So, you have your list of target law schools. You took the LSAT or GRE and lined up some references to write your letters of recommendation. You’ve ordered all of your transcripts and they’re sitting in the LSAC CAS, just ready to be sent out.
There’s no putting it off anymore: it’s time to focus on your law school personal statement.
For lots of people, this is the most intimidating piece of the law school application process, because there’s no obvious right way to do things. How can I make my law school personal statement stand out? What does a law school admissions committee want to see? How do I convince them that I’m going to be a great addition to the school?
Try to see this as your opportunity to shine. A good personal statement meets all of the requirements set in place by top law schools.The best personal statement showcases all of the ways that your personal experience sets you apart from other applicants as an asset to the legal profession and as a law student at your first choice schools in particular.
In this guide, we’re going to answer FAQs about writing law school essays, including how law school personal statements fit into the overall admissions process, what admissions officers want—and don’t want!—to see, how many pages a law school personal statement should have, and more.
Read on for our best law school personal statement advice!
How do personal statements fit into the law school application?
The law school personal statement is the most personal piece of the application process. This is where admissions officers get to learn more about who you are as a person and go deeper than your high school and undergrad transcripts, GPA, test scores, extracurricular activities, and the work experience on your resume.
With a few exceptions, you don’t need to burn up words in your law school personal statement explaining the other parts of your application. Instead, let the entire package speak for itself and you. Don’t worry about selling the admissions committee on your LSAT score or other credentials here.
(One exception to this is when you’re submitting an addendum—which we’ll discuss more below.)
What are some tips for writing a good personal statement for law school?
Here are some of our best law school personal statement tips:
Focus on yourself. Sounds obvious, right? But often, people start their law school personal statement with a quote from a famous person, or a long story about someone who inspired them. The admissions officers are definitely not going to accept Herman Melville or your aunt, so don’t let them steal your spotlight!
Be real. Never just tell an admissions committee what you think they want to hear. It’s fine to look at samples so you understand the assignment. But always be honest, and never follow anyone else’s example too closely. The point is to stand out as a unique applicant, not as this year’s version of last year’s successful applicant.
Tell a juicy story. Read our post about juicy storytelling here. You may think that people on a law school admissions committee are somehow superhuman, but they’re not! You want to make sure you grab their attention in the first paragraph and keep it in your grasp until the end.
Know your school—each one of them. It might feel attractive to write just one law school personal statement and use it for every school, but it’s far wiser to weave the values, culture, and mission of the particular law school you’re applying to into your essay. You can write your basic core essay and then inject that kind of meaning into it for different schools.
Edit, proofread, and get another set of eyes on your essay if you can. The law school personal statement is not the place to leave typos or tracked changes. DO NOT turn in your first draft. This is your one chance to tell your story and shine amongst a sea of applicants. Don’t risk standing out as a careless applicant! If you need them, proofreading services and editing services can ensure you are error-free before you submit.
What should a law school personal statement include? What should the focus or topic be?
Ideally, a law school personal statement showcases the applicant’s writing and communication skills while revealing how their personal experiences have shaped them to date. It’s achieving these two very important things: offering a personal story, and doing so in a convincing and effective written format.
Whether or not the school is asking specifically for a diversity statement, the personal statement is a great place to highlight how your unique background has shaped your outlook and goals. Talk to the admissions committee about how you’ve faced adversity, overcome challenges, and benefitted from different points of view.
Write about a topic that is relevant, personal, and entirely unique to you. It’s a great idea to brainstorm a personal statement topic with one or more people who can give you honest, constructive feedback.
Your law school personal statement could focus on a character trait or quality you think defines you, an important piece of your background, a transformative life challenge or other experience, or whatever deeply motivates you. Don’t worry about whether your topic is entirely novel. If you write in your own voice and stay authentic and honest, your personal statement will be unique.
Many schools ask you to discuss initiatives and other specific activities, projects, or experiences that demonstrate your commitment to a particular public policy, legal issue, cause, or area of social justice. They want you to highlight your ability to take a proactive approach beyond mere academics, showcasing how you’ve actively addressed problems or initiated change within your field of interest or community. You could answer this kind of prompt talking about advocacy efforts, volunteer work, or taking a leadership role in extracurricular activities.
If you need to, most law schools allow you to include an addendum. This is the place where you can explain extenuating circumstances about other pieces of your application that won’t come out any other way.
For example, if you have a history of low test scores, especially based on learning disabilities or some related factor, let the admissions committee know that here. If your GPA during high school or college was low because you worked a lot, explain that here—and if possible, add what you learned from all of that work experience, even if it’s not related to the law.
Admissions officers want to see how you have grown and matured, and why you’re ready for law school now. The addendum can give them the “behind the scenes” view that helps explain the numbers.
Will you be a good lawyer? Tell them, and explain why
A huge piece of what law school admissions committees are looking for is who will make the best law student at their school, specifically—and who is most likely to go on to become a good lawyer under real world conditions. How can you show that you’re the one they’re looking for in a short essay?
Explain what attracts you to this career path. Why do you want to pursue a law degree? How do you see yourself engaging in advocacy during your legal career? If you have honest, deeply thought out answers to these questions, admissions officers want to hear them.
For example, it’s a great idea to show why the Juris Doctorate is the next step for you rather than some other graduate school degree. The legal field is mostly a nuts and bolts, practical profession. Why is it what you want to do?
- Not so good: “I see law school as the next logical step in my educational career.”
- Okay: “I want to pursue my Juris Doctorate next because I see the legal system as the most actionable place to focus social change efforts to benefit people with disabilities.”
- Better: “Studying social work I found my passion advocating for people with disabilities, and now I aim to affect real change for my clients as an attorney and policymaker.
Describe the qualities about you that will help you thrive in law school and the legal profession. The personal statement is the place to talk about your analytical and critical thinking skills, and how a law degree will help you put them to work.
For example, it’s great to mention the public policy you care about, but why do you need a JD to work in your interest area? Tell the committee why.
- Not so good: “I am dedicated to public service and this is what motivates me to attend law school.”
- Okay: “I want to pursue a career in public service and to me, legal advocacy is among the most practical expressions of this kind of service.”
- Better: “As a law student I hope to learn while serving needy clients as a student volunteer, and further my career goal of delivering direct services in court that benefit the public.”
(Now, it’s not necessary to dive off the high platform into a long, dull discussion of the law, or heavily detailed career goals about which firm you want to work at in this statement. But it’s important to show why you want to go to law school and earn the JD specifically.)
Your reasons for going to law school should be at the heart of your personal statement.
What to avoid in law school personal statements
There are plenty of things to avoid in your personal statement, too. Here are some basic law school personal statement don’ts:
Don’t cite silly or trite reasons you’ll be a good lawyer. Like to argue with everyone around you? Contrary to popular belief, this doesn’t mean you’ll be a great lawyer—and might mean you’ll be a law student that’s difficult to be around.
Don’t just restate all of your resume points or credentials. The admissions committee already has the rest of your application. Don’t waste time just listing every single high school extracurricular activity, the fact that you speak intermediate Spanish, your LSAT score, or your undergrad GPA. (The exception is if you’re including an addendum, but as stated above, that adds new information and doesn’t merely restate everything.)
Don’t name drop. Did your dad or some other family member attend the same school or donate a wing to the law library? Don’t talk about that in your personal statement. It is inauthentic and can even be seen as unethical in the law school admissions process.
Don’t use Latin phrases, legalese, or other jargon. Stick to American English and check your work. There is a high risk that you are misusing these kinds of phrases, first of all, and second, this just comes across as arrogant and phony for the most part.
Don’t leave typos, formatting errors, or tracked changes. We said it elsewhere, but it bears repeating: edit and proofread your work. It helps to have another person help you, too. The first time you read through the essay, you probably won’t catch everything—and since it’s your work, there are errors that may remain “invisible” to you, but will stand out to someone else. Don’t hesitate to use an editing service or something similar for this.
Can I include personal anecdotes in my law school personal statement?
Yes, as mentioned elsewhere, your personal story is important to this essay. But this is not your “Call me Ishmael moment.” In other words, don’t try and cram your entire life story and every detail of your psyche into a couple of pages.
Be selective. Choose a personal experience with special resonance that can help admissions officers see why you are there, and what you have to offer.
Keep it appropriate. Just because you’re telling your own personal anecdotes doesn’t mean you should take the TMI route. Revealing too much, either from a “too many words” or a “wow, that was way too much intimate personal information” perspective, is not ideal.
This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t tell very personal stories. For example, if a history of abuse has shaped your educational and career trajectory, this can be a great topic to focus on. It just means you should use your judgment and aim to grab the committee’s attention, and not to shock or titillate them.
How long should a personal statement be in law school?
This varies from school to school, but most top schools based on rankings and reputation aim for around two pages. For example:
- Harvard Law School asks for one to two pages.
- Yale Law School asks for two pages. (And see our discussion of the Yale 250-word essay here.)
- While there is no official page limit for Columbia Law School, the committee suggests that two pages should be sufficient.
- Similar to CLS, Stanford Law School has no official limit but suggests that two pages is ideal.
- UPenn Law School also suggests a length of two pages.
- New York University Law School has a stricter limit of no more than 500 words.
Always follow the specific instructions of your target schools!
Can you provide successful law school personal statement examples?
Yes—but only our clients have access to our full catalog of materials! We have law school personal statements that helped a range of Wild Card applicants succeed, right from their undergraduate years, as non-traditional applicants who were a little older than average, with some different experiences, and as transfer students.
This is a grad school and law school admissions consulting service, so how did you go about writing your law school personal statement?
We all did it a little differently!
Karla, our JD/LLM consultant, is ashamed to admit that she was pretty much winging it—but she nailed the part about being sincere and talking about how her life had shaped her ambitions and interest in the law, at least.
In fact, the one common thread here is letting your own unique voice and experiences shine through to reveal the one-of-a-kind contribution that you can make to even the top law schools you’re looking at.
Are you ready to see more?
Find out how The Art of Applying can help you take your law school journey to its best possible conclusion! Click here to book a Quick Call to find out how we can help.
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