Take a few buzzwords like “pro bono,” “intellectual property,” “empower,” “clerkships,” and “diversity.” Season with legalisms like “heretofore,” “whereas,” and “therein.” Add a pinch of acronyms: DA, TRO, M&A, ADR, and IPO. Stir in generous platitudes about “forces that molded you into the person you are today” and “the top-notch faculty, diverse student body, and…
Which Extracurricular Activities Get You Into Law School?
You’ve taken the LSAT, computed your GPA, and started working on your law school personal statement. That’s all good, but as you are filling out your application, you realize with a sinking feeling that since you’ve entered college, all you’ve been doing is studying and working. You don’t have extracurricular activities. Or maybe you have…
5 Tips to Write a Law School Personal Statement that Gets You In
While there’s no getting around the fact that LSAT scores and GPA matter a great deal in law school admissions, the personal statement is the one place where law school admissions faculty get to know you and your reasons behind studying law. Below are 5 tips – based on real-life scenarios – that have successfully…
5 Qualities that Law Schools Want to See
As you write your personal statement, you should keep in mind some of the qualities that law schools value. Be sure to emphasize these in your personal statement through specific actions and examples. 1. Ethics. Jokes about lawyers aside, law schools and the legal profession value integrity and honesty above all else. Any type of…
5 Things Law Schools Want To See In Applicants
1. Law schools want people who are likable. Contrary to any bad lawyer jokes, law schools are looking for people who like people. They are looking for people who will contribute to classroom discussions and engage with other students in a positive way. This attribute can be shown through the personal statement as well as thoughtful…
5 Tips for Your Law School Personal Statement
Writing a law school personal statement can be daunting task. Below are a few tips to help you craft a unique and eye-catching personal statement. • Choice of topic matters less than how you write about it. Don’t feel that your essay needs to be about a particular kind of experience. There’s no one thing…
Law School Admissions Tip #8: Reasons for Choosing a School
The Top 15 Things Every Law School Applicant Should Know is a series that will teach you the ins and outs of successful law school applications. Stay tuned for the remaining elements. This week we’ll discuss reasons for choosing a school. Just as students like to be courted and wooed when they are looking for…
Law School Admissions Tip #7: The not so optional “optional” essay
The Top 15 Things Every Law School Applicant Should Know is a series that will teach you the ins and outs of successful law school applications. Stay tuned for the remaining elements. This week we’ll discuss the not so optional “optional” essay. Almost every law school will ask for a personal statement as part of…
3 Treats that Will do the Trick in Your Personal Statement or Application Essay
In my meanderings on the web, I stumbled across a short video on screen writing. The presenters are two Emmy-winning screen writers, and they know a thing or two about telling a good story. They boil the story-telling stew down to three words — actually 2 do’s and 1 don’t: The do’s: Therefore But The…
Law School Admissions: Interview about Personal Statements
The LSAT Blog interviews me today about writing a law school personal statement. I discuss how to approach three common subjects for these essays. Check out this short interview.
Your law school personal statement…it needs to be, well, personal!
When writing your personal statement for law school, it’s a good idea to include a few school specific sentences about why each of the schools to which you are applying is interesting to you. This is not “why do I want to go to law school?” but rather “this is why your law school is…
Personal Statement Tip: History vs. Memory
Over the weekend I went to a talk focused on the difference between history and memory. The two are clearly related, but not the same. History is what you read in an encyclopedia or newspaper timeline. It is facts, dates, statistics, and data, impersonal and frequently very dry in isolation. Memory consists of vignettes, stories,…
