Law School Essays

Law School Personal Statement

If you’re applying to law school, your LSAT and GPA are the most important factors. Nevertheless, a law school personal statement can still make all the difference between acceptance and rejection. If an admissions officer is looking at two applications with identical scores (something that happens all the time), you can be sure they’ll turn to the personal statement to work out who they’re going to admit.

The prompts for law school application essays are deliberately open-ended. They simply ask you about the qualities you would bring to the study of law at a particular institution. This naturally raises the question of how to write a personal statement for law school. The answer (which is the same for all application types) is that you need to come up with a narrative that distinguishes you from other applicants. It makes no sense to look at law school personal statement examples and try to emulate them. You have to focus on yourself and pick an aspect of your identity (or your experience, or your interest in law) that allows you to demonstrate original reflection.

Of course, that’s easier said than done. If you’re applying to law school, you’ve probably submitted dozens of papers in college, and you may have written in other professional contexts as well. But a law school essay is quite different from an analytical essay, and many people who feel comfortable writing about a historical event or sociological phenomenon suddenly freeze up when it comes to writing about themselves.

That’s why even the most experienced writer can benefit from talking through their life experience with one of our mentors and coming up with a strong pitch for a law school personal statement. How do we approach the process? We ask you a lot of questions. We push you away from generic responses. We urge you to dig deeper, until you land on a narrative for your law schools personal statement that is both authentic and that sets you apart. All this can make a tremendous impact on your overall application. If you haven’t already, we suggest you read Our Philosophy here.