

I have bad grades, I’m an awful test taker, and I have two convictions for drinking while driving – oh, and a summons for urinating in public, though not while I was actually driving the car.

It is possible and, in fact, advisable to explain these types of problems (if you have them). However, unless otherwise directed by the application rules, it is advised that you not do so in the personal statement, but rather in a concise addendum to the application. That doesn’t mean that you can never refer to a negative aspect of your background in your law school personal statement.

For example, if you’ve overcome a life-threatening illness, it is absolutely fine to briefly discuss the obstacles and the bad times, but the focus should be much more on how you overcame than on how you were held back. Be upbeat. Be positive. Be inspiring. Don’t bring me down.

The No-Show

One mistake that some applicants make in the law school personal statement is their failure to show how great they are. Admissions officers will not be impressed if you simply tell readers that you are good, great, or special. In fact, by simply telling without showing, you are likely to come across as arrogant, unfriendly, and just plain uncool.

The Gimmick

Don’t write a law school personal statement that relies on gimmickry. This includes framing your essay as:

a newspaper article written in the third person
a movie script
a stand-up comedy routine

While the words of your statement should flow like poetry to one’s ears, you should not write an actual poem.

The Essay About Your Mother

While your mother may be a great and inspiring woman, she should not be the focus of your personal statement. For that matter, neither should your father, brother, sister, cat, snake, or turtle.

Now that doesn’t mean that you can’t include very brief references and examples in your statement about a person who has been the greatest inspiration in your life. That can be fine. Ultimately, however, the vast majority of the verbiage in your essay must be focused on you and your experiences – no matter how amazing the stories of those who inspired you may be.

To help you craft an effective law school personal statement, here’s a sampling of some openers that, one way or another, miss the mark:

“The ball falls through the net as the buzzer sounds. I give Cornell the victory with a last-second shot. Unfortunately this never happened, but even now the dream remains.”
“When taken chronologically, anyone’s life may seem to be a series of loosely connected events. Each follows the other, sometimes neatly, sometimes not, but…”
“I have never been fond of dogs; I find their habits repulsive, their odor offensive, and I shudder to think of one living in my home. And yet, one day…”
“The final brush strokes in the portrait of [name], applicant for admission to the X School of Law have been completed, and I would very much appreciate your bringing them to the attention of the Committee on Admissions.”
“‘It is true,’ the witness begins, ‘that my undergraduate GPA is low, but I submit to you that success, past and future, are not measured by grades alone. Mental toughness, leadership, demonstrated hard work intellectual vision should also count for something, and do, if I read my NYU Law School prospectus correctly.’ Murmurs of ‘typical English major bluster’ waft from the jury’s bench, but the witness continues…

Note: To maintain the integrity and authenticity of this project, we have not edited the personal statements, though any identifying names and details have been changed or removed. Any grammatical errors that appear in the essays belong to the candidates and illustrate the importance of having someone (or multiple someones) proofread your work.

Personal Statement

Suddenly, there I was, twenty-three-years old and standing in line at CVS with a giant, conspicuous box of adult diapers. When I got to the check out, the pretty blond behind the cash register looked at me quizzically. “For my grandma,” I said.

I was one year out of school and working for a preeminent law firm as a paralegal, when something began going terribly wrong. Earlier that day I had been in a meeting with a partner when the urge to urinate had come on strong. Normally I could conduct a five wrap-up of whatever I was doing and make it to the restroom, no problem. But suddenly, within literal seconds of first experiencing the urge, there was no stopping it.

My dark trousers kept the secret after I left the room. And I was able to slip back into the then-empty conference room later to clean up under the guise that I had “spilled my coffee.” But as I pled sudden illness and left work early, I began taking inventory of my life. The sudden and frequent need to urinate had been going on for the last two years. I was living an embarrassing stream of television ads almost all featuring men and women twice my age. But my problem had become unmanageable. I made an appointment with my first doctor since childhood for the very next day.

My doctor did not recoil in horror when I told him why I’d come. Instead he talked me through a series of questions and even made a “gotta go” joke that was deeply appreciated during this awkward conversation about public urination. He ran tests for Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis and diabetes, all of which came back negative. He prescribed me pills that didn’t do much to ease my discomfort or lessen my risk of what was rapidly becoming, frequent accidents.

I began a year-long and seemingly endless tour of urologists, gastroenterologists and specialists of every body part you could imagine. I was finally diagnosed with “idiopathic overactive bladder:” a nice way of saying, “This guy constantly has to urinate for no good reason.” By this time, I was spending my life in a state of abject horror. What had been an outgoing personality shriveled up. I went to work but spoke little. I stopped meeting with friends. I stopped dating. I retreated from life. I took too many sick days so I didn’t have to face what was happening. Three years since it started, I was laid off.

Suddenly, with no solution to my problem in sight, and a life I was shocked to discover had become lonely and disengaged, I moved back in with my mother and father. They were overcome as they learned the extent of my plight. One day, they sat down with me in my lived-in bedroom and produced a packet. On the cover was one giant word, “Botox.” I knew what Botox was and as I understood it, it helped keep celebrities looking young. Plastic surgery was the least of my worries, and the fact that my parents were suggesting it suddenly made me wonder if they were trying to shame me out of their house completely.

But then my mother tapped a series of words inside the pamphlet. “As little as 100 units injected into the bladder can help ease the spasms of the detrusor muscle that often leads to overactive bladder (OVB).” I remembered having heard about an injectible treatment having had some success in Europe, but it still hadn’t been approved in the U.S.

“It was approved in January,” my mother said, as if she was reading my mind.

The absurdity and shame that had already made up the majority of my 20s was about to hit a whole new low. In [the doctor’s] office with the packet in hand, I found I couldn’t even find the words. But when he saw me in that small room he smiled and led the way. That day, my bladder was scheduled for some much-needed plastic surgery, and my life changed forever.

The procedure was an uncomfortable one, and unfortunately must be repeated quarterly. But my life over the subsequent year quietly changed into one in which I felt normal again, even confident. I got another job as an aide in the Mayor’s office, and I started dating again. Soon, I was able to move out of my parents’ house and follow up on all the dreams I had had before all of this began—beginning with law school.

My life lessons from OAB, as you can imagine, are many. I find that very little embarrasses me anymore. I am grateful for my life and my newfound ability to live one. I have learned that my condition was very likely caused by alcohol consumption in college, and as such, I have been completely sober for two years. In fact, a total shift in my diet has similarly helped alleviate my symptoms to such a degree that my doctors feel I might be able to go off the Botox eventually and begin a small regimen of a new oral medication.

My goals are to live a normal life and to accomplish my myriad dreams knowing that I have overcome an obstacle that is, frankly, much too embarrassing to put into a personal essay for a law school application—which is exactly why I am putting it here. I have learned not to be ashamed of what I have dealt with; I have learned that it makes me who I am today, someone who can empathize with others when their struggles are taboo, and someone who can face what has made me and say, I will keep working toward my dreams.

Review of Bad Law School Personal Statement

Overall Lesson: The story that is most meaningful to you may not be the best topic for your personal statement.

First Impression: Despite the essay’s slightly uncomfortable topic, I think it has a strong beginning. I am curious to see where the candidate goes with it.

Strengths: The candidate seems generally intelligent, and I am sympathetic to his plight. The writing is good overall, though the ending of the essay leaves something to be desired, as does the subject matter.

Weaknesses: This is an odd essay. Again, I am not sure what to make of its primary subject matter. I wonder if this really was the “best” story the candidate could have chosen to share, but at the same time, that is precisely his point—the topic is taboo, yet he refuses to be embarrassed by it. I am left wondering if perhaps the topic would be better suited to an addendum essay explaining the gap on his resume.

If the candidate ultimately opts to stick with this theme, I think he could tell the story of what happened in fewer words to devote more attention to the meaning of it: that he grew as a person through the experience and, as a result, will enter law school with a more challenging personal history and a more empathetic outlook. This is a profound point he could make, and although he does touch on it, he does not express it as fully and effectively as he should. And rather than discussing his bladder troubles for more than a full-page, he should shift the essay’s focus away from the minute details of his story and instead reflect on the experience. Doing so will require powerful writing, however, and little of that is currently exhibited in this draft.

Finally, the candidate needs to explain his motivation for pursuing a law degree. He mentions his past employment as a paralegal and implies that attending law school was one of his dreams before his medical problem wreaked havoc on his life. However, he never actually discusses why he is interested in becoming a lawyer, so this missing information needs to be added.

Final Assessment: As an initial exercise, I would help this candidate brainstorm other possible topics just to see what alternate options might exist. However, he does not necessarily need to change topics; this one could still work. To make this an effective essay, the candidate would need to situate the topic within a richer, more nuanced, and concise reflection on why this experience is so significant to his path to law school. Remember, the purpose of your personal statement is to convince the admissions office that it wants you at its school. What is the very best material you have to accomplish that goal?

How To Discuss Your Reason For Applying To Law School In Your Personal Statement

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Let's Get Personal (Statement)

By Mehran Ebadolahi Mehran Ebadolahi -->

#1: PERSONAL STATEMENT BY LYNDSEY M.

My interest in the law began the summer of 2018. It was in that summer that I witnessed the legal system offer my friends justice and the ability to regain their power. My high school travel basketball coach sexually assaulted several players. I attended court to support my friend who was one of his victims. On the day of court, I and several other basketball players watched from the back of the courtroom as our former coach walked into the room dressed in a black and white jumpsuit. As he walked in, our eyes met, and I quickly regretted lifting my head. During court, I witnessed my friend and other survivors give personal statements while everyone in the court room burst into tears. After the statements were given, I hugged my friend and the court recessed for lunch. After the short break, a maximum sentence was given to the abuser. I left the courthouse with the worst headache I had ever experienced in my life. Ever since that day, my desire to pursue law has been strong. I did not think that one life event would determine what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, but here I am writing a personal statement to apply for law school. Not only did this event make me want to pursue litigation, but it has also helped me to see the world from an entirely different perspective. I was seventeen when I started working with the basketball coach who I would later find out abused multiple players who played basketball for him. Thankfully, one of the victims the coach had abused stepped forward and told the police what had happened before the coach could harm anyone else. Although this event is unbelievably sad and unfortunate, living through it helped me decide what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

What sets me apart from other law school applicants is the reason I want to attend law school, and the passion I have for pursuing this goal. My desire to attend law school did not come from a television show about law and order or an elective course. Rather, my desire and passion came from living through a traumatic event, seeing the detrimental effects, and wanting to make a change. Children are the some of the most innocent beings on the Earth, and sexually abusing a child is unforgivable. That is why I want to make sure I can assist with the prosecution of offenders to make sure justice is reached. Regardless of the crime, breaking the law is unacceptable, and in order to maintain law and order in our society, the world needs passionate aspiring attorneys like myself to keep us afloat. As a devoted Christian, ensuring the well-being of others has always been a top priority to me. If I were allowed to attend law school, I would ensure justice for victims and retribution for offenders.

I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason. Although I wish I could change the past, my encounter with the basketball coach who abused many of my teammates and friends, made me the person I am today. I strongly believe that this event was part of God’s plan for me to find a way to help others. Ever since that day in court, I have had a strong feeling drawing me to the legal field. Coincidentally, I know law school would be perfect for me because I have always felt that I stood out among my peers during my many years of schooling. I have always been dedicated and passionate about my schooling. Because of this, I have always felt that I needed a challenge or a large goal to work toward. Now I know that the challenge I always needed is law school. Practicing law requires the exact traits I possess: grit, passion, and dedication. I have excelled in my schooling with honorable grades, accomplishments, and respect. Also, I have persevered through many surgeries, cancer, family losses, and every doubt that has come my way. The hardships I faced allowed me to develop the traits needed for law school. With all that being said, I know I can succeed in law school and become the attorney I dream of being. More importantly, I am more than capable of bringing justice to those who have been wronged. As I have recently learned, bringing justice to victims of crime is the first step toward healing. Furthermore, because of my motivation to pursue litigation, I will be able to make a difference in the legal field, specifically as a prosecuting attorney. For the ordinary law school applicant, motivation is hard to come by, however, this issue is not prevalent in my situation. I am more than motivated to make a difference, I know I am capable of doing so, and I will not stop until I ensure that all my future clients feel that they have had a fair trial. Without justice, there is no peace of mind, and without passionate attorneys, there is no chance of healing, either. This is why I am ready to tackle the legal world with the reassurance that I will be able to succeed as a future prosecuting attorney.

#2, PERSONAL STATEMENT BY LESLIE N.:

Sirens pierce the air. Cars screech to a halt. Phones buzz with mass Red Alerts—seek shelter, immediately. This ballistic missile drill is a sobering reminder that the threat of a Chinese invasion is never far from people’s minds. As a foreign correspondent in Taipei, I've watched as Taiwan confronts an uncertain future. The island floats in limbo, without many of the diplomatic trappings of an officially recognized nation. It is only fitting that I cover a country that’s still finding its place in the world.

As a Vietnamese-Nigerian-American, I’ve lived my entire life on the hyphen—teetering on a thin tightrope between colliding cultures. My refugee family and I have long straddled the crossroads of the world, always unsettled, forever unrooted. That’s why, for me, revitalizing American diplomacy through robust immigration reform and far-sighted foreign policy is not just a professional pursuit—it’s a personal quest too. The JD/MPP joint-degree program at Harvard will equip me with the legal and policy design frameworks necessary to wrestle with—and ultimately, answer—the nuanced questions that govern America’s byzantine asylum system.

I’ve seen the limitations of that system firsthand. Growing up, I learned to read and write by helping my parents fill out long-winded visa forms for faraway relatives. I translated legal jargon and ever-changing green card rules as we prepped for citizenship tests, medical exams, and job interviews. Between embassy visits, I witnessed how structural inequality broadly shaped the bureaucracies that served as stubborn gatekeepers to our long-awaited reunion. Marred by decades of war and displacement, my fractured family tree taught me how to ask uncomfortable questions and probe beneath the surface early on: Why haven’t I met Grandma yet? What are mortar grenades? What’s wrong with our accent?

Today, this natural curiosity is central to everything I pursue, as I explore different cultures to better understand my own. Soon after I enrolled at Stanford, I left the U.S. for the first time and studied in China, Turkey, Brazil, and Spain. I took classes in each country’s language to better understand its cultural context and I eventually earned a degree in International Relations. Later on, I entered journalism and built a global career in which I investigated not only my own family’s splintered narratives, but also larger stories of statelessness and nation-building—the same factors that pushed my parents to abandon their own countries decades ago and carve out a new life in America. Now, I collect bylines from all over the world, particularly in places where identities hang in the balance—like the Palestinian enclaves of the West Bank, the indigenous heartlands of Vietnam, and the Syrian refugee camps of Turkey. I see myself in these liminal spaces, neither here nor there. Because in an America as divided as my own family, I don’t know where I fit in yet.

However, the farther I stray from home, the more I feel compelled to return. Being abroad has allowed me to see America’s systemic immigration struggles with sharpened clarity and embrace the power of un-belonging that fuels so many rising first-generation Americans like myself. Those of us who are new to America should be the loudest in ensuring that the country delivers on the promises of opportunity that brought our families here in the first place. We are the ones who must clamor for transparent asylum procedures, demand due process for refugees who cling to the hope of resettlement, and steer foreign policies that scaffold stronger ties with the countries that hold our heritage and history. If we don’t, we risk merely joining a broken system and not pushing to build a better one.

Moving forward, I aim to transition to a career in public service that sits at the intersection of diplomacy and international law—focusing on impact litigation, refugee rights, immigration reform, and cross-border conflict resolution. An interdisciplinary education from both HLS and HKS will help me bridge that gap. While I can draft moving speeches for global tech companies and write feature articles for international media outlets, I also want to further hone my negotiation skills and learn how to wield powerful narratives that strategically bolster our diplomatic efforts in sensitive political regions like Taiwan or make a cogent case for refugee resettlement in America. I plan to leverage my storytelling ability to convey and connect, to bridge what divides us—whether border walls or chasms of misunderstanding. After all, our stories of loss, struggle, change, and hope are the best tools we have to understand one another, inspiring us to translate our values into meaningful, concrete action.

After years of reporting from Taiwan, I can more clearly see my role in the U.S., even as Americans also face an uncertain future. As it turns out, I’ve been looking for home in all the wrong places. My country, where my identity and purpose are so deeply rooted, is where I belong and where I can help others find home too.

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Personal Statement Help (from the U.S. Supreme Court)

December 2, 2010
/ Reviewed by: Matt Riley

Law school application season is heating up, and as we head into December, I suspect that the majority of you are working on your personal statements and supplemental essays. For those of you studying for the December LSAT, stop reading now and go study. To the early birds who have already submitted all of their applications, congratulations and best of luck. The rest of us are looking for that perfect way to sum up who we are and what we can offer our prospective law schools. It certainly helps to look at examples of strong personal statements and identify what features make them compelling to admissions officers. It can be equally effective to look at examples of what NOT to do in your personal statement, and if you want to know what kind of writing to avoid, look no further than the United States Supreme Court.

I won’t take it personally if you read that last sentence with some skepticism. After all, one of the pesky prerequisites for becoming a Supreme Court Justice is a mind brilliant enough to reach the pinnacle of the legal profession. The prerequisites for writing a blog are slightly less stringent (internet access and at least one functional hand). Nonetheless, there was this very interesting article in the New York Times that is very critical of the decisions being passed down by the current Roberts court. The article doesn’t aim its criticism at anything political, rather, it says that the decisions themselves are unnecessarily long, they are unclear, and ultimately they don’t provide much guidance. In other words, they violate virtually every rule of writing a good personal statement.

Rule #1: Be Concise.

A typical personal statement is 2-3 pages, double spaced. You’re trying to tell admissions officers who you are, what you stand for, and what you bring to the table in only a few paragraphs. You need to be efficient. It’s a pretty basic writing tip, but it appears that our current Supreme Court Justices need a quick reminder.

We can all agree that Brown v. Board of Education was a pretty important case. That whole “segregated schools are unconstitutional” thing is something we can all get behind. Brown v Board did its job in fewer than 4,000 words. That’s the efficiency of an assassin. Wake up, end segregation, go to lunch. The average length of a Supreme Court decision in the 1950s was 2,000 words. Today, the Roberts court has been known to issue decisions that exceed 50,000 words. The average length of a Supreme Court decision hit its all-time high this year. The worst part? “In decisions on questions great and small, the court often provides only limited or ambiguous guidance to lower courts. And it increasingly does so at enormous length.” Not ideal. Remember, when writing your personal statement, less is more.

Rule #2: Know Your Audience.

You are obviously going to want your personal statement to project a tone and style appropriate for a law school admissions committee. After all, that is your audience and you need to be writing with them in mind.

It would be nice if Supreme Court decisions could be understood by the average, educated person, but apparently our current justices are writing to another audience. Chief Justice Roberts has said that clarity and accessibility are important to him, but there isn’t a whole lot of evidence that he has followed suit. “I hope we haven’t gotten to the point where the Supreme Court’s opinions are so abstruse that the educated layperson can’t pick them up and read them and understand them,” he said. Oh yeah? Check out this NY Times article to read a few quick excerpts from some recent decisions. Your brain will literally ache.

Rule #3: Be Interesting! Grab your Readers Attention!

Critics of the court’s work are not primarily focused on the quality of the justices’ writing, though it is often flabby and flat. I’ll admit that the primary goal of a Supreme Court decision is not to entertain the reader. Read your personal statement aloud. Then read this aloud:

“Prudence councils caution before the facts in the instant case are used to establish far-reaching premises that define the existence, and extent, of privacy expectations enjoyed by employees when using employer-provided communication devices. Rapid changes in the dynamics of communication and information transmission are evident not just in the technology itself but in what society accepts as proper behavior.”

If the two sound similar, you are not grabbing the attention of the admissions board. You also may have been writing a court decision about privacy rights instead of your personal statement, and you should try to figure out how you got so far off-track.

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Proofread my Essay: Lsat personal statement examples
The Only 3 LSAT Writing Sample Tips You'll Ever Need
Law School Personal Statement Example
A Crash Course for the LSAT Personal Statement
SOLUTION: LSAT Personal Statement
How To Write An Lsat Addendum Essay

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Law School Personal Statement: The Ultimate Guide (Examples Included)
AN EXCELLENT LAW SCHOOL PERSONAL STATEMENT CAN HELP COMPENSATE FOR A less competitive UNDERGRADUATE GPA OR LSAT SCORE. Part 1: Introduction ... In this guide, we'll discuss the third-most important part of your application: your law school personal statement. Because your LSAT and GPA carry so much weight, you shouldn't begin thinking about ...
How to Write a Law School Personal Statement
Personal Statement Body Section. The body of your personal statement should focus on the details of your story. Each paragraph should expand on your points and begin with a topic sentence that expresses the main idea of the paragraph in which it occurs. Ending sentences for body paragraphs should wrap up your points and help transition the ...
The Ultimate Law School Personal Statement Resource List
Given your language background, your TOEFL score, your LSAT Writing Sample, and you personal statement, you want a consistent language ability to be conveyed. Making this too smooth would actually call the entire essay into question. ... Any suggestions would help. I have a current personal statement drafted, but it focuses on one broad aspect ...
Law School Personal Statement Tips
There are usually some subtle differences in what each school asks for in a personal statement. 2. Good writing is writing that is easily understood. Good law students—and good lawyers—use clear, direct prose. Remove extraneous words and make sure that your points are clear. Don't make admissions officers struggle to figure out what you are ...
A Sample Structure for Your Law School Personal Statement
The basic formula: I am. I did. I do. I will. Ben and I talk endlessly about showing, rather than telling, any time a personal statement comes up on the Thinking LSAT Podcast. The point is to demonstrate your strengths and achievements via facts, rather than forcing conclusions down the reader's throat.
Law School Personal Statement
The perfect personal statement is the one that perfectly and truly states you. If you bring your personality, your voice, and your story with honesty and authenticity, you'll have the start of a winning essay. ... Tips to Help You Ace the LSAT. LSATMax Claims 2017 Best LSAT Review Course Award. Plan Your Studying. Categories.
Law School Personal Statement Examples
The personal statement is a critical part of a law school application. Although it may not be as important as your LSAT score and GPA, remember that law school admissions committees are trying to build a diverse and interesting community of students. Your personal statement is the primary way you can show law schools who you are beyond your numbers and resume, and is also an opportunity to ...
Guide to Writing an Outstanding Law School Personal Statement · LSData
Be precise and concise. Legal writing is known for its clarity and brevity, so practice these skills in your personal statement. Aim to keep it between 500 and 700 words, as brevity is the soul of wit (and law school applications). 5. Revision: The Art of Legal Editing.
A Crash Course for the LSAT Personal Statement
The personal statement is your chance to tell the admissions committee about yourself. Check the requirements for each school that you're applying to. Every school's length and prompt may vary. For example, Harvard University requires the personal statement has a two page limit using a minimum of a 11-point font, while University of ...
How to Format Your Law School Personal Statement
Header: Your name, your LSAC number, and "Personal Statement" with a page number, formatted as either one or three lines. Check with your school's requirements. Body: Double-spaced, left-aligned (or justified), paragraphs indented 0.5 inches and not separated with an extra line, single space after periods.
Excellent Law School Personal Statement Examples
Excellent Law School Personal Statement Examples - 7Sage LSAT. By David Busis Published May 5, 2019 Updated Feb 10, 2021. We've rounded up five spectacular personal statements that helped students with borderline numbers get into T-14 schools. You'll find these examples to be as various as a typical JD class.
Personal Statement Strategies · LSData
This article aims to help with the personal statement drafting process by providing a step-by-step breakdown to follow, ... any topic constraints, often sounds like a fairly easy task at first - especially in comparison to tackling the LSAT. Do not fall into the trap of leaving your personal statement as a task to handle after applications ...
Tips For Law School Personal Statements: Examples, Resources ...
A law school personal statement is a multi-paragraph essay or narrative highlighting the reason you are pursuing a J.D. degree. This essay is an opportunity to share your identity with an ...
Law School Personal Statements: What Not To Do
Don't write a law school personal statement that relies on gimmickry. This includes framing your essay as: a poem. a newspaper article written in the third person. a movie script. a stand-up comedy routine. While the words of your statement should flow like poetry to one's ears, you should not write an actual poem.
Law School Application Personal Statement Examples
Enter LSAT Score. Calculate. My interest in the law began the summer of 2018. It was in that summer that I witnessed the legal system offer my friends justice and the ability to regain their power. My high school travel basketball coach sexually assaulted several players. I attended court to support my friend who was one of his victims.
9 Important Personal Statement Tips for Law School Applicants
Tip 3: Be genuine. You don't need to be a superhero to impress the law school admissions committee. You can show your passion, dedication, and law school readiness in lots of everyday anecdotes from your life. You can even write your personal statement about a mistake or a weakness—just make sure you turn it around to show how you ...
Personal Statement Help (from the U.S. Supreme Court)
In other words, they violate virtually every rule of writing a good personal statement. Rule #1: Be Concise. A typical personal statement is 2-3 pages, double spaced. You're trying to tell admissions officers who you are, what you stand for, and what you bring to the table in only a few paragraphs. You need to be efficient.
Personal Statement—Help : r/LSAT
Personal Statement—Help. So (for my top school choice) it seems instead of a standard 2 page maximum statement, there are 3 question prompts to answer. I previously applied when my LSAT score was not at median about 1-2 years ago, when the 2 page was the norm. With these question prompts, there are maximum word counts of 300 words or less.
Personal Statement help : r/LSAT
Everything else in the application process is binary, now this is the chance you get to sell yourself with a wholistic approach. The better the story, the more they will like you. But even though you have been out of school for a while, I would still reach out to your old school and bounce your personal statement off a professor or two. 2.
Personal Statement Help : r/LSAT
The Reddit LSAT Forum. The best place on Reddit for LSAT advice. The Law School Admission Test (LSAT) is the test required to get into an ABA law school. Check out the sidebar for intro guides. Post any questions you have, there are lots of redditors with LSAT knowledge waiting to help.
Personal statement : r/LSAT
Post any questions you have, there are lots of redditors with LSAT knowledge waiting to help. Members Online Scored a 180 17 years ago, lawyer now, wish I wasn't
IRS statement as part of the resolution of Kenneth C. Griffin v. IRS
IR-2024-172, June 25, 2024 WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service sincerely apologizes to Mr. Kenneth Griffin and the thousands of other Americans whose personal information was leaked to the press. Charles Littlejohn was a government contractor providing services to the IRS at the time he made the illegal disclosures.
Personal Statement Help : r/LSAT
Go to LSAT r/LSAT • by Agitated-Presence102. View community ranking In the Top 1% of largest communities on Reddit. Personal Statement Help . Hey all, as I am patiently waiting for the August score result, I started the process of writing my personal statement. I'm sure I am not alone on this, but I hate and struggle writing about myself.