Law School Personal Statement Samples Page 8
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10• Be “personal” in the law school personal statement. Cultivate a positive ethos. Be
genuinely honest and try to focus on your most favorable characteristics. This will
allow your personal statement to stand apart from the multitude of generic law
school personal statements that merely reiterate a transcript or generally describe
how law school will benefit the applicant’s life.
• Write clearly and to the point. Effectively utilize the limited words allowed to convey
what is unique about yourself as well as why you are a suitable fit for law school or
that particular program. Make sure every sentence is clear. If you aren’t sure what
you said, no one else can guess.
• Adhere to the page or word limitations. Respect the pages limits! Most well-written
personal statements should be no longer than two to three pages double-spaced.
Length does not correlate with quality. Don’t make margins less than 1” around. Use
12-point font. If you absolutely must, you can use 11-point font in Times.
• Consider tailoring your personal statement to reflect the law schools to which you
are applying. Making specific references to a particular law school or specialty will
demonstrate your knowledge and commitment to a particular law school. Check if
professors have retired or changed institutions.
• Take your statement through several drafts. Show your statement to professors and
lawyers, and listen to their advice.
• Edit your law school personal statement. Proofread the final draft of your personal
statement several times, including at least once orally, for substance, style, and
grammatical and spelling errors. Have others edit your law school personal statement
as well. Ideally, ask an academic advisor, professor, or someone familiar with the law
school application process to edit your statement. Pay attention to detail. Two
sentences joined by the conjunction “and” requires a comma before the “and.”
Leaving out the comma is called a comma splice. A comma splice or two will send
your file to the reject pile.
• Do use specific details. If it’s a dull generality, or says something like, “This
experience was very valuable,” cut it. If you can exchange the name of the school for
others, take out that sentence or rewrite it with a detail specific to the law school.
• Write about things that make you genuinely excited and enthusiastic. Readers of your
statement can tell when your enthusiasm takes over. Be optimistic.
9. Not To Dos:
• Do not focus upon your weaknesses! Almost every applicant has some aspect of
their application, such as a low LSAT score or GPA, which they view as a flaw.
Discussing this weakness will only highlight it. Instead, write about the traits and
characteristics that define you as an individual and showcase what you will bring to
that law school. Your tone should be confident and positive. If you do have a
weakness to address, such as a severe illness resulting in poor grades for a semester
or a documented history of doing poorly on standardized tests with their not truly
reflecting your potential, write about this in an addendum.
• Do not “write like a lawyer.” Lawyers are fond of “legalese,” or using long and often
redundant words. The best law school personal statements display clear and succinct
writing that is well within the specified word limitations.
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