personal statement law student

18 Law School Personal Statement Examples That Got Accepted!

This blog contains law school personal statement examples written by applicants who were successfully accepted to multiple law schools after working with our admissions experts as part of our  application review programs . Your  law school personal statement  is one of the most important parts of your application and is your best opportunity to show admissions officers who you are behind your numbers and third-party assessments. Because of its importance, many students find the personal statement to be daunting and demanding of the full scope of their skills as writers. Today we're going to review these excellent law school personal statement examples from past successful applicants and provide some proven strategies from a former admissions officer that can help you prepare your own stellar essay. 

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Article Contents 44 min read

Law school personal statement example #1.

When I was a child, my neighbors, who had arrived in America from Nepal, often seemed stressed. They argued a lot, struggled for money, and seemed to work all hours of the day. One day, I woke early in the morning to a commotion outside my apartment. Police officers were accompanying my neighbors out of the building. They were being deported. In my teens, I was shocked to see that our kind, friendly neighbors had exhausted their last chance to stay in America as they lost a court appeal. 

Since that time, I have worked closely with the many immigrant families in my neighborhood, and now university town. I began by volunteering at a local community center. Together with social workers, I served food and gave out clothes to new arrivals. My diligent work ethic led to more responsibility, and I received training in basic counseling techniques, first aid skills and community services. Soon, I was tasked with welcoming new community members and assessing their health and social needs. I heard the many difficult stories of those who had traveled thousands of miles, often through several countries, risking everything to reach a safe, welcoming country. I was proud to contribute in some small way to making America welcoming for these individuals.

The community center is where I had my first formal contact with legal aid lawyers, who were a constant source of knowledge and support for those who needed assistance. I was struck by the lawyers’ ability to explain complex legal processes to nervous and exhausted incomers: law, I realized, was about more than procedure. I decided that I, too, would strive to balance a wealth of technical knowledge with my caring, compassionate personality.

As soon as I enrolled in university, I knew I had the chance to do so. In my very first week, I signed up to volunteer at the university’s legal aid center, where I worked closely with law professors and students on a range of cases. Academically, I have focused on courses, such as a fourth-year Ethics seminar, that would help me develop rigorous critical reasoning skills. More importantly, I knew that, given my experience, I could be a leader on campus. I decided to found a refugee campaign group, Students4Refugees. Together with a group of volunteers, we campaigned to make our campus a refugee-friendly space. I organized a series of events: international student mixers, an art installation in our student commons, and concerts that raised over $5,000 for the charity Refugee Aid. I am proud to say that my contributions were recognized with a university medal for campus leadership.

I have seen time and again how immigrants to the United States struggle with bureaucracy, with complex legal procedures, and with the demands of living in a foreign and sometimes hostile climate. As I plan to enter law school, I look back to my neighbors’ experiences: they needed someone who knew the law, who could negotiate with the authorities on their behalf, who could inform them of their rights—but they also needed someone who would provide a caring and compassionate outlet for their stresses. I know that Townsville University’s combination of academic rigor, legal aid services, and history of graduates entering labor and non-profit sectors will allow me to develop these skills and continue making contributions to my community by advocating for those in need.

• Thematic consistency: It focuses on just one theme: justice for immigrants. Each paragraph is designed to show off how enthusiastic the student is about this area of law. Personal statements—including those for law school—often begin with a personal anecdote. This one is short, memorable, and relevant. It establishes the overall theme quickly. By constraining their essay’s focus to a single general theme, the writer can go into great depth and weave in emotional and psychological weight through careful and vivid description. The personal statement isn’t a standard 3-paragraph college essay with a spotlight thesis statement, but it conveys similar impact through presenting a central focus organically, without resorting to simply blurting out “the point” of the piece.   
• Shows, rather than tells: Connected to this, this statement focuses on showing rather than telling. Rather than simply telling the reader about their commitment to law, the applicant describes specific situations they were involved in that demonstrate their commitment to law. “Show don’t tell” means you want to paint a vivid picture of actions or experiences that demonstrate a given quality or skill, and not simply say "I can do X." Make it an experience for your reader, don't just give them a fact. 
• Confident, but not arrogant: Additionally, this personal statement is confident without being boastful—leadership qualities, grades, and an award are all mentioned in context, rather than appearing as a simple list of successes. 
• Specific to the school: It ends with a conclusion that alludes to why the applicant is suitable for the specific school to which they’re applying and points to their future career plans. Thoroughly researching the law school to which you’re applying is incredibly important so that you can tailor your remarks to the specific qualities and values they’re looking for. A law essay writing service is really something that can help you integrate this aspect effectively. 

What Should a Law School Personal Statement Do?

1.      be unique to the school you’re applying to.

Students are always asking how to write a personal statement for law school, particularly one that stands out from all the rest. After all, advice from most universities can often be quite vague. Take this zinger from the  University of Chicago : “Write about something personal, relevant, and completely individual to you… Just be yourself.” Every school will have different requirements or content they want to see in a personal statement. This is why it’s a good idea to review specific guidelines for the school to which you’re applying. For example, you can read Yale Law School personal statement examples , Stanford Law personal statement examples , and an NYU personal statement to get an idea of what these schools look for.

2.      Demonstrate your skills and capabilities

For motivated students with the world at their fingertips, it’s a tough ask to narrow your character down into a few hundred words! But this is exactly the point of such generic guidelines—to challenge aspiring law students to produce something unique and convincing with minimal direction by the university. Law is, after all, a profession that demands your language to be persuasive, and the personal statement is merely one of many exercises where you can demonstrate your language skills. 

3.      Meet basic requirements

While the law school personal statement is about far more than just following essay directions, you still need to keep basic formatting and length restrictions in mind. Most law schools ask for a 2-page personal statement, but lengths can range from 2-4 pages. Georgetown Law School , for instance, recommends a 2-page personal statement but explicitly states that there is no official minimum or maximum. In general, length does not make a personal statement better. Rambling, meandering sentences and tiresome descriptions will only hurt the impact of your ideas, especially considering how many thousands of pages admissions committees have to churn through each year.  

In short, keep to 2 double-spaced pages, and only go below or above this is if you absolutely have to, and if the school to which you're applying allows it. You want to keep things as widely applicable as possible while drafting your personal statement, meaning that you don't want to draft a 4 page letter for the one school that allows it, and then have to significantly rewrite this for your other schools. Stick to 2 pages. 

4.      Embody what the school is looking for

Lastly, many law schools won’t offer hyper-specific prompts, but will give you general law school admissions essay topics to follow. For instance, the University of Washington’s law school provides a number of topics to follow, including “Describe a personal challenge you faced” or “Describe your passions and involvement in a project or pursuit and the ways in which it has contributed to your personal growth and goals.” These topics may feel specific at first, but as you begin drafting, you’ll likely realize you have dozens of memories to choose from, and numerous ways of describing their impact. While drafting, try to explore as many of these options as possible, and select the best or most impactful to use in your final draft.  

Want to write the perfect law school personal statement? Watch this video:

Law School Personal Statement Example #2

In my home community, the belief is that the law is against us. The law oppresses and victimizes. I must admit that as a child and young person I had this opinion based on my environment and the conversations around me. I did not understand that the law could be a vehicle for social change, and I certainly did not imagine I had the ability and talents to be a voice for this change. I regularly attended my high school classes because I enjoyed the discussions and reading for English and history, and writing came easily to me, but I wasn’t committed to getting good grades because I felt I had no purpose. My mindset changed as I spent time with Mark Russell, a law student who agreed to mentor and tutor me as part of a “high school to law school” mentorship program. Every week, for three years, Mark and I would meet. At first, Mark tutored me, but I quickly became an “A” student, not only because of the tutoring, but because my ambitions were uncorked by what Mark shared with me about university, the law, and his life. I learned grades were the currency I needed to succeed. I attended mock trials, court hearings, and law lectures with Mark and developed a fresh understanding of the law that piqued an interest in law school. My outlook has changed because my mentor, my teachers, and my self-advocacy facilitated my growth. Still, injustices do occur. The difference is that I now believe the law can be an instrument for social change, but voices like mine must give direction to policy and resources in order to fight those injustices.

Early in my mentorship, I realized it was necessary to be “in the world” differently if I were to truly consider a law career. With Mark’s help and the support of my high school teachers, I learned to advocate for myself and explore opportunities that would expand my worldview as well as my academic skills. I joined a Model UN club at a neighboring high school, because my own school did not have enough student interest to have a club. By discussing global issues and writing decisions, I began to feel powerful and confident with my ability to gather evidence and make meaningful decisions about real global issues. As I built my leadership, writing, and public speaking skills, I noticed a rift developing with some of my friends. I wanted them to begin to think about larger systemic issues outside of our immediate experience, as I was learning to, and to build confidence in new ways. I petitioned my school to start a Model UN and recruited enough students to populate the club. My friends did not join the club as I’d hoped, but before I graduated, we had 2 successful years with the students who did join. I began to understand that I cannot force change based on my own mandate, but I must listen attentively to the needs and desires of others in order to support them as they require.

While I learned to advocate for myself throughout high school, I also learned to advocate for others. My neighbors, knowing my desire to be a lawyer, would often ask me to advocate on their behalf with small grievances. I would make phone calls, stand in line with them at government offices, and deal with difficult landlords. A woman, Elsa, asked me to review her rental agreement to help her understand why her landlord had rented it to someone else, rather than renewing her lease. I scoured the rental agreement, highlighted questionable sections, read the Residential Tenancies Act, and developed a strategy for approaching the landlord. Elsa and I sat down with the landlord and, upon seeing my binder complete with indices, he quickly conceded before I could even speak. That day, I understood evidence is the way to justice. My interest in justice grew, and while in university, I sought experiences to solidify my decision to pursue law.

Last summer, I had the good fortune to work as a summer intern in the Crown Attorney’s Office responsible for criminal trial prosecutions. As the only pre-law intern, I was given tasks such as reviewing court tapes, verifying documents, and creating a binder with indices. I often went to court with the prosecutors where I learned a great deal about legal proceedings, and was at times horrified by human behavior. This made the atmosphere in the Crown Attorney’s office even more surprising. I worked with happy and passionate lawyers whose motivations were pubic service, the safety and well-being of communities, and justice. The moment I realized justice was their true objective, not the number of convictions, was the moment I decided to become a lawyer.

I broke from the belief systems I was born into. I did this through education, mentorship, and self-advocacy. There is sadness because in this transition I left people behind, especially as I entered university. However, I am devoted to my home community. I understand the barriers that stand between youth and their success. As a law student, I will mentor as I was mentored, and as a lawyer, I will be a voice for change.

What’s Great about this Second Law School Personal Statement?

• It tells a complete and compelling story: Although the applicant expressed initial reservations about the law generally, the statement tells a compelling story of how the applicant's opinions began to shift and their interest in law began. They use real examples and show how that initial interest, once seeded, grew into dedication and passion. This introduction implies an answer to the " why do you want to study law? ” interview question.
• It shows adaptability: Receptiveness to new information and the ability to change both thought and behavior based on this new information. The writer describes realizing that they needed to be "in the world" differently! It's hard to convey such a grandiose idea without sounding cliché, but through their captivating and chronological narrative, the writer successfully convinces the reader that this is the case with copious examples, including law school extracurriculars . It’s a fantastic case of showing rather than telling, describing specific causes they were involved with which demonstrate that the applicant is genuinely committed to a career in the law. 
• Includes challenges the subject faced and overcame: This law school personal statement also discusses weighty, relatable challenges that they faced, such as the applicant's original feeling toward law, and the fact that they lost some friends along the way. However, the applicant shows determination to move past these hurdles without self-pity or other forms of navel-gazing.  Additionally, this personal statement ends with a conclusion that alludes to why the applicant is suitable for the specific school to which they’re applying and points to their future career plans. The writer manages to craft an extremely immersive and believable story about their path to the present, while also managing to curate the details of this narrative to fit the specific values and mission of the school to which they’re applying.

What’s Great About This Third Law School Personal Statement? 

• Description is concise and effective: This writer opens with rich, vivid description and seamlessly guides the reader into a compelling first-person narrative. Using punchy, attention-grabbing descriptions like these make events immersive, placing readers in the writer's shoes and creating a sense of immediacy. 
• Achievements are the focus: They also do a fantastic job of talking about their achievements, such as interview team lead, program design, etc., without simply bragging. Instead, they deliver this information within a cohesive narrative that includes details, anecdotes, and information that shows their perspective in a natural way. Lastly, they invoke their passion for law with humility, discussing their momentary setbacks and frustrations as ultimately positive experiences leading to further growth. 

Want more law school personal statement examples from top law schools?

• Harvard law school personal statement examples
• Columbia law school personal statement examples
• Cornell law school personal statement examples
• Yale law school personal statement examples
• UPenn law school personal statement examples
• Cambridge law school personal statement examples

Law School Personal Statement #4

What’s great about this fourth law school personal statement.

• Engaging description: Like the third example above, this fourth law school personal statement opens with engaging description and first-person narrative. However, the writer of this personal statement chooses to engage a traumatic aspect of their childhood and discuss how this adversity led them to develop their desire to pursue a career in law.  
• Strong theme of overcoming adversity: Overcoming adversity is a frequent theme in personal statements for all specialties, but with law school personal statements students are often able to utilize uniquely dramatic, difficult, and pivotal experiences that involved interacting with the law. It may be hard to discuss such emotionally weighty experiences in a short letter but, as this personal statement shows, with care and focus it's possible to sincerely demonstrate how your early struggles paved the way for you to become the person you are now. It's important to avoid sensationalism, but you shouldn't shy away from opening up to your readers about adverse experiences that have ultimately pointed you in a positive direction. 

Why "show, don't tell" is the #1 rule for personal statements:

Law School Personal Statement Example #5

What’s great about this fifth law school personal statement  .

• Highlights achievements effectively: This writer does a fantastic job of incorporating their accomplishments and impact they had on their community without any sense of bragging or conceit. Rather, these accomplishments are related in terms of deep personal investment and a general drive to have a positive impact on those around them—without resorting to the cliches of simply stating "I want to help people." They show themselves helping others, and how these early experiences of doing so are a fundamental part of their drive to succeed with a career in law.   
• Shows originality: Additionally, they do a great job of explaining the uniqueness of their identity. The writer doesn't simply list their personal/cultural characteristics, but contextualizes them to show how they've shaped their path to law school. Being the child of a Buddhist mother and a Hindu father doesn’t imply anything about a person’s ability to study/practice law on its own, but explaining how this unique aspect of their childhood encouraged a passion for “discussion, active debate, and compromise” is profoundly meaningful to an admissions panel. Being able to express how fundamental aspects of law practice are an integral part of yourself is a hugely helpful tactic in a law school personal statement. 

If you\u2019re heading North of the border, check out list of  law schools in Canada  that includes requirements and stats on acceptance. ","label":"Tip","title":"Tip"}]" code="tab2" template="BlogArticle">

Law School Personal Statement Example #6

What’s great about this sixth law school personal statement .

• Weaves in cultural background: Similar to the writer of personal statement #5, this student utilizes the cultural uniqueness of their childhood to show how their path to law school was both deeply personal and rooted in ideas pervasive in their early years. Unlike the writer of statement #5, this student doesn't shy away from explaining how this distinctiveness was often a source of alienation and difficulty. Yet this adversity is, as they note, ultimately what helped them be an adaptable and driven student, with a clear desire to make a positive impact on the kinds of situations that they witnessed affect their parents.  
• Describes setbacks while remaining positive: This writer also doesn't shy away from describing their temporary setbacks as both learning experiences and, crucially, springboards for positively informing their plans for the future. 

What’s Great About This Seventh Law School Personal Statement? 

• The writer takes accountability: One of the hardest things to accomplish in a personal statement is describing not just early setbacks that are out of your control but early mistakes for which you must take responsibility. The writer of this personal statement opens with descriptions of characteristics that most law schools would find problematic at best. But at the end of this introduction, they successfully utilize an epiphany, a game-changing moment in which they saw something beyond their early pathological aimlessness, to clearly mark the point at which they became focused on law.  
• The narrative structure is clear: They clearly describe the path forward from this moment on, showing how they remained focused on earning a law degree, and how they were able to work through successive experiences of confusion to persist in finishing their undergraduate education at a prestigious university. Of course, you shouldn't brag about such things for their own sake, but this writer makes the point of opening up about the unique feelings of inadequacy that come along with being the first person in their family to attend such a school, and how these feelings were—like their initial aimlessness—mobilized in service of their goal and the well-being of others. Their statement balances discussion of achievement with humility, which is a difficult but impactful tactic when done well. 

Law School Personal Statement Example #8

What’s great about this eighth law school personal statement .

• Shows commitment to the community: Commitment to one’s community is a prized value in both law students and law professionals. This writer successfully describes not only how they navigated the challenges in their group environments, such as their internship, the debate team, etc., but how these challenges strengthened their commitment to being a positive part of their communities. They don’t simply describe the skills and lessons they learned from these challenging environments, but also how these challenges ultimately made them even more committed to and appreciative of these kinds of dynamic, evolutionary settings.  
• Avoids negative description: They also avoid placing blame or negatively describing the people in these situations, instead choosing to characterize inherent difficulties in terms neutral to the people around them. In this way, you can describe extremely challenging environments without coming off as resentful, and identify difficulties without being accusatory or, worse yet, accidentally or indirectly seeming like part of the problem. This writer manages to convey the difficulty and complexity of these experiences while continually returning to their positive long-term impact, and though you shouldn’t seek to “bright-side” the troubles in your life you should absolutely point out how these experiences have made you a more capable and mature student. 

Watch this for more law school personal statement examples!

Law School Personal Statement Example #9

What’s great about this ninth law school personal statement  .

• The writer effectively describes how their background shaped their decision to pursue law: Expressing privilege as adversity is something that very few students should even attempt, and fewer still can actually pull it off. But the writer of this personal statement does just that in their second paragraph, describing how the ease and comfort of their upbringing could have been a source of laziness or detachment, and often is for particularly well-off students, but instead served as a basis for their ongoing commitment to addressing the inequalities and difficulties of those less comfortable. Describing how you’ve developed into an empathic and engaged person, worked selflessly in any volunteer experiences, and generally aimed your academic life at a career in law for the aid of others—all this is incredibly moving for an admissions board, and can help you discuss your determination and understanding of exactly why you desire a career in law.  
• The student shows adaptability, flexibility, and commitment: Additionally, this writer is able to show adaptability while describing their more prestigious appointments in a way that’s neither self-aggrandizing nor unappreciative. One of the big takeaways from this statement is the student’s commitment and flexibility, and these are both vitally important qualities to convey in your law school personal statement.  

Law School Personal Statement Example #10

What’s great about this tenth law school personal statement .

Shows passion: If you’re one of the rare students for whom service to others has always been a core belief, by all means find a novel and engaging way of making this the guiding principle of your personal statement. Don’t overdo it—don’t veer into poetry or lofty philosophizing—but by all means let your passion guide your pen (well…keyboard). Every step of the way, this student relates their highs and lows, their challenges and successes, to an extremely earnest and sincere set of altruistic values invoked at the very beginning of their statement. Law school admissions boards don’t exactly prize monomania, but they do value intense and sustained commitment.  

Shows maturity: This student also successfully elaborates this passion in relation to mature understanding. That is, they make repeated points about their developing understanding of law that sustains their hopefulness and emotional intensity while also incorporating knowledge of the sometimes troubling day-to-day challenges of the profession. Law schools aren’t looking for starry-eyed naivete, but they do value optimism and the ability to stay positive in a profession often defined by its difficulties and unpredictability. 

Every pre-law student blames their lack of success on the large number of applicants, the heartless admissions committee members, or the high GPA and LSAT score cut offs. Check out our blog on  law school acceptance rates  to find out more about the law school admission statistics for law schools in the US . Having taught more than a thousand students every year, I can tell you the REAL truth about why most students get rejected: 

Need tips on your law school resume?

8 Additional Law School Personal Statement Examples

Now that you have a better idea of what your law school personal statement should include, and how you can make it stand out, here are five additional law school personal statements for you to review and get some inspiration:

Law school personal statement example #11

According to the business wire, 51 percent of students are not confident in their career path when they enroll in college. I was one of those students for a long time. My parents had always stressed the importance of education and going to college, so I knew that I wanted to get a tertiary education, I just didn’t know in what field. So, like many other students, I matriculated undecided and started taking introductory courses in the subjects that interest me. I took classes from the department of literature, philosophy, science, statistics, business, and so many others but nothing really called out to me.

I figured that maybe if I got some practical experience, I might get more excited about different fields. I remembered that my high school counselor had told me that medicine would be a good fit for me, and I liked the idea of a career that involved constant learning. So, I applied for an observership at my local hospital. I had to cross “doctor” off my list of post-graduate career options when I fainted in the middle of a consultation in the ER.

I had to go back to the drawing board and reflect on my choices. I decided to stop trying to make an emotional decision and focus on the data. So, I looked at my transcript thus far, and it quickly became clear to me that I had both an interest and an aptitude for business and technology. I had taken more courses in those two fields than in any others, and I was doing very well in them. My decision was reaffirmed when I spent the summer interning at a digital marketing firm during my senior year in college and absolutely loved my experience. 

Since graduating, I have been working at that same firm and I am glad that I decided to major in business. I first started as a digital advertising assistant, and I quickly learned that the world of digital marketing is an incredibly fast-paced sink-or-swim environment. I didn’t mind it at all. I wanted to swim with the best of them and succeed. So far, my career in advertising has been challenging and rewarding in ways that I never could have imagined. 

I remember the first potential client that I handled on my own. Everything had been going great until they changed their mind about an important detail a day before we were supposed to present our pitch. . I had a day to research and re-do a presentation that I’d been preparing for weeks. I was sure that I’d be next on the chopping block, but once again all I had to was take a step back and look at the information that I had. Focusing on the big picture helped me come up with a new pitch, and after a long night, lots of coffee, and laser-like focus, I delivered a presentation that I was not only proud of, but that landed us the client. 

Three years and numerous client emergencies later, I have learned how to work under pressure, how to push myself, and how to think critically. I also have a much better understanding of who I am and what skills I possess. One of the many things that I have learned about myself over the course of my career is that I am a fan of the law. Over the past three years, I have worked with many lawyers to navigate the muddy waters of user privacy and digital media. I often find myself looking forward to working with our legal team, whereas my coworkers actively avoid them. I have even become friends with my colleagues on the legal team who also enjoy comparing things like data protection laws in the US and the EU and speculating about the future of digital technology regulation. 

These experiences and conversations have led me to a point where I am interested in various aspects of the law. I now know that I have the skills required to pursue a legal education and that this time around, I am very sure about what I wish to study. Digital technology has evolved rapidly over the last decade, and it is just now starting to become regulated. I believe that this shift is going to open up a more prominent role for those who understand both digital technology and its laws, especially in the corporate world. My goal is to build a career at the intersection of these worlds.

Law school personal statement example #12

The first weekend I spent on my undergrad college campus was simultaneously one of the best and worst of my life. I was so excited to be away from home, on my own, making new friends and trying new things. One of those things was a party at a sorority house with my friend and roommate, where I thought we both had a great time. Both of us came from small towns, and we had decided to look out for one another. So, when it was time to go home, and I couldn't find her, I started to worry. I spent nearly an hour looking for her before I got her message saying she was already back in our dorm. 

It took her three months to tell me that she had been raped that night. Her rapist didn't hold a knife to her throat, jump out of a dark alleyway, or slip her a roofie. Her rapist was her long-term boyfriend, with whom she'd been in a long-distance relationship for just over a year. He assaulted her in a stranger's bedroom while her peers, myself included, danced the night away just a few feet away. 

I remember feeling overwhelmed when she first told me. I was sad for my friend, angry on her behalf, and disgusted by her rapist's actions. I also felt incredibly guilty because I had been there when it happened. I told myself that I should have stayed with her all night and that I should have seen the abuse - verbal and physical harassment- that he was inflicting on her before it turned sexual. But eventually, I realized that thinking about what could, should, or would've happened doesn't help anyone. 

I watched my friend go through counseling, attend support groups, and still, she seemed to be hanging on by a thread. I couldn't begin to imagine what she was going through, and unfortunately, there was very little I could do to help her. So, I decided to get involved with the Sexual Assault Responders Group on campus, where I would actually be able to help another survivor. 

My experience with the Sexual Assault Responders Group on campus was eye-opening. I mostly worked on the peer-to-peer hotline, where I spoke to survivors from all walks of life. I was confronted by the fact that rape is not a surreal unfortunate thing that happens to a certain type of person. I learned that it happens daily to mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, and friends. I also learned that most survivors try to manage this burden on their own, afraid of judgment and repercussions and fearful of a he-said-she-said court battle.

I am proud to say that I used my time in college to not only earn an education, but also to advocate for survivors of sexual assault. I protested the university's cover-up of a gang rape that took place in one of the fraternity houses on campus. I spearheaded a 'no means no' campaign to raise awareness about consent on campus. I also led several fundraising campaigns for the Sexual Assault Responders Group that allowed us to pay for legal and mental health counselors for the survivors who came to us for support. 

One of the things that this experience helped me realize is that sexual assault survivors often do not know where to turn when the system tries to tell them that it'd be best to just keep quiet and suffer in silence. My goal is to become one of those people that they can turn to for counsel and support. I believe that a law degree would give me the knowledge and tools that I need to advocate for survivors on a more significant scale. 

Need tips for your law school optional essays? Check out this infographic:

Law school personal statement example #13

I grew up in two different worlds. My world at home was full of people of various skin tones and accents. It was small, loud, and often chaotic in the best ways. I remember walking home and getting to experience music from across the world before I got to my apartment building. Loud reggaeton and afrobeat were always playing somewhere in the distance. Aunties and uncles usually stopped by unannounced and slipped money in your palm when they hugged you goodbye. And the smell of fried plantains was almost always present. 

My other world was in school. It was a much quieter, more organized world with white hallways, navy blazers, and plaid skirts. It was full of people who did not look or sound like me and teachers who thought my hair was "interesting." It was also full of great books and engaging debates about everything from foreign policy to the influence of Jazz on hip hop. 

I lived in these two worlds because I was born and raised in Xtown, but I went to a private school in a much richer neighborhood. I loved both of my worlds, but I hated that I had to act differently in both of them. When in school, I had to "code switch" to sound like I belonged there. When I was at home, all the people who shared the interests I was developing in school were either working or in college, so I had no one to talk to about them. 

My words never felt more divided until I started considering a career in law. I remember telling one of my uncles that I wanted to become a lawyer and his response was, "So you want to become the man, huh?" 

I wasn't surprised by his response, or at least I shouldn't have been. One of the things that I know for sure about the first world I lived in is that many of its inhabitants do not trust the law. I had believed this for so long simply because of the conversations that I would hear around me. However, in my second world, I was learning about all of these great freedoms and rights that the law was designed to give all Americans, and I wanted to bring those to my community. 

I started working on this during the summer before my final year of high school. I got an internship with the legal aid office in my neighborhood and spent three months learning from people who, like me, had grown up in Xtown and wanted to help people. During my time in the legal aid office, I understood that the people in my community did not trust the law for two main reasons: 1. They did not understand a lot of it, and 2. It had been used against people like us many times. 

I remember one particular case that Ms. Sharma - the lawyer I was learning from then and who still mentors me today - handled that summer. It was the case of a young mother who had received a notice of eviction from her landlord two days after refusing his advances. The man claimed that she violated her contract because she made homemade shea butter that she sold on Etsy. Ms. Sharma had me look through her rental agreement. After she confirmed that I was right in determining that the young mother had not violated her contract, she contacted the landlord to advise him that what he was doing was intimidation and sexual harassment. 

My experiences in the legal aid office with Ms. Sharma opened my eyes to the disgusting behavior of human beings, but it also gave me the opportunity to see that the law was my opportunity to use what I learned in my second world to help the community that I was raised in. I returned to school with a new motivation that followed me to college. In addition to completing my bachelor's degree in sociology and African American studies, I spent most of my college years participating in legal internships and community outreach programs. 

I believe that these experiences have given me the foundation I need to be a successful law student and, eventually, a lawyer who can truly be an advocate for members of his community. 

Law school personal statement example #14

One day, my parents noticed that the other children in my age group had been speaking and communicating, but I had not. At first, they thought that my lack of speech was just me being shy, but eventually, they realized that on the rare occasions that I did speak, my words were practically incomprehensible. It wasn't long before they took me to a specialist who diagnosed me with a severe phonological disorder that hindered my ability to verbalize the basic sounds that make up words.

I started going to speech therapy when I was three years old. I saw numerous speech therapists, many of whom believed that I would never be able to communicate effectively with others. Lucky for me, my parents did not give up on me. I went to speech therapy thrice a week until the 8th grade, and I gave every single session my all. I also spent a lot of time in my room practicing my speech by myself. My efforts paid off, and even though I didn't become a chatterbox overnight, I could at least communicate effectively. 

This was a short-lived victory, though. A year later, my speech impediment was back, and my ability to articulate words was once again severely limited. This complicated matters because it was my freshman year of high school, and I was in a brand-new school where I did not know anyone. Having been bullied in middle school, I knew first-hand how vicious kids can be, and I didn't want to be the butt of any more jokes, so I didn't try to speak at school. I knew that this was preventing me from making new friends or participating in class and that it was probably not helping my impediment, but I was not ready to face the fact that I needed to go back to speech therapy. 

Eventually, I stopped resisting and went back to speech therapy. At the time, I saw it as accepting defeat, and even though my speech improved significantly, my self-confidence was lower than it had ever been. If you ask any of my high school classmates about me, they will likely tell you that I am very quiet or timid – both of which are not true, but they have no way of knowing otherwise. I barely spoke or interacted with my peers for most of high school. Instead, I focused on my studies and extracurricular activities that didn't involve much collaboration, like yearbook club and photography. 

It was only when I was getting ready for college that I realized that I was only hurting myself with my behavior. I knew I needed to become more confident about my speech to make friends and be the student I wanted to be in college. So, I used the summer after my high school graduation to get some help. I started seeing a new speech therapist who was also trained as a counselor, and she helped me understand my impediment better. For example, I now know that I tend to stutter when stressed, but I also know that taking a few deep breaths helps me get back on track. 

Using the confidence that I built in therapy that summer, I went to college with a new pep in my step. I pushed myself to meet new people, try new things, and join extracurricular organizations when I entered college. I applied to and was accepted into a competitive freshman leadership program called XYZ. Most of XYZ's other members were outgoing and highly involved in their high school communities. In other words, they were the complete opposite of me. I didn't let that intimidate me. Instead, I made a concerted effort to learn from them. If you ask any of my teammates or other classmates in college, they will tell you that I was an active participant in discussions during meetings and that I utilized my unique background to share a different perspective.

My experience with XYZ made it clear to me that my speech disorder wouldn't hold me back as long as I did not stand in my own way. Once I understood this, I kept pushing past the boundaries I had set for myself. I began taking on leadership roles in the program and looking for ways to contribute to my campus community outside of XYZ. For example, I started a community outreach initiative that connected school alumni willing to provide pro bono services to different members of the community who were in need. 

Now, when I look back at my decision to go back to speech therapy, I see it as a victory. I understand that my speech impediment has shaped me in many ways, many of which are positive. My struggles have made me more compassionate. My inability to speak has made me a better listener. Not being able to ask questions or ask for help has made me a more independent critical thinker. I believe these skills will help me succeed in law school, and they are part of what motivates me to apply in the first place. Having struggled for so long to speak up for myself, I am ready and eager for the day when I can speak up for others who are temporarily unable to. 

“ You talk too much; you should be a lawyer.” 

I heard that sentence often while growing up because Congolese people always tell children who talk a lot that they should be lawyers. Sometimes I wonder if those comments did not subconsciously trigger my interest in politics and then the law. If they did, I am grateful for it. I am thankful for all the experiences that have brought me to this point where I am seeking an education that will allow me to speak for those who don’t always know how to, and, more importantly, those who are unable to. 

For context, I am the child of Congolese immigrants, and my parents have a fascinating story that I will summarize for you: 

A 14-year-old girl watches in confusion as a swarm of parents rush through the classroom, grabbing their children, and other students start running from the class. Soon she realizes that she and one other student are the only ones left, but when they both hear the first round of gunshots, no one has to tell them that it is time to run home. On the way home, she hears more gunshots and bombs. She fears for her survival and that of her family, and she starts to wonder what this war means for her and her family. Within a few months, her mother and father are selling everything they own so that they can board a plane to the US.

On the other side of the town, a 17-year-old boy is being forced to board a plane to the US because his mother, a member of parliament and the person who taught him about the importance of integrity, has been executed by the same group of soldiers who are taking over the region. 

They met a year later, outside the principal’s office at a high school in XXY. They bonded over the many things they have in common and laughed at the fact that their paths probably never would have crossed in Bukavu. Fast forward to today, they have been married for almost two decades and have raised three children, including me. 

Growing up in a Congolese household in the US presented was very interesting. On the one hand, I am very proud of the fact that I get to share my heritage with others. I speak French, Lingala, and Swahili – the main languages of Congo – fluently. I often dress in traditional clothing; I performed a traditional Congolese dance at my high school’s heritage night and even joined the Congolese Student Union at Almamatter University. 

On the other hand, being Congolese presented its challenges growing up. At a young age, I looked, dressed, and sounded different from my classmates. Even though I was born in the US, I had picked up a lot of my parents’ accents, and kids loved to tease me about it. Ignorant comments and questions were not uncommon. “Do you speak African?” “You’re not American! How did you get here?” “You don’t look African” “My mom says I can’t play with you because your parents came here to steal our jobs”. These are some of the polite comments that I heard often, and they made me incredibly sad, especially when classmates I considered my friends made them. 

My parents did not make assimilating any easier. My mother especially always feared I would lose my Congolese identity if they did not make it a point to remind me of it. She often said, “Just because you were born in America doesn’t mean that you are not Congolese anymore.” On one occasion, I argued that she always let me experience my Congolese side, but not my American side. That was the first time she told me I should be a lawyer. 

Having few friends and getting teased in school helped me learn to be comfortable on my own. I Often found refuge and excitement in books. I even started blogging about the books I read and interacting with other readers online. As my following grew, I started to use my platform to raise awareness about issues that I am passionate about, like climate change, the war in Congo, and the homeless crisis here in XXY. I was able to start a fundraising campaign through my blog that raised just under $5000 for the United Way – a local charity that helps the homeless in my city. 

This experience helped me understand that I could use my skills and the few tools at my disposal to help people, both here in America and one day, maybe even in Congo. I realized that I am lucky enough to have the option of expanding that skillset through education in order to do more for the community that welcomed my grandparents, uncles, aunties, and parents when they had nowhere else to go. 

The journey was not easy because while I received immense support and love from my family for continuing my education, I had to teach myself how to prepare and apply to college. Once there I had to learn on my own what my professors expected of me, how to study, how to network, and so much more. I am grateful for those experiences too, because they taught me how to be resourceful, research thoroughly, listen carefully, and seek help when I need it. 

All of these experiences have crafted me into who I am today, and I believe that with the right training, they will help me become a great attorney.

Law School Personal Statement Example #16

During my undergraduate studies, in the first two years, I wasn’t entirely sure what I wanted to do with my career. I enjoyed doing research, but I found that I became more interested in presenting the research than the process of contributing to it. I spoke to most of my science professors to ask if I could participate in their research. I worked in biology labs, chemistry labs, and in psychology classrooms working on a variety of projects that seemed meaningful and interesting. I gained new perspectives on study habits and mental health; the influence of music on the human mind; and applications of surface tension. I noticed that I was always taking the lead when we were presenting our findings to peers and research groups. I enjoyed yielding questions and addressing the captivating the audience with engaging gestures and speech. This was what led me to consider a career in law.

I always thought that I would become a scientist, so when I discovered that there were aspects of law that could be considered “scientific”, I was all ears. Still during my second year of undergraduate studies, I wanted to join an environmental awareness group, but noticed there weren’t any active. So, I took it upon myself to create my own. I wanted to do cleanup projects across the city, so I mapped out parks and areas that we could walk or drive to. I advertised my project to other students and eventually gained approximately fifteen students eager to help out. I was struck by the pollution in the water, the negligence of park maintenance. I drafted a letter to the municipal government and petitioned for a stricter environmental compliance approach. I wanted to advertise fines to hold polluters accountable, as there were hardly any to enforce the rules. A letter was returned to me stating that the government would consider my request. I felt a sense of gratification, of purpose; I discovered that I had the ability to enact change through policy. This drew me closer to the prospect of building a future in law, so I looked at other avenues to learn more.

I still wanted to find a way to bring together my love of science and discourse/communication. As a science student, I had the privilege of learning from professors who emphasized critical thinking; and they gave me a chance to learn that on my own. I took an internship as an environmental planner. There, I helped present project ideas to various groups, updating demographic/development information, and managing planning processes. I engaged in analytical thinking by looking at maps and demographic information to develop potential plans for land use. It was also the experience I was looking for in terms of a balance between science and oral communication. Using data analysis, I spoke to other planners and review boards to bring ideas together and execute a plan.

Through science, I learned how to channel my curiosity and logical thinking; as an advocate, I learned how to be creative and resourceful. Presenting research findings and being questioned in front of a group of qualified researchers, having to be sharp and ready for anything, taught me how to be more concise in speech. Developing an advocacy group dedicated to improving my community showed me what it lacked; it opened my eyes to the impact of initiative and focused collaboration. I was eager to begin another science project, this time with the environment in mind. It was titled “determining and defining the role of sociodemographic factors in air pollution health disparities”. I compiled and summarized relevant research and sent it over to a representative of the municipal government. In a couple of weeks, my request to increase advertising of fines in public areas was agreed to.

This Juris Doctor/Master in Environmental Studies program will allow me to continue deepening my knowledge of environmental law. With my goal of developing a career in environmental affairs, overseeing policies that influence land protection/use, I know that this program will give me the tools I need to succeed. With my experience working with large groups, I also believe I will fit into the larger class sizes at your institution. I understand the value of working together and how to engage in healthy discourse. With your Global Sustainability Certification, I will equip myself the expertise I need to produce meaningful change in environmental policy.

Here's how a law school advisor can help you with your application:

Law School Personal Statement #17

Growing up in a poor neighborhood, what my friends used to call “the ghetto”, I was always looking for my way out. I tried running away, but I always ended up back home in that tiny complex, barely enough room to fit all my brothers and sisters with my parents. My dad was disabled and couldn’t work, and my mother was doing her best working full-time as a personal-support worker. There was nothing we could do to get out of our situation, or so it seemed. It wasn’t until years later when I started my undergraduate degree that ironically, after I found my way out, that I began looking for a way to come back. I wanted to be a voice for people living in those bleak conditions; hungry, without work. Helpless.

Getting my degree in social work was one of the best decisions of my life. It gave me the tools to lobby for solutions to problems in poor communities. I knew my neighborhood better than anyone because I grew up there. I had the lived experience. I started working with the local government to develop programs for my clients; the people living in those same neighborhoods. We worked to provide financial assistance, legal aid, housing, and medical treatment—all things sorely lacking. My proudest moment was securing the funds and arranging surgery for my father’s bad hip and knees. I’m currently working on a large project with one of the community legislators to lobby for a harm reduction model addressing addiction in our communities.

With five years of experience as a social worker, I knew it was time for a career change when I learned that I could have more influence on public opinion and legislative decisions as a social-security disability lawyer. I knew firsthand that people victimized from racism, poverty, and injury needed more help than they were currently allotted. I knew that, from becoming and advocate and communicating with influential members of the local government, that I could do more with a law degree helping people attain basic needs like disability benefits, which are often denied outright.

This desire to help people get the help they need from local programs and government resources brought me to Scarborough, a small town outside of Toronto. I was aware of some of the issues afflicting this community, since I’d handled a few clients from there as a children’s disability social worker. Addiction and homelessness were the two main ones. I worked with children with ADHD or other physical/mental disabilities impairing their ability to attend school and function normally. I helped many of them get an IEP with the details of the special services they require, long overdue. I made sure each child got the care they needed, including special attention in school. Also noticing that so many of these families lacked proper nutrition, I organized a report detailing this finding. In it, I argued that the community needed more funds targeting lowest income families. I spoke directly with a legislator, which eventually got the city on board with developing a program more specifically for the lowest income families with residents under 18.

My goal has always been to be a voice for the inaudible, the ignored, who’ve been victimized by inadequate oversight from the ground up. Many of these groups, as I’ve witnessed firsthand, don’t have the luxury of being their own advocates. They are too busy trying to support their families, to put food on the table for their children. I’ve realized that it isn’t quite enough to work directly with these families to connect them with resources and ensure they get the support they need. Sometimes the support simply doesn’t exist, or it isn’t good enough. This is why I’m motivated to add a law degree to my credentials so I can better serve these people and communities. As a future social-security disability lawyer, I want to work with local governments to assist clients in navigating an assistance system and improving it as much as possible. This program will give me the access to a learning environment in which I can thrive and develop as an advocate.

Law School Personal Statement #18

“You’re worthy and loved”, I said to a twelve-year-old boy, Connor, whom I was supervising and spending time with during the Big Brother program at which we met. A few tears touched my shoulder as I pulled him into me, comforting him. He was a foster child. He didn’t know his parents and never stayed in one place longer than a few months; a year if he was lucky. I joined the program not expecting much. I was doing it for extra credit, because I wanted to give back to the community somehow and I thought it would be interesting to meet people. He confided in me; he told me that his foster parents often yelled at each other, and him. He told me he needed to escape. I called Child Protective Services and after a thorough investigation, they determined that Connor’s foster parents weren’t fit for fostering. He was moved, yet again, to a different home.

I wrote an op-ed detailing my experience as a Big Brother. I kept names anonymous. I wanted people to know how hard it was for children in the welfare system. Many of them, like Connor, were trapped in a perpetual cycle of re-homing, neglect, and even abuse. He and other children deserve stability and unconditional love. That should go without saying. I sent the op-ed to a local magazine and had it published. In it, I described not only the experience of one unfortunate kid, but many others as well who saw their own stories being told through Connor. I joined a non-profit organization dedicated to improving access to quality education for young people. I started learning about disparities in access; students excluded by racial or financial barriers. I was learning, one step at a time, how powerful words can be.

With the non-profit organization, I reached out to a few public schools in the area to represent some of our main concerns with quality of education disparities. Our goal was to bring resources together and promote the rights of children in education. We emphasized that collaboration between welfare agencies and schools was critical for education stability. Together, we created a report of recommendations to facilitate this collaboration. We outlined a variety of provisions, including more mechanisms for child participation, better recruitment of social service workers in schools, risk management and identification strategies, and better support for students with child protection concerns.

The highlight of that experience was talking to an assembly of parents and school faculty to present our findings and recommendations. The title of the presentation was “The Power of Words”. I opened with the story I wrote about in the op-ed. I wanted to emphasize that children are individuals; those trapped in the welfare system are not a monolith. They each have unique experiences, needs, and desires they want to fulfill in life. But our tools to help them can be improved, more individualized. I spoke about improving the quality of residential care for children and the need to promote their long-term development into further education and employment. Finally, I presented a list of tools we created to help support a more financially sustainable and effective child welfare system. The talk was received with applause and a tenuous commitment from a few influential members of the crowd. It was a start.

Although I lost contact with Connor, I think about him almost every day. I can only hope that the programs we worked on to improve were helping him, wherever he was. I want to continue to work on the ground level of child welfare amelioration, but I realize I will need an education in law to become a more effective advocate for this cause. There are still many problems in the child welfare system that will need to be addressed: limited privacy/anonymity for children, service frameworks that don’t address racism adequately, limited transportation in remote communities, and many more. I’ve gained valuable experience working with the community and learning about what the welfare system lacks and does well. I’m ready to take the next step for myself, my community, and those beyond it.

Assuredly, but this length varies from school to school. As with all important details of your law school application, thoroughly research your specific schools’ requirements and guidelines before both writing and editing your personal statement to ensure it fits their specifics. The average length is about 2 pages, but don’t bother drafting your statement until you have specific numbers from your schools of choice. It’s also a good idea to avoid hitting the maximum length unless absolutely necessary. Be concise, keep economy of language in mind, and remain direct, without rambling or exhaustive over-explanation of your ideas or experiences.

You should keep any words that aren’t your own to a minimum. Admissions committees don’t want to read a citation-heavy academic paper, nor do they respond well to overused famous quotes as themes in personal statements. If you absolutely must include a quote from elsewhere, be sure to clearly indicate your quote’s source. But in general, it’s best to keep the personal statement restricted to your own words and thoughts. They’re evaluating you, not Plato! It’s a personal statement. Give them an engaging narrative in your own voice. 

Admissions committees will already have a strong sense of your academic performance through your transcripts and test scores, so discussing these in your personal statement is generally best avoided. You can contextualize these things, though—if you have an illuminating or meaningful story about how you came to receive an award, or how you enjoyed or learned from the work that won you the award, then consider discussing it. Overall though, it’s best to let admissions committees evaluate your academic qualifications and accomplishments from your transcripts and official documents, and give them something new in the personal statement. 

When you first sit down to begin, cast a wide net. Consider all the many influences and experiences that have led you to where you are. You’ll eventually (through editing and rewriting) explain how these shape your relationship to a career in law, but one of the best things you can give yourself during the initial drafting phase is a vast collection of observations and potential points for development. As the New England School of Law points out in their, “just write!” Let the initial draft be as messy as it needs to be, and refine it from there. It’s a lot easier to condense and sharpen a big draft than it is to try to tensely craft a perfect personal statement from nothing.  

Incredibly important, as should be clear by now! Unlike other specialties, law schools don’t usually conduct interviews with applicants, so your personal statement is in effect your one opportunity to speak with the admissions committee directly. Don’t let that gravity overwhelm you when you write, but keep it in mind as you edit and dedicate time to improving your initial drafts. Be mindful of your audience as you speak with them, and treat writing your personal statement as a kind of initial address in what, hopefully, will eventually turn into an ongoing dialogue.  

There are a variety of factors that can make or break a law school personal statement. You should aim to achieve at least a few of the following: a strong opening hook; a compelling personal narrative; your skills and competencies related to law; meaningful experiences; why you’re the right fit for the school and program.

Often, they do. It’s best for you to go to the schools you’re interesting in applying to so you can find out if they have any specific formatting or content requirements. For example, if you wanted to look at NYU law or Osgoode Hall Law School , you would find their admissions requirements pages and look for information on the personal statement.

There are lots of reasons why a personal statement might not work. Usually, applicants who don’t get accepted didn’t come up with a good strategy for this essay. Remember, you need to target the specific school and program. Other reasons are that the applicant doesn’t plan or proofread their essay. Both are essential for submitting materials that convince the admissions committee that you’re a strong candidate. You can always use law school admissions consulting application review to help you develop your strategy and make your essay stand out.

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How long should a Personal Statement be? Is there any rule on that?

BeMo Academic Consulting

Hello V! Thanks for your question. Some schools will gave very specific word limits, while some will not. If you do not have a limit indicated, try to stick to no more than a page, 600-800 words. 

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How to write a law school personal statement + examples.

Reviewed by:

David Merson

Former Head of Pre-Law Office, Northeastern University, & Admissions Officer, Brown University

Reviewed: 3/18/24

Law school personal statements help show admissions committees why you’re an excellent candidate. Read on to learn how to write a personal statement for law school!

Writing a law school personal statement requires time, effort, and a lot of revision. Law school statement prompts and purposes can vary slightly depending on the school. 

Their purpose could be to show your personality, describe your motivation for attending law school, explain why you want to go to a particular law school, or a mix of all three and more. This guide will help you perfect your writing with tips and examples.

The Best Law School Personal Statement Format

Unfortunately, there’s no universal format for a law school personal statement. Every law school has a preference (or lack thereof) on how your personal statement should be structured. We recommend always checking for personal statement directions for every school you want to apply to. 

However, many law schools ask for similar elements when it comes to personal statement formats. These are some standard formatting elements to keep in mind if your school doesn’t provide specific instructions: 

• Typically two pages or less in length 
• Double-spaced 
• Use a basic, readable font style and size (11-point is the smallest you should do, although some schools may request 12-point) 
• Margins shouldn’t be less than 1 inch unless otherwise specified 
• Left-aligned 
• Indent new paragraphs 
• Don’t return twice to begin a new paragraph 
• Law schools typically ask for a header, typically including your full name, page number, LSAC number, and the words “Personal Statement” (although there can be variations to this) 

How you format your header may be up to you; sometimes, law schools won't specify whether the header should be one line across the top or three lines. 

This is how your header may look if you decide to keep it as one line. If you want a three-line header, it should look like this on the top-right of the page: 

 Remember, the best law school personal statement format is the one in the application instructions. Ensure you follow all formatting requirements!

How to Title a Personal Statement (Law) 

You may be tempted to give your law school statement a punchy title, just like you would for an academic essay. However, the general rule is that you shouldn’t give your law school personal statement a title. 

The University of Washington states, “DON’T use quotes or give a title to your statement.” Many other schools echo this advice. The bottom line is that although you're writing your story, your law school statement doesn't require a title. Don't add one unless the school requests it.

How to Start a Personal Statement for Law School 

Acing the beginning of your personal statement is essential for your narrative’s success. The introduction is your chance to captivate the admissions committee and immerse them in your story. As such, you want your writing to be interesting enough to grab their attention without purposefully going for shock value.

So, how do you write a personal statement introduction that will garner the attention it deserves? The simplest way to get the reader involved in your story is to start with a relevant anecdote that ties in with your narrative. 

Consider the opening paragraph from Harvard Law graduate Cameron Clark’s law school personal statement : 

“At the intersection of 21st and Speedway, I lay on the open road. My leg grazed the shoulder of a young woman lying on the ground next to me. Next to her, a man on his stomach slowed his breathing to appear as still as possible. A wide circle of onlookers formed around the dozens of us on the street. We were silent and motionless, but the black-and-white signs affirmed our existence through their decree: BLACK LIVES MATTER.”

The beginning lines of this personal statement immediately draw the reader in. Why was the writer lying on the road? Why were other people there with him, and why was a man trying to slow his breathing? We're automatically inspired to keep reading to find out more information. 

That desire to keep reading is the hallmark of a masterful personal statement introduction. However, you don’t want to leave your reader hanging for too long. By the end of this introduction, we’re left with a partial understanding of what’s happening. 

There are other ways to start a personal statement that doesn't drop the reader in the middle of the action. Some writers may begin their law personal statement in other ways: 

• Referencing a distant memory, thought, feeling, or perspective
• Setting the scene for the opening anecdote before jumping in 
• Providing more context on the time, place, or background 

Many openings can blend some of these with detailed, vivid imagery. Here's a law school personal statement opening that worked at the UChicago Law : 

“I fell in love for the first time when I was four. That was the year my mother signed me up for piano lessons. I can still remember touching those bright, ivory keys with reverence, feeling happy and excited that soon I would be playing those tinkling, familiar melodies (which my mother played every day on our boombox) myself.”

This opening references a distant memory and feeling, mixed with vivid imagery that paints a picture in the reader's head. Keep in mind that different openers can work better than others, depending on the law school prompt. 

To recap, consider these elements as you write your law school personal statement’s introduction: 

• Aim for an attention-grabbing hook 
• Don’t purposefully aim for shock value: it can sometimes seem unauthentic 
• Use adjectives and imagery to paint a scene for your reader 
• Identify which opening method works best for the law school prompt and your story
• Don’t leave the reader hanging for too long to find out what your narrative is about
• Be concise 

Writing a law school personal statement introduction can be difficult, but these examples and tips can help you get the attention your writing deserves.

How to Write a Law School Personal Statement

Now that you’re equipped with great advice and tips to start your law school statement, it’s time to tackle the body of your essay. These tips will show you how to write a personal statement for law school to captivate the admissions committee. 

Understand the Prompt

While many law schools have similar personal statement prompts, you should carefully examine what's being asked of you before diving in. Consider these top law school personal statement prompts to see what we mean: 

• Yale Law School : “The personal statement should help us learn about the personal, professional, and/or academic qualities an applicant would bring to the Law School community. Applicants often submit the personal statement they have prepared for other law school applications.”
• University of Chicago Law : “Our application does not provide a specific topic or question for the personal statement because you are the best judge of what you should write. Write about something personal, relevant, and completely individual to you.”
• NYU Law : “Because people and their interests vary, we leave the content and length of your statement to your discretion. You may wish to complete or clarify your responses to items on the application form, bring to our attention additional information you feel should be considered, describe important or unusual aspects of yourself not otherwise apparent in your application, or tell us what led you to apply to NYU School of Law.”

Like all law personal statements, these three prompts are pretty open-ended. However, your Yale personal statement should focus on how you’d contribute to a law school community through professional and academic experience and qualities. 

For UChicago Law, you don’t even need to write about a law-related topic if you don’t want to. However, when it comes to a school like NYU Law , you probably want to mix your qualities, experiences, and what led you to apply. 

Differing prompts are the reason you’ll need to create multiple copies of your personal statement! 

Follow Formatting Directions 

Pay extra attention to each school's formatting directions. While we've discussed basic guidelines for law school personal statement formats, it's essential to check if there is anything different you need to do. 

While working on your rough drafts, copy and paste the prompt and directions at the top of the page so you don't forget. 

Brainstorm Narratives/Anecdotes Based on the Prompt

You may have more wiggle room with some prompts than others regarding content. However, asking yourself these questions can generally help you direct your personal statement for any law school:

• What major personal challenges or recent hardships have you faced? 
• What was one transformative event that impacted your life’s course or perspective? 
• What are your hobbies or special interests? 
• What achievements are you most proud of that aren’t stated in your application? 
• What experience or event changed your values or way of thinking? 
• What’s something you’re passionate about that you got involved in? What was the result of your passion? 
• How did your distinct upbringing, background, or culture put you on the path to law school? 
• What personal or professional experiences show who you are? 

Keep in mind that this isn't an exhaustive list. Consider your personal and professional experiences that have brought you to this point, and determine which answers would make the most compelling story. 

Pettit College of Law recommends you "go through your transcripts, application, and resume. Are there any gaps or missing details that your personal statement could cover?” If you've listed something on your resume that isn't further discussed, it could make a potential personal statement topic. 

Do More Than Recount: Reflect

Recounting an event in a summarized way is only one piece of your law school personal statement. Even if you’re telling an outlandish or objectively interesting story, stopping there doesn’t show admissions committees what they need to know to judge your candidacy. 

The University of Washington suggests that “describing the event should only be about 1/3 of your essay. The rest should be a reflection on how it changed you and how it shaped the person you are today.” Don’t get stuck in the tangible details of your anecdote; show what the experience meant to you. 

Beth O'Neil , Director of Admissions and Financial Aid at UC Berkeley School of Law , said, "Applicants also tend to state and not evaluate. They give a recitation of their experience but no evaluation of what effect that particular experience had on them, no assessment of what certain experiences or honors meant." 

Consider What Qualities You Want to Show

No matter what direction you want to take your law school personal statement, you should consider which qualities your narrative puts on display. Weaving your good character into your essay can be difficult. Outwardly claiming, "I'm a great leader!" doesn't add much value. 

However, telling a story about a time you rose to the occasion to lead a group successfully toward a common goal shows strong leadership. "Show, don't tell" may be an overused statement, but it's a popular sentiment for a reason. 

Of course, leadership ability isn't the only quality admissions committees seek. Consider the qualities you possess and those you'd expect to find in a great lawyer and check to see the overlap. Some qualities you could show include: 

• Intelligence 
• Persuasiveness 
• Compassion 
• Professionalism 

Evaluate the anecdotes you chose after your brainstorming session and see if any of these qualities or others align with your narrative. 

Keep Your Writing Concise

Learning how to write a personal statement for law school means understanding how to write for concision. Most prompts won't have a word limit but ask you to cap your story at two pages, double-spaced. Unfortunately, that's not a lot of space to work with. 

Although your writing should be compelling and vibrant, do your best to avoid flowery language and long, complicated sentences where they’re not needed. Writing for concision means eliminating unnecessary words, cutting down sentences, and getting the point quickly.  

Georgetown University’s take on law school personal statements is to “Keep it simple and brief. Big words do not denote big minds, just big egos.” A straightforward narrative means your reader is much less likely to be confused or get lost in your story (in the wrong way). 

Decide the Depth and Scope of Your Statement 

Since you only have two (or even three) pages to get your point across, you must consider the depth and scope of your narrative. While you don’t want to provide too little information, remember that you don’t have the room to summarize your entire life story (and you don’t have to do that anyway). 

UChicago Law’s advice is to “Use your discretion - we know you have to make a choice and have limited space. Attempting to cover too much material can result in an unfocused and scattered personal statement.” Keep the depth and scope of your narrative manageable. 

Ensure It’s Personal Enough 

UChicago Law states, "If someone else could write your personal statement, it probably is not personal enough." This doesn't mean that you must pick the most grandiose, shocking narrative to make an impact or that you can't write about something many others have probably experienced. 

Getting personal means only you can write that statement; other people may be able to relate to an experience, but your reflection, thoughts, feelings, and reactions are your own. UChicago Law sees applicants fall into this pitfall by writing about a social issue or area of law, so tread these topics carefully.

Mix the Past and Present, Present and Future, Or All Three 

Harvard Law School’s Associate Director Nefyn Meissner said your personal statement should “tell us something about who you are, where you’ve been, and where you want to go.” 

Echoing this, Jon Perdue , Yale Law School's Director of Recruiting and Diversity Initiatives, states that the three most common approaches to the Yale Law School personal statement are focusing on: 

• The past: discussing your identity and background 
• The present: focusing on your current work, activities, and interests 
• The future: the type of law you want to pursue and your ideal career path 

Perdue said that truly stellar personal statements have a sense of “movement” and touch on all or two of these topics. What does this mean for you? While writing your law school personal statement, don’t be afraid to touch on your past, present, and future. However, remember not to take on too much content! 

Keep the Focus On You 

This is a common pitfall that students fall into while writing a law school personal statement . UChicago Law cites that this is a common mistake applicants make when they write at length about: 

• A family member who inspired them or their family history 
• Stories about others 
• Social or legal issues 

Even if someone like your grandmother had a profound impact on your decision to pursue law, remember that you’re the star of the show. Meissner said , “Should you talk about your grandmother? Only if doing so helps make the case for us to admit you. Otherwise, we might end up wanting to admit your grandmother.” Don’t let historical figures, your family, or anyone else steal your spotlight. 

Decide If You Need to Answer: Why Law? 

Writing about why you want to attend law school in general or a school in particular depends on the prompt. Some schools welcome the insight, while others (like Harvard Law) don't. Meissner said, “Should you mention you want to come to HLS? We already assume that if you’re applying.”

However, Perdue said your law school personal statement for Yale should answer three questions: 

• Why law school?

Some schools may invite you to discuss your motivation to apply to law school or what particular elements of the school inspired you to apply. 

Don’t List Qualifications or Rehash Your Resume 

Your personal statement should flow like a story, with an identifiable beginning, middle, and end. Simply firing off your honors and awards, or summarizing the experiences on your resume, doesn’t tell the admissions committee anything new about you. 

Your personal statement is your opportunity to show how your unique experiences shaped you, your qualities, and the person you are behind your LSAT scores and GPA. Think about how you can show who you are at your core. 

Avoid Legalese, Jargon, And Sophisticated Terms 

The best law school personal statements are written in straightforward English and don't use overly academic, technical, or literary words. UChicago Law recommends avoiding legalese or 

Latin terms since the "risk you are incorrectly using them is just too high." 

Weaving together intricate sentence structures with words you pulled out of a thesaurus won’t make your personal statement a one-way ticket to acceptance. Be clear, straightforward, and to the point. 

Don’t Put Famous Quotes In Your Writing 

Beginning your law school personal statement with a quote is not only cliche but takes the focus off of you. It also eats up precious space you could fill with your voice. 

Revise, Revise, Revise 

Even the most talented writers never submit a perfect first draft. You'll need to do a lot of revisions before your personal statement is ready for submission. This is especially true because you'll write different versions for different law schools; these iterations must be edited to perfection. 

Ensure you have enough time to make all the edits and improvements you need before you plan to submit your application. Although most law schools have rolling admissions, submitting a perfected application as soon as possible is always in your best interest. 

Have an Admission Consultant Review Your Hard Work 

Reviewing so many personal statements by yourself is a lot of work, and most writing can always benefit from a fresh perspective. Consider seeking a law school admissions consultant’s help to edit your personal statements to perfection and maximize your chances of acceptance at your dream school!

How to End Your Personal Statement for Law School 

Law school personal statement conclusions are just as open-ended as your introductions. There are a few options for ending a personal statement depending on the prompt you’re writing for:

Some of these methods can overlap with each other. However, there are two more things you should always consider when you're ready to wrap up your story: the tone you're leaving on and how you can make your writing fit with your narrative's common thread. 

You should never want to leave your reader on a low note, even if you wrote about something that isn’t necessarily happy. You should strive to end your personal statement with a tone that’s hopeful, happy, confident, or some other positive feeling. 

Your last sentences should also give the impression of finality; your reader should understand that you’re wrapping up and not be left wondering where the rest of your statement is. 

So, what's the common thread? This just means that your narrative sticks to the overarching theme or event you portrayed at the beginning of your writing. Bringing your writing full circle makes a more satisfying conclusion.

Personal Statement for Law School Conclusion Examples

Evaluating law school personal statement conclusions can help you see what direction authors decided to take with their writing. Let’s circle back to the sample personal statement openings for law school and examine their respective conclusions. The first example explains the applicant’s motivation to attend Harvard Law. 

Sample Personal Statement for Law School Conclusion #1

“…Attorneys and legal scholars have paved the way for some of the greatest civil rights victories for women, people of color, LGBTQ individuals, and (people living with disabilities). At Harvard Law School, I will prepare to join their ranks by studying with the nation's leading legal scholars. 

For the past months, I have followed Harvard Law School student responses to the events in Ferguson and New York City. I am eager to join a law school community that shares my passion for using the law to achieve real progress for victims of discrimination. With an extensive history of advocacy for society's most marginalized groups, I believe Harvard Law School will thoroughly train me to support and empower communities in need. 

Our act of civil disobedience that December day ended when the Tower’s bells rang out in two bars, hearkening half-past noon. As we stood up and gathered our belongings, we broke our silence to remind everyone of a most basic truth: Black lives matter.” 

What Makes This Conclusion Effective 

Although Harvard Law School states there's no need to explain why you want to apply, this law school statement is from an HLS graduate, and we can assume this was written before the advice changed. 

In his conclusion, he relates and aligns his values with Harvard Law School and how joining the community will help him fulfill his mission to empower communities in need. The last paragraph circles back to the anecdote described in his introduction, neatly wrapping up the event and signaling a natural end to his story. 

This author used these strategies: the motivation to attend a specific law school, stating his mission, and subtly reiterating what his acceptance would bring to the school. The next example conclusion worked at UChicago Law: 

Sample Personal Statement for Law School Conclusion #2

“Songs can be rewritten and reinterpreted as situation permits, but missteps are obvious because the fundamental laws of music and harmony do not change.

Although my formal music education ended when I entered college, the lessons I have learned over the years have remained close and relevant to my life. I have acquired a lifestyle of discipline and internalized the drive for self-improvement. I have gained an appreciation for the complexities and the subtleties of interpretation. 

I understand the importance of having both a sound foundation and a dedication to constant study. I understand that to possess a passion and personal interest in something, to think for myself is just as important.”

What Made This Conclusion Effective

This law school personal statement was successful at UChicago Law. Although the writing has seemingly nothing to do with law or the author's capability to become a great lawyer, the author has effectively used the "show, don't tell" advice. 

The last paragraph implements the focus on qualities or skills strategy. Although related to music, the qualities they describe that a formal music education taught her mesh with the qualities of a successful lawyer: 

• A drive for self-improvement 
• The ability to interpret information 
• The ability to learn consistently 
• The ability to think for herself 

Overall, this essay does an excellent job of uncovering her personality and relating to the opening paragraph, where she describes how she fell in love with music.

2 Law School Personal Statement Examples From Admitted Students

These are two law school personal statement examples that worked. We'll review the excerpts below and describe what made them effective and if there's room for improvement. 

Law School Personal Statement Example #1

This is an excerpt of a law personal statement that worked at UChicago Law : 

“The turning point of my college football career came early in my third year. At the end of the second practice of the season, in ninety-five-degree heat, our head coach decided to condition the entire team. Sharp, excruciating pain shot down my legs as he summoned us repeatedly to the line to run wind sprints. 

I collapsed as I turned the corner on the final sprint. Muscle spasms spread throughout my body, and I briefly passed out. Severely dehydrated, I was rushed to the hospital and quickly given more than three liters of fluids intravenously. As I rested in a hospital recovery room, I realized my collapse on the field symbolized broader frustrations I felt playing college football.

I was mentally and physically defeated. In South Dakota, I was a dominant football player in high school, but at the Division I level, my talent was less conspicuous. In my first three years, I was convinced that obsessively training my body to run faster and be stronger would earn me a starting position. The conditioning drill that afternoon revealed the futility of my approach. I had thrust my energies into becoming a player I could never be. As a result, I lost confidence in my identity.

I considered other aspects of my life where my intellect, work ethic, and determination had produced positive results. I chose to study economics and English because processing abstract concepts and ideas in diverse disciplines were intuitively rewarding…Gathering data, reviewing previous literature, and ultimately offering my own contribution to economic knowledge was exhilarating. Indeed, undergraduate research affirmed my desire to attend law school, where I could more thoroughly satisfy my intellectual curiosity…My efforts generated high marks and praise from professors, but this success made my disappointment with football more pronounced.

The challenge of collegiate athletics felt insurmountable. However, I reminded myself that at the Division I level, I was able to compete with and against some of the best players in the country…After the hospital visit, my football position coach—sensing my mounting frustrations—offered some advice. Instead of devoting my energies almost exclusively to physical preparation, he said, I should approach college football with the same mental focus I brought to my academic studies. I began to devour scouting reports and to analyze the complex reasoning behind defensive philosophies and schemes. I studied film and discovered ways to anticipate plays from the offense and become a more effective player. Armed with renewed confidence, I finally earned a starting position in the beginning of my fourth year…

‍I had received the highest grade on the team. After three years of A’s in the classroom, I finally earned my first ‘A’ in football. I used mental preparation to maintain my competitive edge for the rest of the season. Through a combination of film study and will power, I led my team and conference in tackles…The most rewarding part of the season, though, was what I learned about myself in the process. When I finally stopped struggling to become the player I thought I needed to be, I developed self-awareness and confidence in the person I was.

The image of me writhing in pain on the practice field sometimes slips back into my thoughts as I decide where to apply to law school. College football taught me to recognize my weaknesses and look for ways to overcome them. I will enter law school a much stronger person and student because of my experiences on the football field and in the classroom. My decision where to attend law school mirrors my decision where to play college football. I want to study law at the University of Chicago Law School because it provides the best combination of professors, students, and resources in the country. In Division I college football, I succeeded when I took advantage of my opportunities. I hope the University of Chicago will give me an opportunity to succeed again.”

Why This Personal Statement Example Worked

The beginning of this personal statement includes vivid imagery and sets up a relevant anecdote for the reader: the writer’s injury while playing football. At the end of the introduction, he sets up a fantastic transition about his broader frustrations, compelling us to keep reading. 

The essay's body shows the writer's vulnerability, making it even more personal; it can be challenging to talk about feelings, like losing your confidence, but it can help us relate to him. 

The author sets up a transition to writing more about his academic ability, his eventual leadership role on the team, and developing the necessary qualities of a well-rounded lawyer: self-awareness and confidence. 

Finally, the author rounds out his statement by circling back to his opening anecdote and showing the progress he’s made from there. He also describes why UChicago Law is the right school for him. To summarize, the author expertly handled: 

• Opening with a descriptive anecdote that doesn’t leave the reader hanging for too long 
• Being vulnerable in such a way that no one else could have written this statement 
• Doing more than recounting an event but reflecting on it 
• Although he introduced his coach's advice, he kept himself the focal point of the story 
• He picked a focused event; the writer didn’t try to tackle too much content 
• His conclusion references his introduction, signalling the natural end of the story 
• The ending also reaffirms his passion for pursuing law, particularly at UChicago Law 

Law School Personal Statement Example #2 

This law school personal statement excerpt led to acceptance at Boston University Law. 

“She sat opposite me at my desk to fill out a few forms. Fumbling her hands and laughing uncomfortably, it was obvious that she was nervous. Sandra was eighteen, and her knowledge of English was limited to “yes” and “hello.” While translating the initial meeting between Sandra and her attorney, I learned of her reasons for leaving El Salvador. She had been in an abusive relationship, and though she wasn’t ready to go into detail just yet, it was clear from the conversation that her boyfriend had terrorized her and that the El Salvadoran police were of no help…Eventually, Sandra was given a credible fear interview. The interviewer believed that she had a real fear of returning to El Salvador, and Sandra was released from detention with an Immigration Court hearing notice in her hand. She had just retained our office to present her asylum case to the Immigration Judge.

I tried to imagine myself in Sandra’s shoes. She hadn’t finished high school, was in a completely new environment, and had almost no understanding of how things worked in the US. Even the harsh New England winter must have seemed unnatural to her. Having lived abroad for a couple of years, I could relate on some level; however, the circumstances of my stay overseas were completely different. I went to Spain after graduating from college to work in an elementary school, improve my Spanish skills, and see a bit of the world…I had to ask hundreds of questions and usually make a few attempts before actually accomplishing my goal. Frustrating though it was, I didn’t have so much riding on each of these endeavors. If I didn’t have all the necessary paperwork to open a bank account one day, I could just try again the next day. Sandra won’t be afforded the same flexibility in her immigration process, where so much depends on the ability to abide by inflexible deadlines and procedures. Without someone to guide her through the process, ensuring that all requirements are met, and presenting her case as persuasively as possible, Sandra will have little chance of achieving legal status in the United States…

Before starting at my current position at Joyce & Associates, an immigration law firm in Boston, I had long considered a career in law. Growing up, I was engaged by family and school debates about public policy and government. In college, I found my constitutional law courses challenging and exciting. Nonetheless, it wasn’t until I began working with clients like Sandra that I became convinced that a career in law is the right choice for me. Playing my part as a legal assistant in various immigration cases, I have been able to witness how a career in immigration advocacy is both intellectually stimulating and personally fulfilling. I have seen the importance of well-articulated arguments and even creativity in arguing a client’s eligibility for an immigration benefit. I have learned that I excel in critical thinking and in examining detail, as I continually consider the consistency and possible implications of any documents that clients provide in support of their application. But most importantly, I have realized how deserving many of these immigrants are. Many of the clients I work with are among the most hardworking and patriotic people I have encountered…

‍I am equally confident that I would thrive as a student at Boston University, where I would be sure to take full advantage of the many opportunities available. The school’s Asylum and Human Rights Clinic and Immigration Detention Clinic would offer me invaluable experiences in various immigration settings…Given my experiences in an immigration firm, I know that I would have much to offer while participating in these programs, but even more to learn. And while I find BU’s immigration programs to be especially appealing, I am equally drawn to the Boston University experience as a whole…I hope to have the opportunity to face those challenges and to contribute my own experiences and drive to the Boston University community.”

This statement makes excellent use of opening with an experience that sets the writer's motivation to attend law school in motion. We're introduced to another person in the story in the introduction before the author swivels and transitions to how she'd imagine herself in Sandra's shoes. 

This transition shows empathy, and although the author could relate to her client's struggles on a more superficial level, she understood the gravity of her situation and the hardships that awaited her. 

The author backpedals to show how she's cultivated an interest in law in college and explored this interest to know it's the right choice for her. The conclusion does an excellent job of referencing exactly how BU Law will help her achieve her mission. To recap, this personal statement was effective because: 

• She started her personal statement with a story 
• Although the writer focuses on an event with another person, she moves the focus back to her 
• The author’s statement shows qualities like empathy, compassion, and critical thinking without explicitly stating it 
• She connects her experiences to her motivation to attend law school 
• This statement has movement: it references the author’s past, present, and future 
• She ends her statement by explaining in detail why BU Law is the right school for her 

Although this personal statement worked, circling back to the opening anecdote in the conclusion, even with a brief sentence, would have made the conclusion more impactful and fortified the common thread of her narrative.

How to Write Personal Statement For Law School: FAQs

Do you still have questions about how to write a personal statement for law school? Read on to learn more. 

1. What Makes a Good Personal Statement for Law School? 

Generally, an excellent personal statement tells a relevant story, showcases your best qualities, is personal, and creatively answers the prompt. Depending on the prompt, a good personal statement may describe your motivation to attend law school or why a school, in particular, is perfect for you. 

2. Should I Write a Separate Personal Statement for Each School? 

Depending on the prompts, you may be able to submit the same or similar personal statements to different schools. However, you’ll likely need more than one version of your statement to apply to different schools. Generally, students will write a few versions of their statements to meet personal statement instructions. 

3. How Long Should My Personal Statement Be? 

Personal statement length requirements vary by school, but you can generally expect to write approximately two pages, double-spaced. 

4. What Should You Not Put In a Law School Personal Statement? 

Your personal statement shouldn’t include famous quotes, overly sophisticated language, statements that may offend others, and unhelpful or inappropriate information about yourself. 

5. What Do I Write My Law School Personal Statement About? 

The answer depends on the prompt you need to answer. Consider your experiences and decide which are impactful, uncover your personality, show your motivation to attend law school, or show your impressive character traits. 

6. Does the Personal Statement Really Matter for Law School? 

Top LSAT scores and high GPAs may not be enough, especially at the T-14 law schools. Due to the high level of competition, you should take advantage of your personal statement to show why you’re an excellent candidate. So yes, they do matter.

Writing A Law School Personal Statement is Easy With Juris

Writing a personal statement can be tricky, but it doesn’t have to be. Juris Education is committed to helping you learn how to write a law school personal statement with ease. We help future law school students develop their narratives, evaluate writing to ensure it’s in line with what law schools expect, and edit statements to perfection. 

A stellar personal statement helps you stand out and can help you take that last step to attending the law school of your dreams.

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

Updated: Mar 22, 2024, 4:48pm

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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The Law School Personal Statement: Tips and Templates

Photo by Alejandro Escamilla on Unsplash

Published February 28, 2024

Editor's Note: This post was originally published in July 2019 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

The stress of cramming for the LSAT (or GRE) is behind you, and you survived the intolerably long wait for your score. You have researched schools, requested transcripts, secured recommendation letters, and updated your resume. Now only the dreadful personal statement is preventing you from hitting the submit button.

So, you might ask:  Does anyone even read the personal statement?  Yes .  Could it be a make or break deciding factor?   Definitely . 

While your standardized test score(s) and GPA are good law school success predictors, non-numerical factors such as your resume, recommendation letters and the personal statement give the Admissions Committee an idea of your individuality and how you might uniquely contribute to the law school. Most importantly, your personal statement is a sample of your writing, and strong writing skills are critically important to success throughout law school and in legal practice. 

If the thought of writing about yourself makes you cringe, adhere to these 5 tips to avoid disaster. 

BONUS :  Scroll down to review 5 law school personal statement samples. 

1. Make it personal

The Admissions Committee will have access to your transcripts and recommendation letters, and your resume will provide insight into your outside-the-classroom experiences, past and current job responsibilities, and other various accomplishments. So, the personal statement is your best opportunity to share something personal they don’t already know. Be sure to provide insight into who you are, your background and how it’s shaped the person you are today, and finally, who you hope to be in the future.

2. Be genuine

If you haven’t faced adversity or overcome major life obstacles, it’s okay. Write honestly about your experiences and interests. And whatever you do, don’t fabricate, or exaggerate—the reader can often see through this. Find your unique angle and remember that a truthful and authentic essay is always your best approach.

Tip: Don’t use big words you don’t understand. This will certainly do more harm than good.

3. Tackle the “Why?”

Get creative but remember to home in on the why . Unless the personal statement prompt has specific requirements, it is recommended you include what influenced you to pursue a legal education. Consider including what impact you hope to make in the world post-graduation.

4. Keep it interesting & professional

The last thing you want to do is bore the reader, so keep it interesting, personable, and engaging. A touch of humor is okay, but keep in mind that wit and sarcasm can be easily misinterpreted. Demonstrate maturity, good judgment and tact and you won’t end up offending the reader.

5. Edit & proofread

The importance of enrolling and graduating strong writers cannot be stressed enough, so don’t forget the basics! Include an introduction, supporting paragraphs and a closing. Write clearly, concisely, and persuasively. Take time to edit, proofread--walk away from it--then edit and proofread again before submitting. 

Tip :   Consider consulting a Pre-Law Advisor or mentor to help you proofread and edit. Sound easy enough? It is if you take it seriously. Don’t think you have to craft the “best” or most competitive personal statement, just the most “genuine” personal statement. Remember, there is nobody with your exact set of life experiences, background, or point of view. Just do you.

Guest blogger  Lindsay Gladney  is the Vice Dean for Admissions at UB School of Law. 

Office of Admissions University at Buffalo School of Law 408 O'Brian Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260 716-645-2907 [email protected]

Learn more about the law school admissions process and School of Law community through an individual meeting with one of our staff members.

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Submit this form to receive an application fee waiver.

Additional Resources:   

• Law School Application Checklist: Everything You Need To Know
• Law School Application Advice to Ignore
• When Should I Submit My Law School Application: Timeline & Tips
• 5 Benefits of Attending a State Law School

Bonus: 5 Law School Personal Statement Samples

1. this applicant writes about their experience hiking a mountain peak, what it taught them, and how it reaffirmed their affinity for the natural environment..

As I trudged my way up the path, only about a mile from the peak, I could not escape the creeping sense of self-doubt entering my mind. That day I had willingly accompanied my best friend on a hike up a “fourteener” (a mountain peak in Colorado with at least 14,000 feet of elevation). With a false sense of bravado, I jumped at the idea because I considered myself to be an avid hiker and in decent physical condition despite my inexperience at that altitude. Nearingthe top, with my head pounding and my knees weakening, my confidence had been shaken by the altitude sickness that started to take hold of me. I began asking myself questions like, “Will I finish?”, “Why did I even agree to this?”, and “Is this even worth it?”. However, as I took a sip of my water to rest and collect myself, it registered that the opportunity to encounter such natural wonder might not strike again. I knew that if I turned back, I would regret it and possibly never have the chance again. Accordingly, I decided to do my best to finish the trek.

Even though I was still in considerable discomfort, that sensation seemed to fade away when I finally reached the peak. I became enamored with the magnificence of the surrounding mountain range and the epic view it had to offer. The peaks extended out forever, some stretching high enough to look as though one could reach up and touch the clouds themselves. Crisp green alpine forests totally engulfed the surrounding valleys and eventually led down into the crystal blue water of the lakes and rivers below. Cliché though it may be words truly cannot do justice to such a surreal experience.

As I reflect on the experience, I am proud to have accomplished such a physically challenging adventure, but perhaps more grateful for what the hike taught me about myself. First, I gained a sense of confidence in my ability to persevere despite difficult circumstances and especially when faced with self-doubt. Indeed, I have drawn from the experience on numerous occasions to remind myself that I am capable of enduring whatever challenges life may throw at me. Secondly, I believe this hike to have been a defining moment that reaffirmed and strengthened my affinity for the natural environment. I developed this fondness from an early age where much of my childhood was spent outdoors, whether it was fishing and camping with my father or hiking and playing sports with my friends. However, the wonder I felt on that peak in the Rockies was something I seldom experienced growing up in Buffalo, New York. It is a feeling that I hope all can feel at some point in their lives and partly why I believe it to be so important that we do all we can to protect and preserve the environment. The importance of conservation is greater now than ever amid the challenges posed by issues such as pollution and global climate change.

During my undergraduate coursework, I was able to take a class in Environmental Law, where I learned about state and federal statutes that regulate water, soil, air pollution, resource conservation and recovery, and actions of the Environmental Protection Agency. For example, we studied the Clean Air Act and how it is applied during legal disputes to enforce national air quality standards. Participating in this course showed me that there is an opportunity to apply my enthusiasm for the environment into the legal profession as it is my eventual goal to represent those damaged by pollution. I believe studying at the University of Buffalo School of Law will allow me to pursue my goals and make a positive contribution towards environmental problems by serving those who have been affected in the local and global community. Although the experience will be challenging, I am excited for the opportunity, motivated by a passion for the environment and knowing that I possess the ability to persevere in the face of doubt.

2. How one applicant’s experience interviewing incarcerated individuals shaped their understanding of our justice system and influenced them to pursue policy work.

Above me, in a giant watchtower, stood a large man holding a semi-automatic rifle while staring down at me. I heard the echoing clink of a prison lock, allowing me to pass through a massive barbed-wire fence. Although I begged and pleaded for the opportunity to interview an inmate at a maximum-security prison, I have never felt more intimidated than I did in this moment. I was only seventeen years old, sitting in a visitation room filled with orange-suited men. An overwhelming sense of fear crowded my thoughts. In fact, I was nearly paralyzed by the environment I had found myself in. I could hardly conduct an interview, but thankfully, my interviewee, Mr. Thomas Gant, had about twenty years of stories to tell. He ambitiously shared

first-hand accounts of prison fights, housing raids, gang activity, and injustices that he has endured during his sentence of twenty-five years to life. His stories were captivating and filled with raw emotion. It was evident that he too, felt a similar sense of fear each and every day.

Fast forward to my last semester of undergrad, where I spent four months at the Ingham County Jail working with incarcerated men and women to prepare them to transition into our communities. I interviewed dozens of orange-suited men each week and loved every second of it.

I was eager to contribute to a program that helped break the vicious cycle of incarceration and confront the plethora of barriers to reentry. I often think about Mr. Gant and how his stories ignited a passion within me that still drives my ambition to this day. If I had the chance, I would thank him for inspiring me to pursue every opportunity to help incarcerated men and women, such as those at the Ingham County Jail. I would share with him the knowledge from my academic and professional experiences, in hopes of keeping his life on track upon release, and most of all, in hopes of protecting him from the fear we shared on the day I met him.

My variety of field experiences and my success with academic rigor has surely prepared me for law school. I have completed several other justice-related internships which have provided me with a comprehensive understanding of how our justice system operates in practice, which often deviates from how our justice system operates in textbooks. These field experiences led me to pursue a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice, where my classes focused on the history of corrections and how other countries are utilizing confinement to successfully rehabilitate offenders. Academia quickly taught me that the majority of people simply accept our prison system for what it is, and very few question its punitive and unjust nature. Fortunately, my bachelor’s degree in social relations and policy allowed me to challenge conventional wisdom and confront policy issues as they relate to factors of class, race, ethnicity, gender, and religion – all of which exist in our prison system. My professors constantly pushed me to find ways that the American corrections system could change the course of its future. I spent countless hours researching the topic of injustice behind bars, writing numerous analytical essays and policy proposals, and presenting interdisciplinary conclusions to rooms filled with aspiring politicians. I look forward to perfecting these skills, sharing my experiences to enhance classroom discussions, and engaging in additional field experiences and clinics while in law school.

Ultimately, I am confident that my career fulfilment will lie in policy making and advocacy for those who have faced injustice within our prison system and in the free world. My interest in studying law and my decision to apply to University at Buffalo School of Law are a result of my longstanding enthusiasm to advocate for and to improve the lives of people impacted by incarceration. The University at Buffalo will provide me with both the necessary education as well as the hands-on experience to ensure that I will confidently enter the legal world prepared to contest the many issues of justice reform.  

3. How one applicant found their voice, and why a stale piece of toast is displayed alongside their college diploma.

Growing up, I was nonplussed by the idea of awards. While other friends entered cut-throat competitions over grades and the attention of our coaches, I cared more about preserving my friendships with people than beating them on any field or test. Whenever I found myself winning, I tended to remain quiet about my victories. Most of the time.

In the waning weeks of my junior year of high school, my tireless U.S. History teacher – Mr. Welgoss– kept us showing up to class each day by breaking us into debate teams and having individuals from each side square off against each other around designated topics. The winner would take away a most delicious reward: A single slice of white bread toast. Pun intended. This was when I learned that I was to define the best Supreme Court Cases in U.S. History and then defend my stance in front of the entire class. Alone. I was completely terrified.

This is the perfect place to share just a bit about high school me. You likely knew me well. I was that kid curled into a corner at the back of the classroom in an effort to make myself smaller. During the first week of each school year, I sized up my teachers, figured out which of them was into cold calling on students, and positioned myself within the room accordingly. While I was a dedicated student and history geek who loved to read, I was not a particularly extroverted one. There was no part of this assignment that I was excited about.

To make matters worse, I was assigned Marbury v. Madison, perhaps one of the most boring cases in the eyes of a bunch of fresh faced politically active 16-year-olds who had just spent an entire year learning about the societal gravity of cases like Brown v. Board of Education and Roe v. Wade. Still, I did careful research. I composed a meticulous claim. I didn’t want to embarrass myself, so I did the work that I needed to.

Along the way, I fell in love with the assignment. This was the first time I experienced that rare moment as a researcher when everything seems to click. I’d never had that moment as a research and argument writer before, and I have been chasing that feeling since. I love leaning into knotty problems, following research, and learning processes that help me untie them, and then, showing others how to unscramble crossed lines themselves, when they need to.

So, you likely know how this story ends. I won the debate. That piece of toast, miraculously mold free after six years, sits on my bookshelf alongside my college diploma, reminding me of the moment I not only found my passion, but my voice.

Since the moment I won that single slice of super processed food that still looks as fresh as the day I brought it home, there have been other moments that solidified my decision to study law. As a freshman at Nazareth University, my newfound interest in the law inspired my decision-making as I chose my major and began coursework that I inevitably fell in love with. When I started my internship at a local non-profit during undergraduate, I saw how my research and application of the law could help me to advocate for marginalized communities. My desire to

practice law was again upheld when I began paralegal work for Berardi Immigration Law the day after I earned my degree. My dedication to this work has taught me that there are often a variety of solutions for complicated problems. Many assume that creativity is something you’re born with. Experience has taught me it's not quite this simple, though. Constraint often inspires creativity, and to me, this is what makes the law the most wonderful muse.

I’m the daughter of a writer and the sister of a designer. My great grandfather owned a hobby shop. I never enjoyed most of these things, and try as I might, any attempt to practice arts and crafts always ended badly and left me feeling like the least creative bird on my family tree. Imagine my surprise then, as the last few years of learning, work, and a piece of toast began revealing the creative nature of the law to me. Imagine my delight when I realized that I have certain strengths here, too.   

4. This applicant writes about their never-ending pursuit of knowledge and how pursuing law provides a practical outlet for their curiosity.

There are very few things in life that are more important to me than learning. I have been driven by curiosity, and the never-ending pursuit of knowledge has always been a great source of joy for me, both inside and outside of the classroom. I finished my undergraduate studies in December of 2019, with plans to work in France as a teacher that coming fall. I was beyond excited that I had been afforded an opportunity to pursue such a dear intellectual passion. The intervening pandemic meant that I had to make difficult decisions about the direction my future would take, and ultimately this meant setting aside some of my own ambitions in order to take care of my loved ones.

While my immediate post-graduation plans did not work out, I have never set aside my curiosity. If anything, the challenges of post-collegiate life have reaffirmed to me the vital importance of learning as a constant and on-going part of living. As a student of history and languages, many of my college peers nurtured plans of attending law school, and the idea of studying law has long interested me.

In June of 2022 I began working as a legal assistant at a small law firm in Queens. I hoped that job would give me a chance to learn about the legal field, while pushing me to grow as a professional. Being confronted with the vast complexity of the law has been a humbling experience, but also an endlessly intriguing one. At work, I relish any opportunity to learn more about the law, and I have found that the field is perfectly suited to the academic skills that I have spent my entire life building.

What is perhaps most exciting to me about the prospect of studying law is the idea of having a practical, real-world outlet for all the curiosity and scholarly instincts that I have nurtured throughout my life. Studying case law, building arguments based on evidence and legal research, using language itself as a tool; all these skills that I have seen to be so vital to the successful practice of law feel like natural extensions of the skills that I’ve developed across my life. Performing research was of course integral to my studying history, and combing through Westlaw as a legal assistant has often reminded me of the time I would spend searching through university archives as a student, looking for information to help me build my arguments. Having studied both History and French, I am very comfortable with interpreting language that feels unfamiliar or archaic, which is certainly a necessary skill to have when studying and practicing law.

The challenges of post-graduation life have led me to do a great deal of reflecting. I’ve been forced to ask myself what makes me feel fulfilled, and at the same time have had to evaluate my own strengths and weaknesses. I’ve found that there are no simple answers, but I can affirmatively say that I have the self-confidence, motivation, and ability to be an excellent law student.

5. How a Unified Basketball program inspired this applicant to pursue education law.

I never realized how great of an impact one policy could have on so many people until I was in high school. I knew how far-reaching the law was, but it became so much more apparent and personal when it began to impact the lives of my friends and classmates in the Unified program.

When I began high school, I was still a little shy, but I was sure that I wanted to get involved in things that made a difference in other people’s lives. It was through my involvement in Student Council that I was asked by the athletic director to help start up a program called Unified Basketball. I remember being called down to the Athletic Office one day out of the blue. I felt extremely confused. I had not previously played any school sports and I never would have expected to be asked to speak with the athletic director. I also wouldn’t have expected a meeting that lasted maybe fifteen minutes to serve as a great turning point in my life.

The Unified Basketball program is a cooperative team combining students with and without intellectual disabilities, run by the Special Olympics and New York state high school sports. From that first season, the Unified program quickly grew to become one of the best experiences of my life and it continues to shape me every day. In the second year of the program, we added a Unified Bowling team, and I helped create a Unified Club so that those who might also have physical limitations that would keep them from playing sports, could still benefit from the family created in the program.

Through this program I created connections with the members of the team and our coaches, and we effectively created a family and a community greater than ourselves. Because of these friendships which I had grown to value so much, it only hurt that much more when I learned from my coach that New York’s eligibility rules for high school sports would cause some of my teammates to be ineligible to play. Although they could remain in school until the age of twenty-one, they would not be able to play after they reached a certain age or had played for a certain amount of time. One of my friends was the first on our team to age out due to these guidelines and as a team we were devastated. These policies did not line up and although the original guidelines were intended to prevent unfair advantages in competition, this really wasn’t an issue with the Unified program. Thankfully, this policy was eventually changed by the state Board of Regents to allow my teammates to play once again.

There have been two indelible legacies created through the Unified program. First, I have been able to see the impact that the program has had on students in our district’s special education program. I saw this happen for one of my teammates, who was first introduced to me by his aide as being nonverbal. He was initially very shy but as he grew more comfortable with the game and his teammates, he came out of his shell. From that first season on his confidence grew and even when I see him now, over five years later, he will rush over to give me a high-five or a fist-bump and say “Hi!” Second, is the impact the program has on my district and the community at large. During my junior year of high school, our team performed the dance “The Wobble” at our pep rally, marking the first time that our special education students were included in the homecoming event. Even years later, this tradition has continued and the response from the school and community has been extraordinary.  

This experience shaped me as a person and shifted my interests in terms of career goals. I have had an interest in education and the social sciences since I was little, but being involved in the Unified program allowed me to better understand how these interests could connect and how I can make an impact. I want to pursue a law school education and become an attorney so that I can practice education law. I want to support students, faculty, and staff to create the best possible educational environments for our future generations.

Law School Personal Statement: The Definitive Guide in 2024

Choosing what to write about for your law personal statement is often one of the most difficult—and most important—decisions you have to make in your law school application. Knowing what should be included in a personal statement for law school can feel like a trick question. 

For many applicants, it feels like there are a million different things they could write about, how are they supposed to fit it all into two to three pages double spaced? 

For other applicants, it feels like they have nothing interesting or novel to write about at all, and they don’t know how to make their law school personal statement stand out from everyone else? (Hint, you’re the only You out there and I promise you there is something unique and interesting).

Whichever applicant you resonate with most, I can assure you that there is a compelling personal statement within your reach. I like to tell my consulting clients that getting to a powerful personal statement—a personal statement that will make you stand out and get admitted into your dream law school—is like sifting for gold. You have to sift out a lot of muck and grime, and even other shiny rocks that you think are gold but are actually just another worthless rock.

Figuring out the gold of your personal statement is the same. It requires a lot of digging, a lot of sifting, a lot of close examination, a lot of clean up, but at the end, you will be rewarded. 

And lucky for you, after years helping my clients—who all come from different backgrounds, have different stories, experiences, interests—develop a powerful personal statement that got them into their dream law schools, I have figured out the proven strategies to help  you  get into your dream law school.

If you’ve ever wondered, what do law schools look for in a personal statement, you’ve come to the right place.  

But first, let’s talk about a common question I get: How important is the personal statement for law school?

How Important is the Personal Statement for Law School? 

You probably know how important your GPA and LSAT score. But too many applicants think this is all that matters.

The truth is, many applicants have amazing GPAs and LSAT scores, and  still don’t get in .

And it is also true that many applicants  without  amazing GPAs or LSAT scores  do  get in. 

Just take a look at a few of the applicants I’ve worked with who, if you just looked at their numbers, should not have gotten into the schools they’re at right now

Clearly there is some other underlying factor. Something that made these applicants absolutely acceptance-worthy, in spite of their stats. 

FACT : Law schools care about more than just your GPA and standardized test scores. 

FACT : Law schools are not looking for applicants who are just going to law school because they “like to debate” or “have wanted to be a lawyer since they were eleven.”

FACT : Law schools are not looking for applicants to just tell them what they’ve accomplished.

So then what else are law schools looking for? 

That’s what I’m here to tell you: How to write a law school personal statement that will help you stand out and get you admitted into the top law schools. Are you ready to put in the work? Let’s dig in.

What Do Law Schools Look for In a Law Personal Statement? 

1. a cohesive story .

A mistake I see time and time again is a personal statement that has too many different themes going on, shows too many different interests, and makes me feel like the applicant can’t commit to anything.

This is not a quality you want law schools thinking about you.

A simple, but powerful, way to make your law personal statement stand out and get you admitted into your dream law school is to tell a single, cohesive narrative.

Ok, great . . . but what does that mean? 

It means you want the admissions officer to read your application and see someone who can commit to things, has built genuine depth of interest, is stable, and understands herself and her decision to pursue law school. 

Too often I see personal statements that are all over the place. It’s clear they’re trying to impress admissions officers by packing in anything and everything they’ve done and are passionate about. But instead of looking impressive, it looks chaotic and reads as an applicant who doesn’t really have a clear vision of who they are, what kind of mark they want to make, and why they’re going to law school. 

A cohesive application requires careful curating of your experiences and interests.  

There is such a thing as including too much. 

Having a cohesive application requires  a lot  of planning and intention behind the application. 

A foolproof way to make sure you have a cohesive essay, is to focus it around a broader theme. This lets you bring in experiences that may feel distinct or totally unrelated but that when you step back and take a closer look, all fall within an overarching theme. 

For example, maybe your backpacking adventures across Tanzania, your bungee jumping in New Zealand, your viral blog on complicated baking techniques, and your work in mechanical engineering feel totally distinct, like they’re different parts of you. This was a real client of mine, Beth. And after going through her brainstorm, we realized that she is someone who is always pushing boundaries, always trying to innovate, whether it is through her adventurous travel, her baking, or her work engineering innovating products. And that it was she focused her application around.

 Action Step! Find Your Theme 

• Brainstorm about some of your most memorable and formative experiences, the experiences that led you to this very moment when you’re applying to law school. Be over-inclusive! This is just your brainstorm, you’ll sift through it after. 
• Review your brainstorm with an objective eye. If someone had to write a these that encompassed the entirety of these most important experiences, what might it say? 

2. A Convincing Explanation for Why Law School 

Now that you’ve developed a theme that you will focus your application around, the next step is to connect that theme with why you are ultimately choosing to go to law school.

You want to answer the question: why is law school the  inevitable  next step for me?

Let’s talk about my former client Beth again—the mechanical engineer, bungee-jumper, baker. She ended up writing her personal statement around the theme that she is someone who likes to push bounds, who is drawn to innovation. An essay that ended there would have been fine, but it likely wouldn’t have gotten her into her  T-10 dream school …which yes, she did get into. 

Beth needed to link the theme that she is someone who pushes bounds and is drawn to innovation to  why  she wanted to go to law school. 

So for Beth, she linked her desire to innovate to being drawn to patent law. She talked about how in order for her to continue innovating, she needed to understand how to protect her and others’ innovations. 

Beth’s reason for going to law school was very specific. She knew and could back up with  proof of her experiences  exactly what kind of lawyer she wanted to be.

These are powerful applications. But realistically, most people applying to law school don’t yet know what kind of lawyer they want to be. That’s ok. 

But your personal statement still needs to answer the question Why Law School. And the more detail you can paint into the picture, the stronger your application will be. 

Here are some ways you can explain why law even if you don’t know exactly what kind of law you want to practice:

> If you have a sense of what kind of law you might want to pursue, but aren’t exactly sure, then you can offer that interest as a possibility of something you might pursue . . . as long as it still fits within your ultimate theme.

For instance, one of my clients was interested in family law, and specifically divorce law, but wasn’t ultimately sure if that’s the career she wanted to pursue. But given her own personal experiences with divorce and her background working with vulnerable youth populations, it was a natural interest for her to want to advocate for children who are often helpless during divorce.

So instead of saying she knew with absolute certainty she wanted to pursue a career in family law, she wrote something along the lines of she “might envision a career in family law…” 

Remember though, this Why Law only worked because she ultimately chose to center her application’s theme around advocating for helpless children after experiencing that feeling herself, and then working with vulnerable youth populations while in college. Again, this goes back to having  proof of her experiences  to back up what she was saying. 

Some applicants tell me it can feel disingenuous to say they may do something, when they’re not exactly sure. But as long as it is a true interest and a career you may want to pursue, you are not deceiving admissions officers, you are just telling them what interest has led you to law school and providing one example of what a career in law might look like for you.

Law schools know that you have limited exposure to  practice areas , and that your interests will inevitably shift in law school. You’re not binding yourself to a future, you’re showing law schools how your interests have shaped your decision to pursue law.

> Now, if you have no idea at all what kind of law you’re interested in, here is my suggestion: think about what the role of a lawyer means to you and offer that as the Why Law piece of your personal statement.  

For instance, maybe for you, you see being a lawyer as a form of service. You’d of course want your narrative to focus on why a career of service is important to you, and then your Why Law aspect should focus on explaining that law will be that tool for you.

Here’s an example of how one of my client’s did this in her personal statement:

As I have learned throughout my life, a person’s circumstances are in no way an indication of their her to succeed . . . Although I am not yet certain which legal field I would like to specialize in, I know that my role as a lawyer will be one that is committed to furthering equal access to the law, identifying and challenging barriers that inhibit the full potential of my clients.      

See how even though she says she comes right out and says she doesn’t know what kind of law she wants to practice, she still shows that she has thought about why she is going to law school. Her theme centered around accessibility and how lack of opportunities is too often equated with lack of capabilities, which she then tied directly to her why law—law is a way for her to help close that gap.

Discussing your Why Law is critical to getting into your dream law school. It shows maturity and foresight, and will help you stand apart from the thousands of applicants who are applying because “they always wanted to be a lawyer” or are “good at debating.”  

 Action Step! Determine Your Why Law

• Decide which kind of applicant you are : (a) you know exactly why you’re going to law school and what kind of law you want to practice; (b) you have an established interest area and may want to explore a practice area related to that interest; or (c) you have no idea what kind of law you want to practice. 
• If you are applicant (a)   : show how your experiences and insights from those experiences made school and that practice area the inevitable next step for you. 
• If you are applicant (b) : offer a legal practice area as a possibility of something you might pursue, one that is based on your already established interests. 
• If you are applicant (c) : think about what the role of a lawyer means to you and offer that as a Why Law piece of your personal statement, making sure to relate it back to your ultimate theme.  

3. Critical Thinking Skills  

This next step is, in my opinion,  the  most important aspect about getting into your dream law school. 

Candidly, most law school personal statements suck. They read like a glorified cover letter, just talking about the most impressive things that applicant has done, repeating their resume with a little more detail. 

If you’re just applying to safety schools, this can be fine. 

But if you want to get into a top law school, if you want to get into your dream law school, you need to do more. 

If you really want your law school personal statement to actually work for you, and if you want your application to be more than just your stats, you need to show admission officers  how you think .   

Law school is all about critical thinking. Being a lawyer is all about critical thinking. If you can show admission officers  now  that you have that skill, you show them that you will thrive and succeed. Those are the applicants they want to accept. Those are the applicants law schools will fight over. 

So how do you do that? 

You need to talk about something bigger than yourself. I like to call this a “Global Insight.” 

Let’s go back to my old client, Beth: the innovator, mechanical engineer, bungee-jumper, baker who wanted to go into patent law. 

Beth could’ve easily talked about all her past experiences that would make her a valuable patent attorney—for instance, her experience in mechanical engineering working on innovative products gave her direct exposure to patent work. And if she were applying to a job, that’s exactly what she would want to do.

But  applying to law school is not the same as applying to a job.  

Beth wanted to get into a T-10 law school, with an LSAT that was below those schools’ medians. She needed to stand out. 

So she showed how she could  think critically  about her own experiences, identify a problem, and  show how she as a lawyer could work to fix  it. Here is her “global insight.”

Working with a variety of different clients as a mechanical design engineer consultant, I shifted from wanting to create and solve problems, to being the voice of innovative products. I encountered numerous instances where patents were crucial to progress, but the lawyer’s failure to grasp the innovation of a product proved fatal to the product’s success . . .  With ever-increasing connections and access to information, I believe intellectual property law is indispensable to progress. Our modern-day society is constantly changing as technology and the way we do business rapidly evolves. Laws surrounding technology and innovation that provide structure for an uncertain future must constantly be re-evaluated and interpreted in a way that fits with the needs today. The decisions we make today about what is deserving of a patent, and thereby how we classify innovation, will impact future progress. Lawyers who understand the mechanical details of a product and impact in the context of law are necessary to make such decisions. I intend to be one of those lawyers. A knowledgeable advocate can make all the difference. 

See how Beth shows how she thinks about the world and her own role in it? Instead of just saying “I was a mechanical engineer working on cool products,” blah blah blah she shows how she was critically thinking about her experiences, saw a problem (the problem being untrained lawyers inhibiting innovation), and saw how her experiences along with a law degree could help her solve that problem.

She then went on to explain  why this matters . And not just why this issue matters to her, but why this issue should matter to all of us, why this issue should matter to law schools! 

She got into her dream T-10 school. 

And you can too.

Action Step! Develop Your Global Insight 

•   Think about what your experiences have taught you about your world or the broader world? Or what larger problems have you seen through your experiences?  

Hope you enjoy this blog post! Want to know how to use the power of your personal statement to get into your dream law school, even if you aren’t the “perfect” applicant?

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How to Stand Out & Get Admitted to the Law School of Your Dreams

The Ultimate Guide to Writing an Outstanding Law School Personal Statement

Dazzle admissions with your legally awesome personal story, introduction.

Let's face it: you've spent countless hours studying and acing the LSAT, and now it's time for the pièce de résistance – the law school personal statement. This is your golden opportunity to showcase your personality, and put your best legal foot forward. But don't worry, this guide has got you covered. In no time, you'll be writing a personal statement that could put John Grisham's early drafts to shame.

If you're ready to convince law school admissions committees that you're the next Ruth Bader Ginsburg or Thurgood Marshall, then buckle up and get ready for a wild ride through the world of crafting the ultimate law school personal statement.

1. Know Your Audience: The Admissions Committee

First and foremost, remember that you're writing for the admissions committee. These are the gatekeepers of your future legal career, and they've read more personal statements than there are citations in a Supreme Court decision. To avoid becoming a legal footnote in their memory, keep the following in mind:

• Be professional, but also relatable. You don't want to sound like a robot that's been programmed to spout legalese.
• Avoid clichés like "I want to make a difference" or "I've always wanted to be a lawyer." Unless, of course, you've been dreaming of billable hours since you were in diapers.
• Consider what makes you unique. Remember, this is your chance to stand out among a sea of applicants with equally impressive academic records and LSAT scores.

2. Choosing Your Topic: Make It Personal and Memorable

When it comes to choosing a topic for your personal statement, think of it as an episode of Law & Order: Your Life Edition. It's your moment to shine, so pick a story that showcases your passion, resilience, or commitment to justice. Consider these tips:

• Use an anecdote. Admissions committees love a good story, especially one that shows your problem-solving skills or ability to navigate tricky situations. Just be sure not to end up on the wrong side of the law!
• Reflect on a transformative experience. If you've had a life-changing event that led you to pursue law, share it! Just remember to keep it PG-rated.
• Discuss a personal challenge you've overcome. Nothing says "I'm ready for law school" like demonstrating your resilience in the face of adversity.

3. Structure and Organization: Your Legal Blueprint

Now that you've chosen your topic, it's time to draft your personal statement. Like a well-organized legal brief, your statement should have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Consider the following tips for structuring your masterpiece:

• Begin with a strong opening. Start with a hook that will capture the reader's attention and make them want to keep reading. Think of it as your own personal Miranda warning: "You have the right to remain captivated."
• Develop your story in the body. This is where you'll expand on your anecdote or experience, and explain how it has shaped your desire to pursue a legal career. Remember to be concise and avoid meandering – this isn't a filibuster.
• End with a powerful conclusion. Tie everything together and reiterate why you're the ideal candidate for law school. Just like a closing argument, leave the admissions committee convinced that you're the right choice.

4. Style and Tone: Finding Your Inner Legal Wordsmith

When it comes to your personal statement, you want to strike the perfect balance between professional and engaging. After all, no one wants to read a 500-word legal treatise on why you should be admitted to law school. To achieve this delicate balance, follow these style and tone guidelines:

• Write in the first person. This is your personal statement, so own it! Using "I" allows you to convey your unique perspective and voice.
• Keep it conversational, yet polished. Write as if you were speaking to a respected mentor or professor. Avoid slang, but don't be afraid to inject a bit of your personality into your writing.
• Employ dry humor sparingly. A little wit can make your statement more enjoyable to read, but remember that humor is subjective. It's best to err on the side of caution, lest you inadvertently offend the admissions committee.
• 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

It's been said that writing is rewriting, and this is particularly true for your personal statement. Once you've drafted your masterpiece, it's time to don your editor's hat and polish it to perfection. Follow these tips for a meticulous revision:

• Take a break before revising. Give yourself some distance from your statement before diving into revisions. This will help you approach it with fresh eyes and a clear mind.
• Read your statement out loud. This technique can help you catch awkward phrasing, run-on sentences, and other errors that might not be apparent when reading silently.
• Seek feedback from others. Share your statement with trusted friends, family members, or mentors who can provide constructive criticism. Just remember, opinions are like law school casebooks – everyone's got one, but you don't have to take them all to heart.
• Edit ruthlessly. Don't be afraid to cut, rewrite, or reorganize your statement. Your goal is to make your writing as strong and effective as possible, even if it means sacrificing a clever turn of phrase or an endearing anecdote.

6. Proofread: The Final Verdict

Before submitting your personal statement, it's crucial to proofread it thoroughly. Even the most compelling story can be marred by typos, grammatical errors, or other mistakes. Follow these proofreading tips to ensure your statement is error-free:

• Use spell check, but don't rely on it entirely. Some errors, like homophones or subject-verb agreement issues, may slip past your computer's watchful eye.
• Print your statement and read it on paper. This can help you spot errors that you might have missed on-screen.
• Enlist a second pair of eyes. Sometimes, a fresh perspective can catch mistakes that you've become blind to after multiple revisions.

Crafting an outstanding law school personal statement may seem daunting, but with the right approach and a healthy dose of perseverance, you can create a compelling and memorable statement that will impress even the most discerning admissions committee. So go forth and conquer, future legal eagles! And remember, as you embark on your law school journey, may the precedent be ever in your favor.

Tech-focused creator of LSD.Law. I built LSD while applying to law school. I saw unequal access to knowledge and built LSD to level the playing field and help applicants make thoughtful, well-informed decisions in the application process.

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Law School Personal Statement Dos and Don’ts

The personal statement, one of the most important parts of your law school application, is an opportunity to highlight your writing ability, your personality, and your experience. Think of it as a written interview during which you get to choose the question. What one thing do you wish the admissions evaluators knew about you?

To help you write a law school personal statement that best reflects your abilities as a potential law student, we have some recommendations below.

• Discuss possible personal statement topics with your pre-law advisor (or someone else) before you invest a lot of time writing.
• Choose a narrow topic. Offer details about a small topic rather than generalities about a broad topic. Focus on a concrete experience and the impact it has had upon you.
• Be yourself. Do not tell law schools what you think they want to hear — tell them the truth.
• Pay special attention to your first paragraph. It should immediately grab a reader’s attention. Reviewers are pressed for time and may not read beyond an uninteresting opener.
• Keep it interesting. Write with energy and use the active voice. You do not have to explain how your experience relates to your desire to attend law school. Tell a story. Paint a vivid picture. The most interesting personal statements create visuals for the reader, which make your personal statement more memorable.
• Keep it simple and brief. Big words do not denote big minds, just big egos. Choose your words with economy and clarity in mind, and remember that your reader has a huge stack of applications to read. A personal statement generally should be two to three double-spaced pages.
• Proofread. Ask several people to proofread your essay. Grammatical or mechanical errors are inexcusable.
• Include information from your background that sets you apart. If your ethnicity, family, religion, socioeconomic background, or similar factors are motivating you to succeed in law school, be sure to highlight them. You can do this in the personal statement itself or in a separate diversity statement. If you are writing a personal statement and a diversity statement, make sure the two essays address different topics.
• Consider your audience. Most admissions evaluators are professors, third-year law students, or admissions professionals not long out of law school. Therefore, you want to come across as an attentive student, interesting classmate, and accomplished person. Again, consider what you most want them to know, beyond the information provided in the rest of your application.
• Read the application carefully. Most law schools allow you to choose a topic, but some will require you to address a specific question. Follow whatever instructions are provided.
• Do not play a role, especially that of a lawyer or judge. And stay away from legal concepts and jargon. You run the risk of misusing them, and even if you use them properly, legal language may make you appear pompous.
• Do not tell your life story in chronological order or merely re-state your resume. Furthermore, resist the urge to tie together all of your life experiences. The essays that try to say too much end up saying nothing at all.
• Do not become a cliché. You may genuinely want to save the world. Maybe your study abroad experience transformed the way you look at the world. But these topics are overused. Before writing your essay, consider how your story is unique and highlight your individuality.
• Do not use a personal statement to explain discrepancies in your application. If your academic record is weak in comparison to your LSAT scores, or vice versa, address that issue in an addendum. Emphasize the positive in the personal statement.
• Do not offend your reader. Lawyers rarely shy away from controversial topics, but you should think twice before advocating a controversial view. You do not want to appear to be close-minded.
• If you are in the bottom of an applicant pool, do not play it safe. You have nothing to lose by making a novel statement.

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Personal statements, explore personal statements from previous applicants who have been admitted to our jd program., personal statements from previous applicants.

Through their personal statements, applicants share their greatest influences, professional aspirations, and why they applied to BU Law. We share these examples to help you consider how to approach your own personal statement as you prepare your application.

Passionate students from across the globe choose BU Law for many different reasons. The personal statement portion of our application allows them opportunity to discuss significant experiences that have inspired them to become lawyers. Learn why these student—through influences like the earthquake in Haiti, innovation in the biotechnology sector, and a motel staircase—chose to enroll in our JD program.

Jean-Phillip: Teacher inspired to give back in earthquake aftermath

Q&A with Jean-Phillip

“Being a voice for those who are voiceless is an axiom that I carry with me as I think about my role as a teacher and citizen.”

“Earthquake in Haiti.” That is what the text from my aunt read. I went to dinner thinking this has happened before, not too big of a deal, and then after went to the dorm and turned on the TV. It was arresting. I sat in front of CNN transfixed for 3 hours as if it was 10 minutes. I could not believe that just 5 days before I was with my grandparents at their house in Delmas, Haiti with my mom, dad, and sister.

I am Haitian-American. Even though I was born in Chicago and lived in its suburbs most of my life, Haiti is a place I am deeply connected to through culture and family. The place where I lived when I was young and gave me the mix of languages, which got me sideways glances on the first day of 1st grade in the US when I introduced myself in French with, “Bonjour, je m’appelle Jean-Phillip.” It set me apart in my life but also made me a part of something. This relationship and the feeling of straddling different spaces would lead me to my interest in Race and Ethnicity and its impact on how people interacted in political and social worlds, especially immigrant populations. The pride I feel at the history of the first independent Black nation is immense, as it is for many Haitians, but so is the frustration with the failure to meet its true potential. To see it in such chaos and disaster tore at me and brought me closer to the Haitian reality. The reality of a small beautiful country filled with strong people who live with stark inequality. On my visits, my feelings of undeserved privilege have always been reinforced.

In the days after the earthquake my thoughts were of my grandparents who my family had not been able to contact. Seeing the destruction of a market nearby my grandparents’ house crushed our hopes. I sat and watched news stories helpless. I did not know what I could do to help. While in my dazed state, my friend Arlene called me to ask if we could reboot our Haitian student group. She asked and I assumed the role of President of the Haitian Student Organization and began working closely with the Yale administration to plan a concert fundraiser to support Haiti immediately. We also knew that keeping attention on Haiti, even a few weeks after, would be essential to helping Haiti in the long run. We spearheaded a committee to work on a Haitian awareness week, which brought the Haitian Prime Minister and aid workers as well as continued fundraising. My parents left to go back to their original home to help those who they could and see our family. They knew they would hear stories of many lost friends. Our story was lucky in comparison. My grandparents were shaken but alive. In this whole ordeal one moment stuck out to me. My grandmother on my mom’s side found one of her many cell phones to call us and let us know she was okay a few days after the earthquake and then against the wishes of my mom found a way to deliver a phone to my dad’s mom, who was visiting her old home for a month, so that he could speak to his family. It was an amazing moment of selfless giving. She knew my dad needed that conversation.

I drew strength from this and other moments as I balanced being a counselor, being a student, and being on our relief advisory committee. During one of the committee meetings with an administrator and graduate students from the Yale Forestry school there was a remarkable incident when the well-intentioned idea of a hunger dinner was raised and the idea of having the dining area decorated as a refugee camp was discussed. All at once I felt that these people who I was working with to help Haiti were trying to get my approval for something that would be another disaster. Asking me to support a hunger dinner that would portray all of Haiti as a refugee camp was ridiculous to me. I knew I had to speak up; I dismissed the idea of the refugee camp immediately. Even though I was not experiencing the trauma directly, I attempted to fathom the feelings felt and channeled them, along with my own, to be a fervent defender of the dignity of the Haitian people.

When I graduated in May that same grandmother who had found that cell phone was there to see me graduate as if nothing had happened, maybe slightly skinnier, with the rest of my family alongside her. Even though I told my parents I would have no problems driving alone from Yale to our home in Chicago, my grandmother scoffed and said of course she was going with me. As a teacher now, I draw from that example. Giving of myself in small ways so that others can stand on me and being an advocate for my Dominican immigrant students has been incredible. Teaching them how to advocate for themselves and navigate within a system that often misunderstands and disadvantages them has lead me beyond just being their “No Excuses” science teacher. I have had so many opportunities and support in my life and giving back seems like the only reasonable option. Being a voice for those who are voiceless is an axiom that I carry with me as I think about my role as a teacher and citizen. I am ready now to acquire the additional skills and knowledge necessary to support and provide access for those people.

Joshua: Campaign fundraiser with a future in policy

Q&A with Josh

“After three years of campaigning, I am ready to be part of governing. Politics is my passion, but I want to see the promises made on a campaign through to completion.”

When I landed my first job on a US Senate campaign, I had volunteered and interned on various political campaigns and was eager to work on messaging and communications. My days, however, were not spent writing speeches or forming strategy as I had hoped but instead repeating mundane tasks and aggressively seeking out donors. I found myself calling strangers for hours each day, soliciting them for campaign contributions. Naturally an introvert, calling strangers made me uncomfortable, asking them for money pushed me well out of my comfort zone. There were no breaks to look forward to, either: I spent my nights researching potential donors and my weekends knocking on doors and canvassing public events.

With a goal of raising $20 million by Election Day, I was also responsible for planning fundraisers with seemingly unrealistic goals. For my first event, I was expected to raise $10,000 despite a difficult host who refused to return my phone calls. I called everyone on the invitation list multiple times, pitching anyone who answered. The day of the event, I was hopeful that my hard work would pay off. Maybe the host had been working his own connections in the community, or maybe the messages I left were compelling. There were ultimately only five people in attendance. We raised $800 that day. Frustrated with the long hours and meager results, I wondered why I was working on this campaign.

During those first couple of weeks, only the knowledge that I was fighting for a cause I believed in kept me motivated. The choices in the race were stark, and the winner would shape national decisions that affected every American. Our opponent’s stances were so radically different from what I believed best that I knew I would regret having any other job. All the negative aspects seemed trivial when compared to the consequences at stake.

Eventually, after putting in the hours and showing my commitment, I was given new responsibilities and more interesting tasks. I staffed call time with the candidate and witnessed how he integrated my research about the donors into his pitch. My heart skipped as he transitioned from health care reform to the “ask” and I breathed relief when we had a new pledge. I began writing the weekly campaign newsletter that went to hundreds of opinion leaders and activists around the state. Injecting my creativity and style when commenting on the week’s happenings and our opponent’s missteps reminded me of the reasons I took the job in the first place.

I also began to see better results when managing fundraisers. My first event taught me to seek out more engaged hosts and to build a stronger invitation list. I still spent hours on the phone inviting guests, but these calls now energized me as I spoke about the latest headlines and why we needed their help. During events, I preoccupied myself collecting contact information and scouting the room for the next potential host. As soon as the event ended, I raced back to the office excited to count the night’s haul. I enjoyed writing the newsletters, but the best part of the job was seeing my hard work pay off in an immediate and tangible way. No other experience had challenged me the way this job had, and through that I learned how to adapt and overcome obstacles to achieve my goals.

After three years of campaigning, I am ready to be part of governing. Politics is my passion, but I want to see the promises made on a campaign through to completion. As a fundraiser, I frequently plan events hosted by law firms, and I have seen firsthand how often politicians rely on lawyers for help in implementing policy decisions. Recently, the Mayor of Providence stayed late to ask attorneys their opinions about how to resolve issues with public pension contracts for current retirees. An attorney by trade, the Mayor probed them on potential solutions while discussing his concerns with them. Similarly, many other issues that affect people in very real ways require legal expertise in order to develop sound, effective policy solutions.

Kathryn: Lifelong health care enthusiast determined to enact reform

Q&A with Kathryn

“Based on my experiences growing up, at the university, and now at work, I have come to the conclusion that a career in law is the single most effective way for me to help enact positive change and transform our fragmented health care delivery system.”

For as long as I can remember, I have wanted a career in health care (yes—I know I am applying to law school—please bear with me). However, my focus has changed as I have had the opportunity to take a variety of classes and gain work experience.

My parents were unwittingly responsible for my initial interest in health. They both work in the field, albeit indirectly, so I was immersed in a world full of doctors, nurses, and hospitals at a young age.

Years ago, when my father—a medical historian and ethicist—was invited to speak at a conference or university, my mother and I would go along for the ride. At the time, I had no interest in listening to the actual content of his talks. I viewed these trips more as an opportunity to miss school and to make fun of my father’s wild hand gestures—I even conceived the Kung Fu GevitzTM action doll, which karate-chopped a podium at the push of a button. I earnestly swore to his bemused colleagues that I would never grow up to be like him, but despite my greatest efforts (and perhaps as a result of listening to one too many of his speeches), I slowly found myself sharing many of his academic interests.

My mother’s domain—the hospital where she worked as a practice manager of a cardiac surgery office—was a much more fascinating playground growing up. Despite being sick during most of my visits, I preferred spending time at the hospital to attending any conference. Between napping on her floor and drawing pictures for everyone in the office, I would watch live feed of the surgeons operating on an exposed heart or take trips to the morgue to view hearts with congenital abnormalities.

Dismissing my father’s profession and familiar only with the glamorous side of medicine, I began college with one career in mind: physician. I dreamed of discovering the cure for AIDS, developing new treatments for cancer, and ridding the world of disease. However, early in my freshman year at the University of Pennsylvania, I found that the classes that piqued my interest and excited me the most were not biology lab or chemistry, but rather the classes I took through my major in health and societies; classes like American Health Policy, Biomedical Ethics, and Health Law. These courses opened my eyes to the realm of health care beyond patient diagnosis and treatment. For the first time, I became acutely aware of the millions of Americans who struggle to access or pay for basic health services. I was also introduced to the tremendous influence of law and policy in everyday medical issues. The breadth of topics in my health law class, as well as the law’s presence in my other courses, astounded me. Whether we were talking about patient consent in my bioethics class or insurance markets in Medical Economics, our discussion always circled back to the role of the law. What impressed me most, however, was the legal system’s potential to effect broad social change. Inspired, I started thinking that a career in health law would be the best way to impact not only my clients, but also my community, and even my country.

Gaining firsthand insight into real life health issues has only reaffirmed this belief. While I do not work directly with the underserved, I manage aggregate data that testifies just as strongly to the need for policy reform. Every week at the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, I pull data from the Communicable Disease Management System—a database of collected patient information—to generate a report summarizing weekly and monthly trends in disease incidence. Week after week, the same social and behavioral risk factors are associated with the same diseases. For example, Asians comprise the majority of hepatitis B reports, older individuals with smoking histories are most at risk for Legionnaires’ disease, and infants and the elderly are most susceptible to vaccine-preventable diseases such as H. influenzae . The targeted health education and vaccination efforts we provide are necessary, but clearly not sufficient, to reduce disease incidence in these groups.

Examining emergency department chief complaint data reveals another set of problematic trends. Performing syndromic surveillance, I regularly see records of people who come to the emergency department with chronic conditions that they have had for years, but that have remained untreated because they cannot afford or access regular care. I also see how many individuals repeatedly misuse the emergency department as a resource. Rather than visiting a general practitioner, many poor and uninsured individuals come to the emergency department for primary care issues—colds, hangnails, back aches—because they cannot be denied treatment based on ability to pay. These are problems that cannot be fixed without a fundamental overhaul of our health care system.

Earning a law degree from Boston University with a specialty in health care law will give me the analytical tools to construct public policy that can address these issues and more. I would have the capacity to develop legislation and policies to decrease the incidence of Legionnaires’ disease (as well as lung cancer and heart disease) or advise on the legality of mandated vaccination. Alternatively, I could develop as well as defend policy and regulations that reduce emergency department misuse and promote greater access to more affordable and higher quality health care services. Based on my experiences growing up, at the university, and now at work, I have come to the conclusion that a career in law is the single most effective way for me to help enact positive change and transform our fragmented health care delivery system.

Kate: Immigrant advocate inspired by her clients to do more

Q&A with  Kate

“[My clients] have shown me how great an asset the immigrant community is to our country and left me convinced that I will find immigrant advocacy extremely rewarding.”

She sat opposite me at my desk to fill out a few forms. Fumbling her hands and laughing uncomfortably, it was obvious that she was nervous. Sandra was eighteen and her knowledge of English was limited to “yes” and “hello.” While translating the initial meeting between Sandra and her attorney, I learned of her reasons for leaving El Salvador. She had been in an abusive relationship, and though she wasn’t ready to go into detail just yet, it was clear from the conversation that her boyfriend had terrorized her and that the El Salvadoran police were of no help. Afraid for her life, Sandra left for the US to join her sister in Massachusetts. She had been in our country for all of eight weeks, five of which she spent in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Texas. Eventually Sandra was given a credible fear interview. The interviewer believed that she had a real fear of returning to El Salvador, and Sandra was released from detention with an Immigration Court hearing notice in her hand. She had just retained our office to present her asylum case to the Immigration Judge.

I tried to imagine myself in Sandra’s shoes. She hadn’t finished high school, was in a completely new environment, and had almost no understanding of how things worked in the US. Even the harsh New England winter must have seemed unnatural to her. Having lived abroad for a couple of years, I could relate on some level; however, the circumstances of my stay overseas were completely different. I went to Spain after graduating from college to work in an elementary school, improve my Spanish skills, and see a bit of the world. Despite the different reasons for my move abroad, I do remember feeling completely overwhelmed by what would have been mindless tasks in a familiar environment—from opening a bank account to paying utility bills, nothing was intuitive anymore. I had to ask hundreds of questions and usually make a few attempts before actually accomplishing my goal. Frustrating though it was, I didn’t have so much riding on each of these endeavors. If I didn’t have all the necessary paperwork to open a bank account one day, I could just try again the next day. Sandra won’t be afforded the same flexibility in her immigration process, where so much depends on the ability to abide by inflexible deadlines and procedures. Without someone to guide her through the process, ensuring that all requirements are met and presenting her case as persuasively as possible, Sandra will have little chance of achieving legal status in the United States. Her case will likely take years to complete, but overlooking any details along the way could render Sandra ineligible to receive immigration benefits.

Before starting at my current position at Joyce & Associates, an immigration law firm in Boston, I had long considered a career in law. Growing up, I was engaged by family and school debates about public policy and government. In college, I found my constitutional law courses challenging and exciting. Nonetheless, it wasn’t until I began working with clients like Sandra that I became convinced that a career in law is the right choice for me. Playing my part as a legal assistant in various immigration cases, I have been able to witness how a career in immigration advocacy is both intellectually stimulating and personally fulfilling. I have seen the importance of well-articulated arguments and even creativity in arguing a client’s eligibility for an immigration benefit. I have learned that I excel in critical thinking and in examining detail, as I continually consider the consistency and possible implications of any documents that clients provide in support of their application. But most importantly, I have realized how deserving many of these immigrants are. Many of the clients I work with are among the most hardworking and patriotic people I have encountered. They have shown me how great an asset the immigrant community is to our country and left me convinced that I will find immigrant advocacy extremely rewarding.

I am equally confident that I would thrive as a student at Boston University, where I would be sure to take full advantage of the many opportunities available. The school’s Asylum and Human Rights Clinic and Immigration Detention Clinic would offer me invaluable experiences in various immigration settings. Likewise, by participating in the pro bono program’s Immigration/Asylum service trip in Texas, I could develop a better understanding of the challenges immigrants face upon crossing the Mexican border. Given my experiences in an immigration firm, I know that I would have much to offer while participating in these programs, but even more to learn. And while I find BU’s immigration programs to be especially appealing, I am equally drawn to the Boston University experience as a whole. The school’s diverse curriculum and highly-renowned academic programs would constantly challenge me and allow me to grow in ways I can’t yet imagine. I hope to have the opportunity to face those challenges, and to contribute my own experiences and drive to the Boston University community.

Eva: Czech native seizing the opportunity to pursue her dreams

Q&A with  Eva

“The experience of growing up surrounded by people whose lives and dreams were disrupted by the strict communist regime fills me with a great desire to take full advantage of the opportunities available to me.”

November 1989 saw the restoration of democracy in Czechoslovakia. Without knowing it at the time, my life would be forever changed by this moment in my country’s history. Not only did the Velvet Revolution expand the horizon of my opportunities beyond anything my parents and their whole generation could have ever imagined, but it also ultimately sparked my interest in law. It highlighted the importance of understanding how nations and their legislation can affect the lives of citizens and how international regulations influence transnational relations. From the example of my home country, which is still working on developing its young social and political framework, I can see how law is a crucial determinant in the formation of an environment under which business and culture can thrive. I see great purpose and personal fulfillment in pursuing a discipline which has the potential to positively affect social development.

The experience of growing up surrounded by people whose lives and dreams were disrupted by the strict communist regime fills me with a great desire to take full advantage of the opportunities available to me. I utilized the scholarship I received to attend an international school in Prague not only to study English, but also to learn as much as possible from my international classmates. This experience expanded my worldview and later prompted my decision to study abroad and travel. Continuously interacting with people from different cultures makes me an adaptive, confident, and effective communicator, and it helps me see any situation from various points of view. Being able to identify and evaluate possible options helps me find the right solutions to challenges and identify steps to fulfilling specific goals. It has also helped me find my own course to the study of law.

I transferred out of the undergraduate degree in law I was pursuing in the United Kingdom to gain the skills, and most importantly the experience, I felt I needed in order to reach a deeper understanding of law theory and its application. As an English major at Boston University I developed skills in writing, research, critical reading and analysis. My second major in economics provided a solid background into the business setting within which law firms operate and prompted my interest in business and finance law. Later on, internships and full-time work tested this knowledge in a corporate environment. It was important to learn to apply classroom skills creatively and within tight deadlines. For example, managing the creation and release of company press releases at my first job after graduation demanded particularly good organization and time management. I had to identify interesting points worthy of mention in international media, make sure I understood the scientific data I was writing about and schedule the release of articles on time, while coordinating requests from several company departments. This gave me a strong sense of responsibility, as my writing was the voice of the entire company. I believe that continuing to apply this same work ethic will help me manage the rigorous demands of law school.

Learning from experienced professionals at large international companies encourages me to take on increasingly challenging tasks. In my free time I manage the Czech branch of an international non-profit arts project related to theater. It gives students the opportunity to see theater performances for free, publish their reviews and articles on an international web portal, and receive guidance and feedback from experts and scholars in the field. I have now expanded the Prague team to include five reviewers, and I am always looking to involve more students in the project. I will continue to look for ways to provide learning opportunities and share knowledge with peers in order to contribute to the Boston University community.

The lessons I have received from my country’s recent history continue to provide me with strong motivation. I grew up listening to stories from the times of the occupation, and they were always about the limits and the restrictions that characterized the era. I am very thankful that this does not apply to me and that I can now take the next step to realizing my goal of becoming a lawyer. I will rely on my determination and the skills I have gained through education, work experience, and travel to help me through the challenges of law school. I believe that I have what it takes to be a valuable contribution to the Boston University Law School classroom and also the legal profession.

Eddie: Scientist with a passion for intellectual property law

Q&A with  Eddie

“I was motivated by a desire to pursue a career that would allow me to broaden the range of scientific issues I worked on, rather than the narrow field in which I had specialized.”

I am very passionate about science and spent much of my academic life in research laboratories studying parasites that cause human disease. Recently, as a technical specialist at an intellectual property law firm, I discovered that I could successfully utilize the creative-thinking and analytical skills that I acquired as a scientist to help clients in the biotechnology sector protect their intellectual property. My experiences have solidified my commitment to law school, and I therefore write this statement to convince you of my resolve to merge my passions for science and law by becoming an attorney-scientist.

I was raised in the mountainous interior of Puerto Rico by parents who emphasized the importance of obtaining the best education possible. I attended a public residential high school with a curriculum specializing in math and science, where I excelled at learning about a variety of scientific disciplines and developed my passion for science. At age fifteen, I was selected to begin working in a research laboratory at the University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine, as a participant in a summer program directed to motivating students to pursue careers in scientific research. My work focused on isolating and characterizing proteins that could be used for the diagnosis of, and vaccination against, two parasitic diseases. This transformative experience propelled my decision to pursue a career in scientific research. After high school, I continued working on the same research project while earning my Bachelor of Science degree in biology at the University of Puerto Rico-Rio Piedras. My undergraduate experience was enriched by my selection to participate in a scientific exchange program, sponsored by the US National Institutes of Health, which funded my training in research laboratories at three distinguished research institutions: the University of Edinburgh (Scotland), Monash University (Australia), and the University of Salamanca (Spain). These global experiences not only helped cultivate my scientific skills, they also allowed me to gain a unique understanding of different cultures, peoples, and belief systems.

At the University of Virginia, I earned a doctoral degree in microbiology studying the molecular mechanisms regulating how the parasite Entamoeba histolytica causes disease. I presented my doctoral research at multiple national and international scientific conferences and the results of my work were published in two peer-reviewed scientific articles. As my doctoral studies were concluding and job prospects loomed, however, the realization hit that I was motivated by a desire to pursue a career that would allow me to broaden the range of scientific issues I worked on, rather than the narrow field in which I had specialized. I had been exposed to intellectual property law while taking a technology transfer course taught by a law professor in college, and conducted several informational interviews with attorneys practicing intellectual property law to decide if I should explore a career in this field.

Working as a technical specialist in the biotechnology/chemical practice group of an intellectual property law firm in Washington, DC, for the past year and a half has afforded me the opportunity to gradually transition from the lab bench to the law firm under the mentorship of several attorney-scientists. I have been rewarded by the opportunity to work on a broad variety of biotechnology fields including pharmaceuticals, biofuels, vaccines and nutraceuticals, and enjoyed the intellectual challenge of understanding the technical issues of each case, analyzing the legal and strategic implications of the advice we give our clients, and developing writing skills to produce work products that can be understood by non-technical audiences. My responsibilities as a technical specialist include prosecuting patents in the US and abroad, developing opinions for clients regarding the invalidity and/or non-infringement of patent claims, and performing freedom-to-operate analyses for clients seeking to release new or modified products.

My experiences as a technical specialist have convinced me that I am committed to becoming an attorney specializing in intellectual property law. I have the technical aptitude and determination to succeed as an attorney and now seek the necessary formal legal education to become an effective advocate and trusted advisor. I believe that my background, professional experiences, and maturity will allow me to contribute a unique perspective to the student body at the Boston University School of Law.

Jacquelyn: Teach for America participant who learned to love home

Q&A with  Jackie

“Although my students may never know it, my time as their teacher has instilled in me a sense of urgency and purpose that fuels me to continue working for children and their families as long as I am able.”

When I applied for Teach for America in the winter of 2009, it was more for the opportunity to leave the Rio Grande Valley than to accomplish the movement’s real mission of bringing a quality education to low-income students. A predominantly Mexican area with most families living under the poverty line, the Valley represented, for me, a place where ignorance met apathy, a place where people got what they deserved, and above all else, a place I refused to spend any more time in. I applied for major cities around the nation, but Teach for America had different plans for me, and when notifications were sent out at the end of March, I was placed as an elementary special education teacher in the Rio Grande Valley. And in what I could only chalk up to be divine intervention, I was hired at the same elementary school that I had attended.

Two years and I will be done. I couldn’t shake that thought as I entered my classroom on the first day of school. Making a real difference seemed unlikely: my heart wasn’t into the work I was about to do. When the bell rang and I began picking up my students from their classes, life as I knew it ceased to exist.

That first day, I didn’t pick up a single child that wasn’t wearing dirty or ripped clothing. One was covered in bug bites. Another’s stomach growled as I walked the students through classroom rules and procedures. None smiled. I could not seem to wrap my mind around the fact that these students attended the same school that I so happily did not-so-many years before. By Thanksgiving, a brother and sister in my class scratched so hard at their wrists and fingers from poorly treated scabies that they’d return their assignments to me with small blood streaks staining the bottom. Stomachs still growled during my math lessons. But when a fifth-grade student told me she’d spent the night in a small bedroom closet, arms around her four younger siblings as her mother and father went at each other with broken bottles and angry fists, I could no longer stand it.

Something changed in me that day. I’m not quite sure if I finally grew up or realized the enormous responsibility my job had given me, but something changed. And for probably the first time in my life, I stopped thinking of only myself. Suddenly I was so ashamed of ever thinking negatively about being Mexican or growing up in the Valley—so embarrassed that I thought so little of the community that had given of their time to ensure that I would have all the opportunities in the world. It dawned on me that I was only able to have the strong opinions I did because countless individuals had made my success their mission. And it was time for me to do the same. It may have been pure chance that I ended up returning to the Valley where I was raised, but doing so gave me such an advantage over my Teach for America counterparts: Parents found me more trustworthy, my intentions and abilities as a teacher were rarely questioned, and my ability to speak Spanish comforted. My Valley roots made me an ally, and my children only benefited from this.

For the next three years, I poured my soul into my work and let my students have my heart. I organized community reading groups to get parents and neighbors involved in literacy. When parents began telling me that they wanted to help their children with math homework but didn’t understand the objectives, I requested my principal set up a family math night so that parents could come into my classroom and have me teach the concepts to them alongside their children. I watched as my community grew closer together and my students’ academic abilities blossomed. It didn’t matter if students had autism or Down Syndrome, learning disabilities or emotional disturbance. All my students were learning at a pace faster than expected. By the spring semester of my second year, I even dismissed two students from special education services entirely.

My time in the classroom has been a wonderful, challenging experience. I’ve seen children accomplish more than others thought possible; at times, certainly more than I thought possible. I’ve seen a real love of learning blossom in the children and the families I’ve served. These were my miracles—my proof that if you wanted something badly enough you could make it happen. My children made great gains. And I tried my hardest to do all the things I thought a great teacher needed to do. But at times, it still wasn’t enough. My children needed more. My classroom was a safe place for my students, but their time with me was limited. I could shelter them to my heart’s content during the day, but once that bell rang and I handed my children back to the outside world, all I could do was stand and watch as life’s circumstances tried and often did bring them down. That’s when I decided to apply for law school. I have enjoyed every moment in the classroom, but I want to help children and their families in ways I simply cannot as a teacher. I want to fight for them and their families in an effort to improve their lives as much as I possibly can. If I’ve learned anything from my time in the classroom, it is that even the smallest of changes in circumstance can make for the biggest changes in one’s quality of life.

This past year was my third working with students from my own community. And although my students may never know it, my time as their teacher has instilled in me a sense of urgency and purpose that fuels me to continue working for children and their families as long as I am able. Working as a special education teacher in my own community has taught me humility and respect. It has taught me that, for many children, the need is great, the time is short, and I have an obligation to do whatever I can to help. I now believe that those with special talents, extraordinary abilities, or just a moment of free time have a responsibility to help those around them in every way possible. I have learned that in helping others achieve even the smallest of victories, I have not only made new opportunities possible for them but also contributed to the content of my own character. A life of service is a noble one that I hope to achieve. A life where I can inspire as I have been inspired and offer hope when hope seems most unlikely.

I laugh a little now when I think about how a group of disabled children helped me find my home again and gave me a place in the world. They showed me that being from the Valley is something to cheer about. I am now so proud to be a Mexican-American woman with a rich culture and language who had the opportunity to learn from and be embraced by the community I spent a lifetime criticizing. I am so honored and humbled to have been a special education teacher for my little ones, showing them that education, opportunities, and justice are for everyone, regardless of life’s circumstances and arrogant opinions. As a law student, you will find few more passionate than I; as an attorney, few who work harder and demand greater of themselves. For three years, my students and their families have allowed me to work for them, trusting my judgment and welcoming my help. But I can do more. I am ready to do more.

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Law School Personal Statement with Examples

April 3, 2024

So you’re applying to law school? You’ve researched the LSAT , you’ve researched law schools , and now you’re preparing to write your personal statement. I’m sure you’ve got a lot on your plate so I won’t waste your time. In this blog, we’ll answer your questions, examine some law school personal statement examples, and discuss the law school personal statement format. Let’s dive right in.

What’s the purpose of a law school personal statement?

Here are the key objectives and functions of a law school personal statement:

1) Showcase your personal narrative

You can provide admissions committees with insight into who you are beyond your academic achievements and test scores. This essay allows you to share your personal narrative, experiences, values, and aspirations. Those details will help the admissions committee understand what motivates you and shapes your perspective.

2) Demonstrate your writing ability

Law schools place a high value on strong writing skills, because legal education and the legal profession require clear, concise, and persuasive communication. Your personal statement serves as a writing sample. The admissions committee will analyze your ability to articulate ideas effectively, organize thoughts coherently, and convey your message with clarity and precision.

3) Highlight your fit for the program

Your personal statement should also demonstrate why you are a good fit for the specific law school you’re applying to. So research the institution and tailor your statement accordingly. Then you can articulate how your interests, goals, and values align with the school’s mission, programs, and culture.

Law School Personal Statement with Examples (Continued)

4) Provide context for your application

Additionally, your personal statement offers context for the rest of your application. It allows you to address any inconsistencies or gaps in your application, explain unique circumstances, and showcase your growth and resilience.

5) Differentiate yourself from other applicants

In a competitive admissions process, a well-crafted personal statement can help you stand out from other applicants. By sharing authentic and compelling experiences and perspectives, you can distinguish yourself as a unique and valuable candidate.

6) Demonstrate your commitment to the legal profession

Admissions committees seek candidates who are passionate about pursuing a legal education and making a positive impact in the profession. So your personal statement should convey your sincere interest in law, your understanding of its challenges and responsibilities, and your readiness to contribute to the legal community.

  Law school personal statement format

Formatting a personal statement for law school is crucial as it helps convey your message clearly and professionally. So before we look at some law school personal statement examples, here are the key components of the law school personal statement format:

Most law schools have specific guidelines regarding the length of personal statements, typically ranging from one to two pages. So it’s essential to adhere to these guidelines to ensure your statement is concise and focused.

Font and size

Use a professional font like Times New Roman and adjust the size to 12 points. This ensures readability and maintains a formal appearance.

Introduction

Begin with a strong and engaging introduction that captures the reader’s attention. This section should set the tone for the rest of your statement and provide context for your motivations.

Body paragraphs

Organize your statement into several paragraphs, each focusing on a specific theme or aspect of your background, experiences, and motivations for pursuing law school.

Transitions

Use transitional phrases and sentences to smoothly transition between different ideas and paragraphs. This helps maintain coherence and flow throughout your statement, ensuring that each section builds upon the previous one.

End your statement with a compelling conclusion that reinforces your motivations for pursuing a legal education. Focus on leaving a lasting impression on the reader.

Stick to the guidelines

Follow any specific formatting guidelines provided by the law school, such as file format requirements or word count limitations. Adhering to these guidelines demonstrates attention to detail and professionalism.

Two law school personal statement examples

With the law school personal statement format fresh in our minds, let’s take a look at some examples.

Here’s the first of our law school personal statement examples:

As I gaze into the innocent eyes of my two young daughters, I’m filled with boundless love. In their laughter and curiosity, I see the promise of a bright future—but intertwined with that hope is a profound fear and an overwhelming sense of responsibility. I can never forget the sobering reality of climate change, a crisis that threatens to reshape the world they will inherit.

My journey towards law school is not merely a pursuit of personal ambition but a solemn commitment to safeguarding the future of my children and generations to come. Growing up amidst the rolling hills of California, I witnessed the devastating effects of wildfires and droughts. Yet, it was the birth of my daughters that catalyzed my transformation from concerned bystander to impassioned advocate.

Driven by this newfound purpose, I immersed myself in climate advocacy, from grassroots campaigns to policy research. I rallied alongside fellow parents and concerned citizens, demanding accountability from policymakers and corporations alike. Each petition signed, each protest attended, was fueled by the determination to leave behind a world worthy of my daughters.

I want to leverage the power of the law as a force for environmental justice and sustainability. The University of Oregon is where my passion for climate advocacy meets the rigors of legal education. Its esteemed faculty and commitment to social responsibility offer the ideal platform to amplify my voice and effect meaningful change.

At the University of Oregon, I aspire to become not only a skilled attorney but also a champion for the planet. With each legal brief penned and each precedent set, I’ll strive to leave behind a legacy of hope and resilience. And I’ll ensure that my children inherit a world teeming with possibility, not plagued by relentless climate catastrophes.

Why the first of our law school personal statement examples works:

Compelling narrative

First, the statement begins with the applicant reflecting on their young daughters and their concern for the future amidst the looming threat of climate change . This narrative immediately grabs the reader’s attention and sets the stage for the applicant’s personal journey.

Personal connection

The applicant demonstrates a deep personal connection to the issue of climate change. This personal connection adds authenticity and depth to their motivations for pursuing law school.

Commitment to advocacy

The statement showcases the applicant’s proactive approach to addressing climate change through advocacy work, including grassroots campaigns and policy research. This demonstrates their dedication and initiative in confronting pressing societal issues.

Alignment with law school

The applicant articulates why they’re drawn to the specific law school they’re applying to. They emphasize how the University of Oregon’s commitment to social responsibility and environmental justice aligns with their own values and aspirations. This shows that the applicant has researched the law school and understands how its resources can support their goals.

Vision for the future

Finally, it concludes with a vision of the applicant’s future role as an attorney dedicated to environmental justice and sustainability. This, coupled with their commitment to leaving behind a positive legacy for future generations, highlights their long-term goals and ambition.

Overall, this personal statement effectively combines personal narrative, passion, and commitment to showcase the applicant’s readiness for law school and their potential to make a meaningful impact in the field of environmental law.

Here’s the second of our law school personal statement examples:

Nestled amidst the golden fields of rural America, I learned from an early age that community is not just a place. It’s a commitment to looking out for one another in times of need. Growing up in a tight-knit community, I was instilled with values of empathy, compassion, and service.

On an autumn morning several years ago, there was a knock at my door. On my porch was my neighbor Sarah, a single mother. She told me about the looming eviction notice that threatened to upend her family’s life. As she looked at me with desperate eyes, I felt a surge of empathy and determination.

I sprang into action and rallied the support of our neighbors. Together, we organized to challenge the unjust eviction and provide Sarah with the assistance she needed. This experience ignited my passion for social justice and set me on a path towards law school.

Throughout my undergraduate journey, I dove into political science and community development. I immersed myself in research projects that shed light on the lived experiences of marginalized communities. One particularly impactful project involved collaborating with local activists to advocate for the expansion of affordable housing programs. This culminated in a successful city council vote that brought tangible relief to countless families in need.

The allure of UC Davis lies not only in its esteemed faculty and rigorous curriculum but also in its dedication to fostering a culture of advocacy and social change. Its renowned clinics and externship opportunities offer a unique platform to translate classroom knowledge into real-world impact. I’m eager to contribute my firsthand experiences and passion for justice to the vibrant community of UC Davis, where every voice is heard, and every action is a step towards a more equitable future.

Why the second of our law school personal statement examples works:

Compelling introduction

The statement begins with vivid imagery and a nostalgic portrayal of the applicant’s upbringing in rural America. This sets the stage for the narrative and establishes the values that have shaped the applicant’s worldview.

Personal anecdote

The story of Sarah, the single mother facing eviction , demonstrates the applicant’s empathy, compassion, and commitment to social justice. Additionally, it showcases their ability to take initiative and mobilize their community in times of need.

Connection to law school

The statement effectively connects the applicant’s personal experiences to their decision to pursue law school. It highlights how their passion for social justice was ignited by their experiences. Then it also emphasizes their determination to use the law as a tool for positive change.

Academic and experiential background

The applicant provides specific examples of their academic and experiential background. They include involvement in political science and community development research projects. This demonstrates their commitment to understanding systemic injustices and their ability to engage in meaningful advocacy work.

Fit for the law school

The statement concludes by articulating why the applicant is drawn to the specific law school they are applying to. It mentions UC Davis’s dedication to advocacy and social change, aligning with the applicant’s values and aspirations. This shows that the applicant has done their research. Additionally, it shows their clear vision for how the law school’s resources align with their goals.

Overall, this personal statement effectively showcases the applicant’s passion, commitment, and readiness for law school, making them a compelling candidate for admission.

How to brainstorm for your law school personal statement

Here are some strategies to help you brainstorm effectively:

1) Reflect on personal experiences

First, think about significant events, challenges, or accomplishments in your life that have shaped your identity and aspirations. Also, consider how these experiences have influenced your interest in law and your commitment to social justice or advocacy.

2) Identify core values and beliefs

Reflect on your core values, beliefs, and principles that guide your decision-making and actions. Then consider how these values align with the mission and values of the law schools you’re interested in. Also, consider how they inform your interest in pursuing a legal education.

3) Evaluate unique experiences and perspectives

Consider any unique experiences, perspectives, or backgrounds you bring to the table that may set you apart from other applicants. Reflect on how these experiences have shaped your perspective and how they contribute to your readiness for law school.

4) Seek inspiration from others

Talk to family members, friends, mentors, or advisors who know you well. They may offer valuable perspectives and help you uncover ideas you hadn’t considered.

5) Freewriting and mind mapping

Finally, set aside time for freewriting or mind mapping exercises. This is where you jot down ideas, memories, thoughts, and associations related to your interest in law school. Allow yourself to explore different angles and connections without judgment.

By engaging in these brainstorming strategies, you can generate a wealth of ideas and insights to inform your law school personal statement.

Final Thoughts – Law School Personal Statement with Examples

Well, you’ve analyzed the law school personal statement examples and the law school personal statement format. You understand the purpose of the personal statement and all the nuances it brings to your application. You know how to brainstorm. Now you’re ready to find your inspiration, choose your topic, and craft your story. Happy writing!

You may also wish to check out the following relevant blogs:

• LSAT Test Dates – 2024
• Best Law Schools in Georgia
• 15 Best Law Schools in New York
• Best Entertainment & Sports Law Schools
• Law School Admissions

Mariya holds a BFA in Creative Writing from the Pratt Institute and is currently pursuing an MFA in writing at the University of California Davis. Mariya serves as a teaching assistant in the English department at UC Davis. She previously served as an associate editor at Carve Magazine for two years, where she managed 60 fiction writers. She is the winner of the 2015 Stony Brook Fiction Prize, and her short stories have been published in Mid-American Review , Cutbank , Sonora Review , New Orleans Review , and The Collagist , among other magazines.

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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.

Read More: Find Your Law School

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.

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What is a law personal statement?

A law UCAS personal statement should detail why you are a great candidate for a law degree by drawing on all your skills, experience and strengths.

For many years, law has been a popular and competitive course, so it's important you make your personal statement the best it can be. 

Attention to detail and the ability to form an argument are two of the most important skills required to become a good lawyer, as well as being able to support ideas with evidence.

Our law personal statement examples above will help you put together your own, unique statement, and our personal statement template and editing services can also provide further guidance.

University admissions tutors want to see you are a dedicated student that can bring value to their department, so spend as much time as possible writing the perfect statement!

How do I write a law personal statement?

A good law personal statement should include:

• career plans
• skills (e.g. analytical, problem solving, etc.) and
• achievements.

Make sure you provide examples of everything to back up what you are saying, and remember - don't tell lies, or use homour (this isn't the time or place).

Before submitting your UCAS form, give your law personal statement to friends, family and tutors for feedback and incorporate any amendments that you think will improve your statement further.

What should I include in my law personal statement?

• First of all, look at university websites (particularly those you are applying to) for any tips and advice they have on personal statements for their law degrees. Any information straight from the horse's mouth is always a bonus!
• Demonstrate your aptitude for the course you’ve chosen. For example, a criminal law personal statement might mention some work experience with the local police, while an international law personal statement might reference some extra reading you’ve done on international cases.
• Talk about your work experience - whether you have worked in a shop or cafe, or volunteered at a local community centre, make sure you include any relevant skills you learned during this time. For example, the laws on tipping staff, or how many hours you are allowed to work as a volunteer.
• The best law personal statements always show passion for the subject, and why pursuing law is so important to you.

For more help and advice on what to write in your law personal statement, please see:

• Personal Statement Editing Services
• Personal Statement Tips From A Teacher
• Analysis Of A Personal Statement
• The 15th January UCAS Deadline: 4 Ways To Avoid Missing It
• Personal Statement FAQs
• Personal Statement Timeline
• 10 Top Personal Statement Writing Tips
• What To Do If You Miss The 15th January UCAS Deadline.

How do I write a law personal statement introduction?

You should write about your initial interest in law, but make sure you explain where this interest came from, and isn't just a last-minute decision because you had to pick a subject to study.

An anecdote often works well here (if you have one) to help draw the reader in and act as a hook for your statement. For example, you might talk about an injustice you witnessed as a child, or how a family member's experience with the law made you want to learn more about it.

If you look through the law personal statement examples on our website, you'll see that this applicant about how a visit to their local Magistrate's court impacted their career choice:

"I first became interested in studying law after visiting my local Magistrates' Court in Melbourne, Australia. After witnessing the impact a lawyer could have on the outcome of a case and on a person's life I saw that a career in law offered a career in which my work made an impact in the world around me and a career in which I could directly see the consequences of my work."

Try not to start your personal statement with something mundane, such as a definition or explanation of law. Remember, you don’t need to prove you know what the subject is (or try to teach to the admissions tutor who already knows their stuff!). You need to demonstrate your passion and enthusiasm for it, which is the type of student the university will want on their course.

If you choose to explain why you want to study law, mention the skills or knowledge you’ll build, and how you hope to grow as a person. You can then mention any career plans or future ambitions you have as a concluding paragraph at the end.

How do I write a law personal statement conclusion?

As mentioned above, it's a good idea to talk about your future plans in the last few sentences of your law personal statement. However, this isn't a must, and if you prefer, you can round off your statement with your hobbies and extracurricular activities, and what you've gained from these. For example, this applicant chose to talk about sports they play and their part-time job, and how these activities have helped them to balance their studies with other commitments:

"Outside school, I have participated in badminton and swimming activities, and worked part time throughout my final school year. This has enabled me to learn to balance the requirements of study with extra-curricular activities, and develop valuable skills which will see me succeed in university and beyond."

Another applicant chose to talk about why they had decided to apply to study at a university in the UK:

"I chose to study in the UK, because in my opinion, it has the best universities in Europe. The United Kingdom has continuously developed its educational system for centuries, the result of this being important values, such as refinement and modernity.

It is the ideal place for a young and motivated student to study in order to have a shining career. It will surely give me the chance to trace a clear line between law and morality."

However you decide to conclude your statement, try to end it on a positive note that will leave a lasting impression on the admissions tutors.

You can read other conclusions that applicants have used in the past over at our law personal statement examples section.

What can I do with a law degree?

There are many career options available to those wanting to study law at university. These include:

• Chartered legal executive
• Legal secretary
• Patent attorney

For more information about careers with a law degree, please see Prospects and the Law Society .

What are the best UK universities for law?

Currently, the best universities in the UK for studying law are:

For more information on UK university rankings for law, please see The Complete University Guide and The Times Higher Education .

Further resources

• The Lawyer Portal
• How to become a lawyer
• The Law Application
• The University of Law
• University of Oxford Law

UCAS Law Personal Statement Advice

• Uni Compare Law Personal Statement Examples

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How to write a law personal statement.

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How to Write a Law School Personal Statement

Many prospective law students can feel overwhelmed when faced with the task of writing a law school personal statement, one of the most subjective pieces of your law school application .

A good personal statement is interesting to read without needing to rely on shock value. It should have a conversational tone; it’s not there to show how many big words you know, but rather to offer insight into your character.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Why Are Law School Personal Statements Important?

Tips for picking a law school personal statement topic, law school personal statement faqs.

• How To Format Your Law School Personal Statement
• How To Write a Great Law School Personal Statement
• How To Edit Your Law School Personal Statement

Law School Personal Statement Example

What you should not do in a law school personal statement.

Law school personal statements are important because they can turn what would have otherwise been a certain rejection into an offer of admission.

They help admission committees get to know you in a way they couldn’t from other pieces of your law school application. And, hopefully, it also shows why a law degree is the next logical step for you.

When deciding what to write in your personal statement, do not make stuff up. Stick with what has really happened to you and how it affected you, and you will write a better personal statement than if you pretend.

Do Your Research

Read as many personal statements as you can. Discovering what has worked vs what doesn’t work is equally important.

Admission committees are very experienced at reading personal statements. They can quickly sniff out when something rings false.

Be Yourself

Admission committees utilize the personal statement portion of the application to learn about you and why you want to go to law school. Tell your story, and do not try to hide who you are.

Discuss Personal Stories with Friends and Family

Try getting feedback on your topic ideas from family or friends.  If they have been to law school, even better, but talking about your topic and learning how to articulate why you chose that topic for your personal statement will help you flesh out good ideas vs bad ideas. 

[ RELATED: LSAT Admissions Consulting ]

Try a Reflective Writing Exercise

You should get in the habit of being able to think deeply about how your interests and experiences relate to attending law school. Try writing a sentence or two for each of these prompts to get warmed up:

• What you’ve done
• Why you did it
• What it meant to you
• How it affected you

Then try writing a paragraph or more in response to these prompts:

• Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?
• Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?
• Describe a problem you’ve solved or a problem you’d like to solve. Anything of personal importance, no matter the scale. Explain its significance to you and what steps you took or could be taken to identify a solution.

The personal statement is an integral part of the law school application, and it is important that you not only take it seriously but also try your best to have fun with it. Many questions may be circulating in your head that you feel need to be answered before you start to write your personal statement. Let’s look at frequently asked questions applicants have about writing their personal statements.

How long are LSAC personal statements?

Some law schools ask for only five hundred words, while others allow for up to four pages double-spaced. However, most schools ask for a two-to-three-page (double-spaced) essay.

Law schools have personal statement length requirements for two reasons: (1) to test your ability to follow directions (keeping to the length requirement) and (2) to evaluate how well you write.

What can I expect from the personal statement prompt? 

Most law school personal statement prompts are pretty vague and give the applicant a lot of room to interpret it as they see fit. 

Personal statement prompts are usually a general question and contain a page or word limit; exact requirements will vary from one school to the next. If you have questions you should get in touch with the admissions office via phone or email.

How personal should my personal statement be?

Incorporating emotion into your personal statement could make it more interesting and easier to read, but if you overdo it you can sound like you’re whining, begging, or trying to write a sob story—which can, in turn, be perceived as disingenuous.

Admissions committees want to see passion, but they also want to see who you are. It is extremely important to be honest. Law schools can see right through feigned emotions. Remember, they’ve probably read hundreds of thousands of these, and it’s very easy for them to detect when people aren’t being authentic. Allow yourself to be vulnerable, open, and clear—but make sure it comes from the heart.

A law school personal statement does not mean a mandatory hardship story. While getting through a rough life situation can be a great place from which to pull material for your personal statement, it is not even close to the only way to write a stellar piece, especially if it means overstating reality or making up emotional lessons that weren’t really present.

The biggest key to the law school personal statement is to be honest. The story you want to tell about how you’ve gotten where you are today doesn’t have to be exciting or on a grand scale or heartbreaking, it just needs to show something important about you.

“If you write about your childhood in your personal statement, you must find a way to tie it to your adulthood.”

Should you discuss your decision to attend law school in your personal statement?

This topic is contentious. If the rest of your application does not clearly indicate why you are applying—say, for example, you have no legal internship or student group experience, majored in a subject unrelated to law, and spent the past five years working in a biology lab—then you should at least touch on your reasons for pursuing a law degree in your personal statement.

However, if your application already demonstrates why you are applying to law school—whether through your college extracurricular activities, your work history, or your coursework—then you are probably safe to submit a personal statement that does not directly mention your decision to attend law school.

How to Format Your Law School Personal Statement

Law school personal statements should be:

• Double-spaced, left-aligned
• In 11 or 12-point Times New Roman font
• Uses a single space after a period
• Contain page numbers
• Use one-inch margins on all sides
• Your LSAC number
• The words “Personal Statement”

Signatures and titles are not needed for law school personal statements.

How to Write a Great Law School Personal Statement

The trick to writing is getting that first word, sentence, or paragraph on the page; after that, everything can follow more easily. If you are having trouble starting your intro paragraph, start with the body of your essay. Saving the introduction or conclusion till the end is much easier for some people.

In each section of your essay, bring in references to who you are and how you will enhance the law school’s student body. Instead of just saying that you are diligent and compassionate, say that your experience training to run a marathon taught you the value of consistent hard work, and the time you spent volunteering with Habitat for Humanity showed you how important it is to empathize and help the under-resourced members of society. 

Find ways to make the things that you’ve done support your contention that you’ll bring something great to the law school.

Start with an Outline

Take your thoughts and organize them into an outline. Try to incorporate key attributes about yourself into your headings.

Remember that legal professionals place a high value on organization—a good personal statement is clearly organized and easy to follow—and since at least some of the people reading and evaluating your essay are legally trained, creating a good outline is crucial.

Personal Statement Intro Section

Starting a personal statement can be difficult and it may be easier for you to leave this section of your personal statement as the last thing you write. Use this section to introduce yourself, catch the attention of the reader, and set up your story.  

Tips for writing an introduction paragraph

• Avoid catchy openings like “from a young age” or “I have always wanted to…”
• Get to the point quickly
• Start with something interesting, relevant, and specific
• Think about what is inspiring you today
• Avoid exclamation points to emphasize your excitement

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 reader to the next body paragraph or the concluding paragraph.

In the climax of your essay, use concrete language and zoom in on the moment of transition.

For example, if you talk about your financial stress, which was caused by foreclosure and you didn’t have an attorney, which led to you getting sick, don’t say that you “experienced hardship” or that it  “took a toll” on your health. What was the hardship? What was the toll? Specific, concrete details give transition moments their power.

[ TIP: Vary your sentence length to keep readers interested ]

Personal Statement Conclusion Section

The conclusion section of your personal statement should re-emphasize and summarize your main points.  It should be concise and leave the reader with a greater understanding of who you are and why law school is the next logical step for you in your education.  

If you are having trouble, consider taking a break and asking for help .  

Overcoming Writer’s Block

We all suffer from writer’s block sometimes, and it can be particularly brutal when the stakes are high … like when you are trying to get into law school.

One way to cut through the blockage is to make a stream-of-consciousness list of word associations. Start with a memory (e.g., first grade), a person (e.g., grandmother), or a place (e.g., the beach), and then just write down every word that comes to mind for the next two to three minutes. Do not worry if the words that come to mind are absurd (e.g., tuna, rabbits, dominoes)—they are coming from somewhere, and one of them just might trigger a memory that makes you think, “Ah! That could have a place in this essay.”

This advice may sound a little silly and unguided, but that is precisely the point. When you are experiencing writer’s block, that is a sign that you are too “in your head”—that is, your conscious mind. You need to hop over from your left brain to your right, which is less judgmental and more creative.

How to edit your law school personal statement

Do not underestimate how crucial editing is to writing a good personal statement. Editing is about far more than correcting your spelling and punctuation. A hastily edited personal statement could very well be the thing that makes the difference between “Congratulations!” and “We regret to inform you…”.

Inspect the Structure

Your first goal should be to make sure that your personal statement is well organized. Return to the outline that you wrote and shift things around if necessary. Make sure each topic sentence inspires you to keep reading.

Copyediting

Run the spell-check, of course, but also read through on your own, very carefully. If your typo is a correctly-spelled but inappropriately used word, it won’t set off the spell-check. Pay attention to your use of commas, semi-colons, and other punctuation marks; consult a resource on English language mechanics if you have any doubts about usage.

[ TIP: Make sure that you mention the correct law school in the essay ]

Verify Personal Statement Is About You

Avoid including too much about “the world” and/or too little about yourself.  Look for these items throughout your personal statement.

• 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 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.

Get Feedback From Others

Once you’ve fully completed editing, ask several people whose writing skills you trust to look over your essay and offer suggestions. Ask them if they came away with a clear and cohesive sense of you as an individual. 

Incorporate Feedback

When you’ve gotten feedback from others, incorporate suggestions you find valuable into your rewrites. Repeat this as necessary until you get an essay that you’ve proud of… or until your application is due, whichever comes first.

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

I don’t imagine the process of coming out as gay is easy for anyone. I can still remember the first time the words came out of my mouth. The person I told, my best friend, waited expectantly for the big news I had promised her over the phone. My heart began to beat faster. My palms were sweating. A million thoughts raced through my head. Here was something integral to my identity, something so deep it had taken me years to uncover. And I was about to tell someone who could either accept it, or turn away from me.

Fortunately, the experience in my case was a positive one, overall. Without fail, my closest friends and family told me they loved me, and would continue to do so. There were, of course, some people who did not accept me, and that hurt in ways that I can’t begin to explain. But the ones who really mattered embraced me, and coming out to them was an affirming experience. I knew even more than I had before that I had a network of people around me who cared for me and supported me.

When I was in college, I became involved in activities that affirmed my identity further. I organized on campus for things like a gay student union and gender non-specific bathrooms, and the groups I worked with had various levels of success with these projects. But [my undergraduate university] is a largely queer-friendly school in [a large metropolitan city], and so the activities felt somewhat sheltered. After organizing with these campus groups for a while, I branched out and began volunteering for organizations in the larger city ….

I had always known that not everyone’s experience of coming out as gay was as positive as mine, but it was when I became involved with these organizations that I began to see just how cruel the world could be to LGBTQIA [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, intersex, and asexual] people. I met thirteen-year-olds who had been abused and thrown into the street because they were gay. I met trans women who had been discriminated against for their identities by bosses and landlords. I met drag queens whose daily experience involved street harassment and the threat of bodily harm. For the first time in my life I was surrounded by people who were struggling every day to meet their basic needs like food and shelter because of their identities.

I also began to learn from people who were older than me, who had slept on the Chelsea Piers, and lived through the plague of HIV and AIDS. I learned about intersectionality, the varied forms that oppression can take and where they meet in an individual’s life. I learned of how mainstream organizations like HRC [Human Rights Campaign] and those involved in the fight for marriage equality often jettison the most vulnerable members of queer struggle in order to achieve what they consider the “greater good”—like the exclusion of transgender people from the Employment Non-Discrimination Act in the ‘90s. I learned about assimilation of gay people into mainstream society, and how it worked remarkably well for some while for others it would never, ever be an option.

In the end, it was these—the most vulnerable members of my community—that I found the most reason to fight for. People whose doctors won’t treat them because they’re HIV positive. Trans men and trans women without legal documentation who can’t find a lawyer that will take them on. Intersex prisoners who the prison industrial complex tries to squeeze into its limited boxes.

I honestly believe going to law school is the best way I can help these people. I have spent years writing and signing petitions, organizing LGBTQIA dance parties, protesting in the streets. Now, as I enter the phase of my life in which I am choosing a profession, I want it to be one that takes all I have learned and keeps it in the forefront of my mind. I want to stand up for the people in my community who have so few advocates.

A queer utopia—that is, a world in which the struggles I have learned of through my involvement in the LGBTQIA community no longer exist—is still a long way off. But I have seen good people filling in the gaps in the lives of those most strongly affected by inequality. I am committed to becoming one of those people, and I feel that this is the best way I can do it.

A story illustrating the reasons you want to go to law school is always going to be more effective than a generic essay that anyone could have written; remember the point of the law school personal statement is to show a law school something unique about yourself. 

Law School Personal Statement Don’ts

• Avoid dramatic tales of romance
• Curse often
• Avoid absolute statements which tend to sound more unreasoned than reasoned— law school is all about reason
• Do not submit an essay version of your resume
• Do not use the same personal statement for every school

[ NEXT: What not to do in a law school personal statement ]

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How to Write a Personal Statement for Law School

Your personal statement is your opportunity to showcase your writing ability and stand out from the other applicants. It should highlight something unique about you that would add value to a law school student body. This article will offer tips for writing a personal statement for law school to help you get that coveted acceptance letter from the top school on your list.

Reality Check: The Law School Admissions Process

More students are applying to law schools in recent years, but schools are not increasing the size of their incoming classes. With more students  competing for the same number of seats, law schools can be more selective in the admissions process. According to an analysis of data from the American Bar Association by Spivey Consulting, the  average national acceptance rate was 45.1 percent  in 2019.

Law schools want students who can master class material, pass the bar exam, and ultimately succeed in the practice of law. LSAT or other entrance exam scores and GPAs play an important role in that assessment, but they’re not the only indicators of a student’s potential. Admissions counselors are looking for individuals with the discipline and stamina to withstand the rigors of law school and bring outside interests and passions to the law school experience.

That’s why law schools ask for a personal essay. Admissions counselors will never meet most applicants; therefore, the admissions package must tell the student’s story. And with increasing numbers of applications to wade through, admissions counselors are looking for a compelling story that will help them identify students who will be successful.

What to Include in Your Personal Statement

Because there are no specific prerequisites or undergraduate degrees required for law school, applicants tend to come from a wide range of educational backgrounds. The personal statement is meant to add depth and insight into the courses, extracurricular activities, and other information in your admissions package. But don’t just brag or rehash your resume. Instead, show how your personal experience will translate well into the law school experience.

Specifically, your personal statement should explain:

Why you want to go to law school and what do you hope to do with your degree (it’s okay if you don’t know for certain what your career plans are)

What personal strengths will help ensure your success in law school

How you plan to approach the task of learning new ways of thinking and meeting the challenges of a rigorous program

Your personal statement should also convey that you possess the qualities of a good lawyer:

A strong ability to communicate

Critical thinking skills

Problem-solving

With these basic concepts in mind, carefully read the prompt provided by the law school. Some prompts are very broad, but others are more individually tailored. Make sure your personal statement is responsive to the prompt and conforms to length limits. If you write a generic, boilerplate statement, the admissions committee will be able to tell.

How to Frame Your Personal Statement

Your personal statement should answer the questions provided in the prompt, ideally by telling a story. Think about something unique in your personal experience that would add color and specificity to your responses. Some options for framing the personal statement include:

An event or circumstance that shaped you as a person

A cause that you are passionate about

Difficulties that you have overcome

Personal accomplishments that you’re particularly proud of

How you’ve always dreamed of a career in law, or how your career ambitions have changed and why

Remember that this is a personal narrative—don’t lead with a discussion of a law-related topic but rather with an anecdote or story about yourself with vivid details to hook the reader’s interest. At the same time, however, make sure that your narrative is clearly linked to the legal field and that any personal details are relevant to characteristics that would be valuable to success in law school and the legal profession. Try to convey your unique voice, but avoid extreme positions or content that may offend some readers.

Tips for Getting It Right

The most important thing to remember is that  you  must write your personal statement. If you don’t feel you’re a strong enough writer to compose your personal statement, perhaps law school isn’t the right path for you. Also, another person will not be able to convey your narrative with the same perspective, insight, and passion.

That doesn’t mean you have to sit down and write it all in one go. Just be sure to allow enough time to let the first draft sit for at least a day before reviewing. Read your personal statement critically, with an eye toward clarity and flow. And remember that revising is as important as writing—if it doesn’t work, don’t be afraid to rewrite any portion of it.

At this point, you can engage the assistance of another person. Ask a trusted individual to critique your first draft and provide constructive feedback. Continue to polish your narrative, referring back to the prompt to ensure that you’ve answered all the questions thoroughly.

Once the copy is final, proofread carefully—read it aloud front to back and then back to front. Make sure the finished piece adheres to the specifications provided by the law school, if any.

The Final Analysis

The law school admission process is serious business. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t relax and have some fun while writing your personal statement.

The personal statement allows you to go beyond dry numbers and tell your unique story. Approach it as an opportunity to shine and show how you’ll be a successful law student and, ultimately, a great lawyer.

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Law personal statements

Scroll down this page to find a collection of real personal statements written by students applying to study economics and related courses at university.

Plus, over on The Uni Guide, we've also got advice from universities on what they want to see in a law personal statement . 

Among the tips shared by admissions experts: back up everything with examples from your life; focus your statement on yourself, not your grades; show your interest outside the classroom; cover relevant work experience.

Law personal statement examples - top rated by students

We have lots of law personal statement examples that you can read through. To help you find the best ones, we asked students to vote for which they found the most useful. 

The following personal statements are those that were the most highly rated.

Law degree personal statement example (2z) Oxford, Warwick offers Submitted by: Anonymous "Law has been one of the most relevant, interesting and necessary areas of life throughout the ages- it has kept order, helped build civilisations..."

Law degree personal statement example (3k) applicant advice Submitted by: Anonymous "Law as an academic discipline offers the ability to answer some of the biggest questions facing society today. Moreover, the law..."

Law degree personal statement example (3b) Cambridge, Nottingham offers Submitted by: Anonymous "The diverse and multifaceted nature of the law, as well as the fact that it has an impact on so many different aspects of society is..."

Law degree personal statement example (1x)          Submitted by : Anonymous "Without the law, society will cease to exist as we know it. It is of vital importance, and protects individuals from the major power of..."

Law degree personal statement example (2a)          Submitted by: Anonymous "My interest in law stems from the knowledge that it affects every aspect of our lives, despite our often being oblivious to it..."

Law personal statement example          Submitted by: Anonymous "I first realised I wished to study law whilst reading a newspaper, when it suddenly occurred to me that every article..."

Law degree personal statement example (1o) international applicant Submitted by: Anonymous          "I am a person keen on challenges. Law will provide me with the kind of constant challenge I have always craved, while..."

Law degree personal statement example (2j)          Submitted by: Anonymous "My love of law stemmed from a dislike of geography and severe stage fright. Unaware of the life-changing decision..."

Law degree personal statement example (3b) Cambridge, Nottingham offers Submitted by: Anonymous "The diverse and multifaceted nature of the law, as well as the fact that it has an impact on so many different aspects of society..."  

Law degree personal statement example (1n) work experience          Submitted by: Anonymous "While the law may be too ungainly and inefficient a vehicle to directly change the world, it offers a unique opportunity..."

Full list of law personal statement examples

More help with your personal statement.

You can find personal statement examples for other courses by using this subject list, or by returning to our personal statements by subject page.

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Application Toolkit: Written Statements

On this webpage, you will find our advice and guidance for approaching the two written statements in the application.

Beginning with the application for Fall Term 2024 enrollment, we now require that all applicants submit a Statement of Purpose and a Statement of Perspective. Although it is no longer an application component, much of the advice we shared about the personal statement may still be useful to applicants as they develop their Written Statements. We have preserved that information on this toolkit for your reference.

Changes to the J.D. Application Components

Instructions

Every applicant must submit both a Statement of Purpose and a Statement of Perspective, responding to the prompts below. Each Statement must be one to two pages in length, using double-spacing, one-inch margins, and a font size that is comfortable to read (no smaller than 11 point). We expect every applicant to use at least one full page for each Statement.

Statement of Purpose : What motivates you to pursue law? How does attending law school align with your ambitions, goals, and vision for your future?

Statement of Perspective : The Admissions Committee makes every effort to understand who you are as an individual and potential Harvard Law School student and graduate. Please share how your experiences, background, and/or interests have shaped you and will shape your engagement in the HLS community and the legal profession.

Blog Advice

• Visit the Admissions Blog
• View All Written Statements Blog Posts

Changes to the J.D. Program Application Components

August is here, and that means the J.D. Admissions Office is finalizing our application for the 2023–2024 cycle before it opens on September 15. One exciting change for this year: we have reworked our essay requirements and prompts.

August 4, 2023

Should you include a “why Harvard” statement in your application?

Each year at this time, we receive questions about how applicants should express interest in Harvard Law School. Include a “Why Harvard” essay? Talk about HLS in the personal statement? Maybe an addendum on this topic? The answer to all these questions is the same: no, that’s not necessary.  Let’s start with the separate “why

December 2, 2022

Overrated/Underrated Part 3

Continuing our Overrated/Underrated series, this week, we shift our focus to highlight some of the overrated approaches that we recommend applicants avoid as they craft their applications. 

November 17, 2021

Overrated/Underrated Part 1

The J.D. Admissions team recently came together to offer their thoughts on some underrated and overrated approaches that applicants might take towards their HLS application. We hope you’ll find some of these nuggets useful.

September 9, 2021

Real Talk: The Personal Statement

For our first entry in the Real Talk series, Associate Director Nefyn Meissner shares advice on approaching the personal statement.

August 6, 2020

Personal Statement Advice

The personal statement is “an opportunity to give the Admissions Committee a better sense of who you are as a person and as a potential student and graduate of Harvard Law School.” But what does that mean to us?

November 6, 2018

Podcast Advice

Navigating law school admissions with miriam & kristi.

Miriam Ingber (Associate Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid at Yale Law School) and Kristi Jobson (Assistant Dean for Admissions at Harvard Law School) provide candid, accurate, and straightforward advice about law school admissions — direct from the source. They will be joined by guest stars from other law schools to discuss application timing, letters of recommendation, personal statements, and more.

• View All Episodes

Written Statements Workshop

Our Statement Workshop provides applicants with straightforward advice on how to craft essays with a reflective activity and guiding questions to consider.

We do understand mistakes happen. You are more than welcome to upload an updated document through your status checker. We will review the new material alongside what has been previously received.

Note that when you complete your application and hit “submit”, the information contained in your application may not be altered or deleted in any way by you as an applicant or by us as an admissions team.

Yes. Reapplicants will need to submit new written statements with their application.

We ask that transfer candidates also address the reason(s) for applying for transfer enrollment. Please visit our Transfer Applications Components for more information.

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I Got a Full-Ride to Law School Using This Personal Statement

Law school admissions certainly are intimidating, especially when it comes to the rather daunting task of writing a personal statement with no real prompt. Generally, law schools will ask for no more than two pages of basically whatever you would like to talk about.

However, there are a few well-established principles for writing a successful personal statement. Here are 4 principles, along with my own personal statement, to help you hit a home run:

The personal statement should only drive your application forward. If it is holding it back in any way, it is not ready.

Your personal statement should explain your interest or purpose for studying the law.

This does not have to be the backbone of the entire piece, but it should be at least mentioned somewhere. It should also avoid legal jargon and should not be some sort of showcase for legal knowledge. It also should not be a regurgitation of your resume. The committee will already have your resume, so the personal statement serves as a supplement to it.

Spend the time making your personal statement better.

To get a competitive offer from whichever law school you may be applying to, it all starts with a good application package. The admissions committee is going to want to see a good LSAT score , a strong GPA, some recommendations, and a well-written personal statement. That much is clear. Your personal statement may never feel like it is just right, but it can only become better with consistent time and effort spent drafting it again and again.

Research examples of well-written personal statements.

To get some ideas about what a good personal statement could look like, I did a preliminary search to read a few successful ones. The University of Chicago had a few essays posted on  their site  from admitted students that gave me a good point of reference. Although there is tremendous flexibility in writing the personal statement, it should not be so wacky as to discourage the admissions committee in your abilities as a writer or in your seriousness about attending law school.

Take advantage of the resources around you to make your statement the best.

For my statement, I went through a couple of potential concepts and decided to do one on my life’s motto. And, no, it was not some cliché that I pretended was my motto; I picked words that I truly lived by and continue to live by to this day. I spent many hours writing and rewriting my personal statement. Thankfully, I had the invaluable help of my roommate, who is a strong writer himself, and he gave me useful feedback on many of my drafts (I promised him a nice dinner if I ended up getting admitted with a full-ride to somewhere). When I got close to a final draft, I took it to my school’s writer’s workshop to have someone I had never met before read it aloud. It allowed me to hear where someone might misunderstand something so that I could make changes accordingly for the final product.

Beginning in the spring, picking up in September, accelerating further in October, and finishing in November when I sent my applications out, the whole process produced something that I thought gave me a very strong shot at success. So here it is. Enjoy:

“Ball: outside!” declared the umpire.

“Come on now! Get ahead, stay ahead, kid!” demanded my coach.

I checked the sign: fastball. That pitch was just not there; I shook my head no. My catcher gave me the next sign: curveball. Yes, the get-me-over-curve, my signature pitch. I stepped back to begin my windup.

“Steeeeeriiike! One and one,” the umpire grunted.

“That’s the way, Duff! Just like that!” my coach exclaimed.

My catcher fired that ball back to me. I toed the rubber and focused on his signs: he flashed two fingers and motioned to the right—curveball, outside. I nodded affirmatively. He and I were on the same page. I began my windup again, picked up the leg, and spun my big overhand curve to the plate.

“Two! One and two.” The batter stood motionless as he watched my back door hook clip the outer edge of the strike zone.

“One more now, Duff! Come on, kid!”

The pitch count, or the current amount of balls and strikes in a given at bat, is perhaps the most impactful construct of baseball. After every pitch, the umpire declares it to be a ball or strike, subsequently adding it to the count. If the batter reaches four balls, he earns a walk, or a free pass to first base; if he gets three strikes, the batter is out. The batter’s goal is to reach a base before three strikes. The pitcher does everything that he can to stop that.

As I got the ball back, I knew I was in the driver’s seat. The batter was at a tremendous disadvantage and would have to react to my pitches on two strikes rather than just being able to lock in on one. I leaned in for the sign: one finger, right, up—fastball, high and outside. I liked it. Even though it was not my best pitch that day, I understood that I could still use it effectively to keep batters off balance since I was ahead. I stepped back into the windup and let the pitch fly.

The batter flailed at the pitch. “Three!” shouted the umpire, raising his fist in the air to call him out. He was sitting on the big, slow curveball and not the fastball, but he could not be selective because he was down in the count. On to the next one.

“Atta kid! That’s what happens when you get ahead!”

Get ahead, stay ahead.

While my organized baseball playing days may be over, that fundamental is still strong. A picture of all-star pitcher Max Scherzer hurling a baseball towards the plate sits above my desk with that same motto in bolded letters:  Get Ahead, Stay Ahead .

What does getting ahead provide? For one, it gives the peace of mind that comes with flexibility; there’s room to react in case something goes off course. In baseball, it gives the pitcher more room to work within the count because he has more options when the batter must play defensively. In short, he can do what he wants. One of the key differences between baseball and life, however, is that baseball has a simple, predetermined goal: score more runs than the other team! Life, on the other hand, allows for enormous flexibility in choosing a goal. Rather than be content with the usual four-year bachelor’s track, I pushed forward as hard as I could to graduate in three years. Many people are surprised when I tell them about my efforts to graduate early; they often wonder why I chose to accelerate my education. I usually explain that it saved me a significant amount of money while expanding my room for error. Most importantly, I tell them, by efficiently reorganizing my schedule, getting ahead actually  gave  me time to think.

The most successful people throughout history have all had an overarching goal, no matter how grand; with the time from getting ahead, I chose mine. Andrew Carnegie sought to provide affordable steel, Henry Ford wanted to create a universal automobile, and Elon Musk aims to put a city on Mars. After seeing their success, I think about how I can do the same. Simply put, I want to be a leader in sustainable real estate. More specifically, I want to make green living universal. Whenever I get the same surprised looks from this claim as when I tell someone that I am graduating early, I clarify that there are already some pioneers designing revolutionary apartments with trees planted on all of their floors, working to clean the air in polluted cities. Stefano Boeri, for example, has designed a thirty-six-floor building covered with trees on terraces jutting out from its sides, dubbed the “Tower of Cedars.” I want to take this premise further: my mission is to expand clean living to all, not just the elite who can afford it. The law is one of the most important tools that I will need to achieve this. The complexities of environmental and real estate law will be major challenges. Regardless, to lead the industry, I must get ahead. When I start my business, I will reflect on my experience in running the Trial Team as its president, the perspective on efficient business systems that I gained with American Hotel Register, and the tips that the CEO of Regency Multifamily shared with me for optimally running a large real estate firm, among many other things. But I will always be looking forward. While history shows that there are answers in the past, only the future knows them. Thankfully, controlling the present by getting ahead can make the future that much more certain.

I stepped back into the windup, again. As I drove off the rubber towards the plate, I extended out as far as I could to get as much control and power as possible. The big hook landed firmly over the outer third of the plate, right into my catcher’s mitt with a solid  phwump .

“Steeeeeriiike! Oh-and-one.”

“Atta kid!” My coach was elated to see my pitch command this inning.

Are you inspired to get ahead? Don’t you just feel a sudden urge to admit me into your program? Well thankfully, it made an impression on someone. I did my best to show my ambitions while showing a bit of my personality. The greatest risk that I took was that some of the baseball jargon may have been hard to understand for someone unfamiliar with the sport, but I made sure that it would not detract from the overall meaning of the piece. It served as a useful supplement to the rest of my application.

As of 2018, I am enrolled at Chicago-Kent College of Law with a full tuition scholarship. While it is no Ivy program, it is a respectable school with a strong regional reputation. The great thing about having the financial burden of law school off my shoulders is that I can now focus on getting the most out of my studies, rather than stress to figure out how I am going to pay off the debt that would have financed my education. And if it turns out that the program is not the best option for me, I can walk away with no financial strings attached.

The personal statement should only drive your application forward. If it is holding it back in any way, it is not ready. Keep it professional but do be creative and show the reader more of your personality than a resume alone would give. You are selling them your brand as a student, so do not let them gloss over your application without much of a thought.

Jack graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in May 2018 with a degree in Economics and History, and he currently works in property management while attending Chicago-Kent College of Law on a part-time basis. He hopes to use his law degree to enhance his career in commercial real estate and eventually lead sustainable large-scale real estate developments nationwide.

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Fuel Your Research with Key Numbers - Bonus Entries

Need some inspiration check out these key numbers by using the digest searches below., find your rhythm with black's law dictionary - bonus entries, need some inspiration check out these legal terms by using the the links below., westlaw's "no skips" tips playlist, real property, civil procedure, criminal law, constitutional law, show westlaw some love, statutes on westlaw - bonus entries, need some inspiration check out the statutes below., key numbers on westlaw - bonus entries, searching on westlaw - bonus entries, need some search inspiration for your entries check out the sample searches below.

Because neurodivergent people often need visual prompts or sensory tools, it is helpful to figure out what works best for you. Maybe you need a quiet fidget to use under your desk in class to help you focus. Maybe you need to incorporate the use of timers throughout your day. If you struggle with time blindness, you can use hourglasses to help you visualize time. Perhaps you struggle with extraneous sounds and need to use noise-cancelling headphones. More and more tools and gadgets are being made for neurodiverse individuals that can help you throughout law school.

Society can dictate when you are supposed to be most productive. See the traditional 9-5 work schedule. However, that model does not always work best for neurodiverse individuals. Some people are not morning people, and that is fine. Figure out when you have the most energy during your day to be your most productive self.

Find one system to use for organization and don’t change it. Trying too many organizational systems can become overwhelming. If your phone calendar works best, use that. If you are a list person, write all the lists. If you are a planner person, find the coolest one to use throughout the school year.

It would be nice to think that you can remember every task or deadline, but let’s be honest, that’s probably not true. Write down every deadline, every task, meeting, assignment, important date, etc. in the organizational system that you use.

Just like you can only put so much gasoline in a car, most neurodiverse individuals only have so much room in their focus tank. Figure out how long you can truly focus and apply yourself to a task before you need a break. That amount of time is typically shorter for neurodiverse individuals. If you can only truly focus for 20 minutes, study for 20 minutes, take a break, and then come back for another 20 minutes.

You may have started law school with your mind full of horror stories. Throw them out the window. Most of the people you attend law school with are genuinely kind and helpful people. Try to find a group or a couple of people that you can trust and lean on when necessary. Your law school friends can help you stay on task, body double, and even provide notes on the days you may be struggling. These friends can be one of your greatest assets throughout your law school journey.

Only discuss your neurodivergence with your professors to the extent that you are comfortable. If there are things you are concerned about related to your neurodivergence, it can be beneficial to make your professors aware at the beginning of the semester. Whether you are worried about cold calling or need a topic broken down, most professors love opportunities to discuss their area of law! They can’t know that you may need help if you don’t let them know. This is especially important if you aren’t successful in getting accommodations from your school’s Disability Services.

As a neurodivergent student, you may not fit the traditional mold of all the things a law student is “supposed to do” in order to be successful. You have been in school for years, and now is the time to trust yourself and not be afraid to be an “outside of the box” law student. There is no harm in trying new study methods, but never fear going back to your personal basics. If you need help figuring those out, see if your law school has a learning center or faculty member that can assist you.

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Don't guess the meaning of a legal term. know it., by using black’s law dictionary, exclusively on westlaw , you’ll know the meanings of key terms that will help you understand your cases faster, be prepared for cold-calls and beef up your class notes. 1. access black's law dictionary on westlaw., 2. type your term into the dictionary term box. (ex. demurrer ) if your term contains multiple words, place the terms in quotes. (ex. "rule against perpetuities" ), 3. open up your desired term, copy it and paste it into your notes., looking for some inspiration here are a few legal terms to get you started contracts - collateral estoppel - consequential damages civil procedure - minimum contacts - in personam jurisdiction torts - negligence - invasion of privacy criminal law - mayhem - wobbler, where can i learn more about a firm so i can ask good questions in an interview, news is an excellent source for learning about a firm. you’ll see the clients and matters they represent along with the accolades they earned from their communities. 1. click on news under “specialty areas” on your westlaw edge home screen., 2. start by trying a plain language search for your firm. (ex. gibson dunn crutcher ), 3. to up your search game, consider running a terms & connectors search with an index field. (ex. gibson /2 dunn /s crutcher & in(law lawsuit legal) ), start writing your brief without starting from scratch, what is a brief, a brief is a summary of a case in your own words that includes the key facts, procedural history, issues addressed, along with the court's holdings. how can i find a case on westlaw, cases on westlaw contain a synopsis, a summary of the main facts, issues and holdings of a case, and headnotes, summaries of points of law organizes by topic. you can locate cases on westlaw in a variety of ways. find by citation: if you know your case's citation, just type one of the citations in the search box. (ex. 113 sct 2217 ), find by party name: if you know the names of your parties, just start typing them in the search box and select corresponding case from the drop-down menu. (ex. international shoe).

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Exporting tables of contents, exporting a table of contents is an easy way to get access to a list of rules, codes or restatements that you can reference on the fly and add to your outlines, as needed. locate your rules, codes or restatement: to export a toc (table of contents), you'll first want to locate your resource. restatement of torts restatement of contracts restatement of property federal rules of civil procedure ucc article 2 federal rules of evidence united states constitution, export your toc: click on download, select outline of current view under what to deliver and then click on download..

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Your go-to secondary source, finding an a.l.r. (american law reports) article covering your topic is a great starting point for research. you'll get a quick summary of the legal issue you're researching and a table of cases, laws, and rules to see the law across all jurisdictions. you can also use annotations to find additional secondary sources, such as legal encyclopedias, treatises, and periodicals. no wonder they're nicknamed already done legal research see it in action: the legal discussion to compensate student athletes is heating up. check out this alr article to see how the legal picture for tomorrow’s student athletes comes together in one place., keycite graphical history, procedural history made easy, are you reading a case and not sure how you got there procedurally reversed, remanded or otherwise, we got you. just sign into westlaw and follow the steps below... 1. grab one of the citations you see in your case book and type it into the search box on westlaw . (ex. 480 u.s. 102), 2. click on your case in the drop-down menu., 3. click on the history tab to see your procedural history., keycite graphical history works best when you have a federal case and a complex issue. check out some additional examples from your classes below. contracts - koken v. black & veatch const., inc. - lamps plus, inc. v. varela civil procedure - national equipment rental v. szukhent - helicopteros nacionales de colombia, s.a. v. hall torts - palsgraf v. long island r. co. - kentucky fried chicken of cal., inc. v. superior court, law school resource center, flowcharts, overviews & more..

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2. click on copy another class, 3. enter your copy code, set your options, click copy course, determining whether a federal court has subject matter jurisdiction over a non-class action case..

If the case arises out of the U.S. Constitution, U.S. laws, rules or regulations, or a treaty signed by the U.S., and the federal courts have exclusive jurisdiction, then the case must be litigated in federal court.

If the case does not arise out of the U.S. Constitution, U.S. laws, rules or regulations, or a treaty signed by the U.S., and there is not complete diversity between the plaintiffs and defendants (a.k.a they are both from different states or one is a citizen of a foreign country), then the case must be litigated in state court.

Restatement of Contracts 2d

Counter-offers.

(1) A counter-offer is an offer made by an offeree to his offeror relating to the same matter as the original offer and proposing a substituted bargain differing from that proposed by the original offer.

(2) An offeree’s power of acceptance is terminated by his making of a counter-offer, unless the offeror has manifested a contrary intention or unless the counter-offer manifests a contrary intention of the offeree.

Negligence Defined

Restatement (second) of torts 282.

In the Restatement of this Subject, negligence is conduct which falls below the standard established by law for the protection of others against unreasonable risk of harm. It does not include conduct recklessly disregardful of an interest of others.

Black’s Law Dictionary (10th ed.2014)

Demurrer: A means of objecting to the sufficiency in law of a pleading by admitting the actual allegations made by disputing that they frame an adequate claim. Demurrer is commonly known as a motion to dismiss.

(2) An offeree’s power of acceptance is terminated by his making a counter-off, unless the offeror has manifested a contrary intention or unless the counter-offer manifests a contrary intention of the offeree.

testing footnote

What is common law and is it written by the courts of law?

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Negligence defined

Restatement (second) of torts § 282.

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Module 4 Required Resources

• 9 Important Personal Statement Tips for Law School Applicants 9 Important Personal Statement Tips for Law School Applicants . (2024). Nesl.edu; New England Law. https://www.nesl.edu/blog/detail/9-important-personal-statement-tips-all-law-school-applicants-should-know As a law school applicant, you may not have a chance to sit down with the admissions committee and explain why you’d be the perfect fit for their institution. But you do have the personal statement, and that’s almost as good—as long as you follow these tips.
• Tips For Law School Personal Statements: Examples, Resources And More Law School Personal Statement Examples And Tips – Forbes Advisor . (n.d.). Www.forbes.com. Retrieved February 19, 2024, from https://www.forbes.com/advisor/education/law/law-school-personal-statement/ This article discusses how to write a law school personal statement that demonstrates why you belong in a Juris Doctor (J.D.) program.
• Style for Students: A Writing Guide Style for Students: A Writing Guide | Simple Book Production . (n.d.). Courses.lumenlearning.com. Retrieved June 5, 2024, from https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-hccc-styleforstudents-1/ Writing and resume help for students
• Résumés and Cover Letters Hill, L. L. and L. (Bruce). (n.d.). Résumés and Cover Letters. Cwi.pressbooks.pub . Retrieved June 5, 2024, from https://cwi.pressbooks.pub/pathwaystocollegesuccess/chapter/42-resumes-and-cover-letters/ A résumé is a “selfie” for business purposes. It is a written picture of who you are—it’s a marketing tool, a selling tool, and a promotion of you as an ideal candidate for any job you may be interested in.
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Federal Rules of Civil Procedure

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These are the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, as amended to December 1, 2023 1 . Click on any rule to read it.

• RULES OF CIVIL PROCEDURE FOR THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURTS
• Rule 1 . Scope and Purpose
• Rule 2 . One Form of Action
• Rule 3 . Commencing an Action
• Rule 4 . Summons
• Rule 4.1 . Serving Other Process
• Rule 5 . Serving and Filing Pleadings and Other Papers
• Rule 5.1 . Constitutional Challenge to a Statute—Notice, Certification, and Intervention
• Rule 5.2 . Privacy Protection For Filings Made with the Court
• Rule 6 . Computing and Extending Time; Time for Motion Papers
• Rule 7 . Pleadings Allowed; Form of Motions and Other Papers
• Rule 7.1 . Disclosure Statement
• Rule 8 . General Rules of Pleading
• Rule 9 . Pleading Special Matters
• Rule 10 . Form of Pleadings
• Rule 11 . Signing Pleadings, Motions, and Other Papers; Representations to the Court; Sanctions
• Rule 12 . Defenses and Objections: When and How Presented; Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings; Consolidating Motions; Waiving Defenses; Pretrial Hearing
• Rule 13 . Counterclaim and Crossclaim
• Rule 14 . Third-Party Practice
• Rule 15 . Amended and Supplemental Pleadings
• Rule 16 . Pretrial Conferences; Scheduling; Management
• Rule 17 . Plaintiff and Defendant; Capacity; Public Officers
• Rule 18 . Joinder of Claims
• Rule 19 . Required Joinder of Parties
• Rule 20 . Permissive Joinder of Parties
• Rule 21 . Misjoinder and Nonjoinder of Parties
• Rule 22 . Interpleader
• Rule 23 . Class Actions
• Rule 23.1 . Derivative Actions
• Rule 23.2 . Actions Relating to Unincorporated Associations
• Rule 24 . Intervention
• Rule 25 . Substitution of Parties
• Rule 26 . Duty to Disclose; General Provisions Governing Discovery
• Rule 27 . Depositions to Perpetuate Testimony
• Rule 28 . Persons Before Whom Depositions May Be Taken
• Rule 29 . Stipulations About Discovery Procedure
• Rule 30 . Depositions by Oral Examination
• Rule 31 . Depositions by Written Questions
• Rule 32 . Using Depositions in Court Proceedings
• Rule 33 . Interrogatories to Parties
• Rule 34 . Producing Documents, Electronically Stored Information, and Tangible Things, or Entering onto Land, for Inspection and Other Purposes
• Rule 35 . Physical and Mental Examinations
• Rule 36 . Requests for Admission
• Rule 37 . Failure to Make Disclosures or to Cooperate in Discovery; Sanctions
• Rule 38 . Right to a Jury Trial; Demand
• Rule 39 . Trial by Jury or by the Court
• Rule 40 . Scheduling Cases for Trial
• Rule 41 . Dismissal of Actions
• Rule 42 . Consolidation; Separate Trials
• Rule 43 . Taking Testimony
• Rule 44 . Proving an Official Record
• Rule 44.1 . Determining Foreign Law
• Rule 45 . Subpoena
• Rule 46 . Objecting to a Ruling or Order
• Rule 47 . Selecting Jurors
• Rule 48 . Number of Jurors; Verdict; Polling
• Rule 49 . Special Verdict; General Verdict and Questions
• Rule 50 . Judgment as a Matter of Law in a Jury Trial; Related Motion for a New Trial; Conditional Ruling
• Rule 51 . Instructions to the Jury; Objections; Preserving a Claim of Error
• Rule 52 . Findings and Conclusions by the Court; Judgment on Partial Findings
• Rule 53 . Masters
• Rule 54 . Judgment; Costs
• Rule 55 . Default; Default Judgment
• Rule 56 . Summary Judgment
• Rule 57 . Declaratory Judgment
• Rule 58 . Entering Judgment
• Rule 59 . New Trial; Altering or Amending a Judgment
• Rule 60 . Relief from a Judgment or Order
• Rule 61 . Harmless Error
• Rule 62 . Stay of Proceedings to Enforce a Judgment
• Rule 62.1 . Indicative Ruling on a Motion for Relief That is Barred by a Pending Appeal
• Rule 63 . Judge's Inability to Proceed
• Rule 64 . Seizing a Person or Property
• Rule 65 . Injunctions and Restraining Orders
• Rule 65.1 . Proceedings Against a Security Provider
• Rule 66 . Receivers
• Rule 67 . Deposit into Court
• Rule 68 . Offer of Judgment
• Rule 69 . Execution
• Rule 70 . Enforcing a Judgment for a Specific Act
• Rule 71 . Enforcing Relief For or Against a Nonparty
• Rule 71.1 . Condemning Real or Personal Property
• Rule 72 . Magistrate Judges: Pretrial Order
• Rule 73 . Magistrate Judges: Trial by Consent; Appeal
• Rule 74 . [Abrogated (Apr. 11, 1997, eff. Dec. 1, 1997).]
• Rule 75 . [Abrogated (Apr. 11, 1997, eff. Dec. 1, 1997).]
• Rule 76 . [Abrogated (Apr. 11, 1997, eff. Dec. 1, 1997).]
• [Rule 71A. Renumbered Rule 71.1]
• Rule 77 . Conducting Business; Clerk's Authority; Notice of an Order or Judgment
• Rule 78 . Hearing Motions; Submission on Briefs
• Rule 79 . Records Kept by the Clerk
• Rule 80 . Stenographic Transcript as Evidence
• Rule 81 . Applicability of the Rules in General; Removed Actions
• Rule 82 . Jurisdiction and Venue Unaffected
• Rule 83 . Rules by District Courts; Judge's Directives
• Rule 84 . Abrogated, eff. Dec. 1, 2015
• Rule 85 . Title
• Rule 86 . Effective Dates
• Rule 87 Civil Rules Emergency
• XII. APPENDIX OF FORMS (U.S. Courts site)
• Rule A . Scope of Rules
• Rule B . In Personam Actions: Attachment and Garnishment
• Rule C . In Rem Actions: Special Provisions
• Rule D . Possessory, Petitory, and Partition Actions
• Rule E . Actions in Rem and Quasi in Rem: General Provisions
• Rule F . Limitation of Liability
• Rule G . Forfeiture Actions in Rem
• Rules 1 - 7

1 Title amended December 29, 1948, effective October 20, 1949.

Historical Note

The original Rules of Civil Procedure for the District Courts were adopted by order of the Supreme Court on Dec. 20, 1937, transmitted to Congress by the Attorney General on Jan. 3, 1938, and became effective on Sept. 16, 1938.

The Rules have been amended Dec. 28, 1939, eff. Apr. 3, 1941; Dec. 27, 1946, eff. Mar. 19, 1948; Dec. 29, 1948, eff. Oct. 20, 1949; Apr. 30, 1951, eff. Aug. 1, 1951; Apr. 17, 1961, eff. July 19, 1961; Jan. 21, 1963, eff. July 1, 1963; Feb. 28, 1966, eff. July 1, 1966; Dec. 4, 1967, eff. July 1, 1968; Mar. 30, 1970, eff. July 1, 1970; Mar. 1, 1971, eff. July 1, 1971; Nov. 20, 1972, and Dec. 18, 1972, eff. July 1, 1975; Apr. 29, 1980, eff. Aug. 1, 1980; Oct. 21, 1980, Pub. L. 96–481, title II, §205(a), (b), 94 Stat. 2330; Jan. 12, 1983, Pub. L. 97–462, §§2–4, 96 Stat. 2527–2530, eff. Feb. 26, 1983; Apr. 28, 1983, eff. Aug. 1, 1983; Apr. 29, 1985, eff. Aug. 1, 1985; Mar. 2, 1987, eff. Aug. 1, 1987; Apr. 25, 1988, eff. Aug. 1, 1988; Nov. 18, 1988, Pub. L. 100–690, title VII, §§7047(b), 7049, 7050, 102 Stat. 4401; Apr. 30, 1991, eff. Dec. 1, 1991; Dec. 9, 1991, Pub. L. 102–198, §11, 105 Stat. 1626; Apr. 22, 1993, eff. Dec. 1, 1993; Apr. 27, 1995, eff. Dec. 1, 1995; Apr. 23, 1996, eff. Dec. 1, 1996; Apr. 11, 1997, eff. Dec. 1, 1997; Apr. 24, 1998, eff. Dec. 1, 1998; Apr. 26, 1999, eff. Dec. 1, 1999; Apr. 17, 2000, eff. Dec. 1, 2000; Apr. 23, 2001, eff. Dec. 1, 2001; Apr. 29, 2002, eff. Dec. 1, 2002; Mar. 27, 2003, eff. Dec. 1, 2003; Apr. 25, 2005, eff. Dec. 1, 2005; Apr. 12, 2006, eff. Dec. 1, 2006; Apr. 30, 2007, eff. Dec. 1, 2007; Apr. 23, 2008, eff. Dec. 1, 2008; Mar. 26, 2009, eff. Dec. 1, 2009; Apr. 28, 2010, eff. Dec. 1, 2010; Apr. 2013, eff. Dec. 1, 2013; Apr. 25, 2014, eff. Dec. 1, 2014; Apr. 29, 2015, eff. Dec. 1, 2015; Apr. 28, 2016, eff. Dec 1, 2016.

References to Equity Rules

The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure supplant the Equity Rules since in general they cover the field now covered by the Equity Rules and the Conformity Act (former section 724 of this title).

This table shows the Equity Rules to which references are made in the notes to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

• TITLE I. SCOPE OF RULES; FORM OF ACTION
• TITLE II. COMMENCING AN ACTION; SERVICE OF PROCESS, PLEADINGS, MOTIONS, AND ORDERS
• TITLE III. PLEADINGS AND MOTIONS
• TITLE IV. PARTIES
• TITLE V. DISCLOSURES AND DISCOVERY
• TITLE VI. TRIALS
• TITLE VII. JUDGMENT
• TITLE VIII. PROVISIONAL AND FINAL REMEDIES
• TITLE IX. SPECIAL PROCEEDINGS
• TITLE X. DISTRICT COURTS AND CLERKS: CONDUCTING BUSINESS; ISSUING ORDERS
• TITLE XI. GENERAL PROVISIONS
• XIII. SUPPLEMENTAL RULES FOR ADMIRALTY OR MARITIME CLAIMS AND ASSET FORFEITURE ACTIONS
• SUPPLEMENTAL RULES FOR SOCIAL SECURITY ACTIONS UNDER 42 U.S.C. § 405(g)

The University of Chicago The Law School

College essays and diversity in the post-affirmative action era, sonja starr’s latest research adds data, legal analysis to discussion about race in college admissions essays.

Editor’s Note: This story is part of an occasional series on research projects currently in the works at the Law School.

The Supreme Court’s decision in June 2023 to bar the use of affirmative action in college admissions raised many questions. One of the most significant is whether universities should consider applicants’ discussion of race in essays. The Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) v. Harvard did not require entirely race-blind admissions. Rather, the Court explicitly stated that admissions offices may weigh what students say about how race affected their lives. Yet the Court also warned that this practice may not be used to circumvent the bar on affirmative action.

Many university leaders made statements after SFFA suggesting that they take this passage seriously, and that it potentially points to a strategy for preserving diversity. But it’s not obvious how lower courts will distinguish between consideration of “race-related experience” and consideration of “race qua race.” Sonja Starr, Julius Kreeger Professor of Law & Criminology at the Law School, was intrigued by the implication of that question, calling the key passage of the Court’s opinion the “essay carveout.”

“Where is the line?” she wrote in a forthcoming article, the first of its kind to discuss this issue in depth in the post- SFFA era. “And what other potential legal pitfalls could universities encounter in evaluating essays about race?”

To inform her paper’s legal analysis, Starr conducted empirical analyses of how universities and students have included race in essays, both before and after the Court’s decision. She concluded that large numbers of applicants wrote about race, and that college essay prompts encouraged them to do so, even before SFFA .

Some thought the essay carveout made no sense. Justice Sonia Sotomayor called it “an attempt to put lipstick on a pig” in her dissent. Starr, however, disagrees. She argues that universities are on sound legal footing relying on the essay carveout, so long as they consider race-related experience in an individualized way. In her article, Starr points out reasons the essay carveout makes sense in the context of the Court’s other arguments. However, she points to the potential for future challenges—on both equal protection and First Amendment grounds—and discusses how colleges can survive them.

What the Empirical Research Showed

After SFFA , media outlets suggested that universities would add questions about race or identity in their admissions essays and that students would increasingly focus on that topic. Starr decided to investigate this speculation. She commissioned a professional survey group to recruit a nationally representative sample of recent college applicants. The firm queried 881 people about their essay content, about half of whom applied in 2022-23, before SFFA , and half of whom submitted in 2023-24.

The survey found that more than 60 percent of students in non-white groups wrote about race in at least some of their essays, as did about half of white applicants. But contrary to what the media suggested, there were no substantial changes between the pre-and post- SFFA application cycles.

Starr also reviewed essay prompts that 65 top schools have used over the last four years. She found that diversity and identity questions—as well as questions about overcoming adversity, which, for example, provide opportunities for students to discuss discrimination that they have faced—are common and have increased in frequency both before and after SFFA.

A Personally Inspired Interest

Although Starr has long written about equal protection issues, until about two years ago, she would have characterized educational admissions as a bit outside her wheelhouse. Her research has mostly focused on the criminal justice system, though race is often at the heart of it. In the past, for example, she has assessed the role of race in sentencing, the constitutionality of algorithmic risk assessment instruments in criminal justice, as well as policies to expand employment options for people with criminal records.

But a legal battle around admissions policies at Fairfax County’s Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology—the high school that Starr attended—caught her attention. Starr followed the case closely and predicted that “litigation may soon be an ever-present threat for race-conscious policymaking” in a 2024 Stanford Law Review article on that and other magnet school cases.

“I got really interested in that case partly because of the personal connection,” she said. “But I ended up writing about it as an academic matter, and that got me entrenched in this world of educational admissions questions and their related implications for other areas of equal protection law.”

Implications in Education and Beyond

Starr’s forthcoming paper argues that the essay carveout provides a way for colleges to maintain diversity and stay on the right side of the Court’s decision.

“I believe there’s quite a bit of space that’s open for colleges to pursue in this area without crossing that line,” she said. “I lay out the arguments that colleges can put forth.”

Nevertheless, Starr expects future litigation targeting the essay carveout.

“I think we could see cases filed as soon as this year when the admissions numbers come out,” she said, pointing out that conservative legal organizations, such as the Pacific Legal Foundation, have warned that they’re going to be keeping a close eye on admissions numbers and looking for ways that schools are circumventing SFFA .

Starr envisions her paper being used as a resource for schools that want to obey the law while also maintaining diversity. “The preservation of diversity is not a red flag that something unconstitutional is happening,” she said. “There are lots of perfectly permissible ways that we can expect diversity to be maintained in this post- affirmative action era.”

Starr’s article, “Admissions Essays after SFFA ,” is slated to be published in Indiana Law Journal in early 2025.

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