Law school personal statement introduction

The introduction (or opening) is arguably the most important aspect of your whole law school personal statement. It’s the first thing your admission officers will read, and as you know, you only get one shot to make a first impression. Knowing that puts a lot of pressure on students, but I’m here to reduce that pressure. Yes, your law school personal statement introduction is important. But it doesn’t have to be complicated.

Here are a few dos and don’ts to help you master the opening paragraph: 1. DO Keep It Brief Most law school personal statement are between 500-700 words. That might sound like a lot now, but trust me, once you get going, you’ll actually find it difficult to stay within that word count! For this reason, it’s incredibly important to keep your opening short. You’ll need to provide some relevant background info – but limit it to the things that the reader truly needs to know about you. 2. DON’T Start With a Quote Enough said. 3. DO Jump Right Into the Action To grab your reader’s attention, bring them right into the “action” of your law school personal statement. Your law school personal statement should make your reader feel like they're on a train that’s about to leave, and they don’t want to miss it. 4. DON’T Write Your Opening First If you spend too much time worrying about the opening of your law school personal statement, you might find yourself never getting ANY of it done! One thing I encourage my students to do is sit down and just start writing. The text you come up with might wind up in the beginning, middle, or even at the end of your law school personal statement. It might get scrapped altogether. But, at least you’ll have something to work with. A good approach is to sit down and start writing a scene, like the one above. Chances are, it might wind up being an opening to your law school personal statement – even if you didn’t start off planning to write it like that! 5. DO Clarify Your Point Eventually, you’ll have to take the reader out of the “action” and explain why the story you’ve shared is important.  A lot of times, students struggle with the opening of the law school personal statement because they feel like they need to say everything all at once. But that’s what the rest of it is for! The primary function of the opening is to get your reader to keep reading. Focus on that, first and foremost, and everything else will follow. Until next time, Steve P.S. Now that I’ve shared how to craft a compelling opening, I’ll cover how to write the perfect closing in my next article. In the meantime, to discover more tips on starting your law school personal statement, check out these articles I wrote with more details about that.

Recommended Resources: 1. Law School Admissions Coaching Get personalized 1-1 help on every aspect of the law school admission process -- or just the law school personal statement. 2. Law School Admissions Guide I've written a concise guide to the law school admission process with tips on completing every aspect of your applications from start to finish. It's a small price to pay for a whole lot of guidance, and it's short enough that you'll actually read the whole thing. 3. Law School Admissions Cheat Sheet Quick-reference guide for the law school personal statement, the "Why X?" essay, and the law school résumé. (You can also get it with the LSAT Cheat Sheets.)

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Law school application essay stereotypes

Writing about stereotypes can be tricky. It’s a sensitive topic, and approaching it incorrectly could create the wrong tone in your law school personal statement or diversity statement. However, if you’ve been affected by a stereotype in a way that had a significant impact on your life, you should at least consider writing about it in your law school application essays statement – as long as you keep some important tips in mind.  Here’s how you can confront stereotypes in your law school application essays successfully: 1. Show how you’ve tackled them Your law school application essays shouldn’t only show how you’ve struggled with stereotypes. Law school admission officers want to know how you’ve confronted a challenge and come out stronger. 2. Don’t make it your only focus While dealing with a stereotype may be part of your backstory, there’s likely a larger message you’ll need to deliver in your law school personal statement. My former student Jasmine (who I mentioned in my most recent articles) touched briefly upon stereotypes in her law school diversity statement. She wrote: “Medicine and mathematics have been the traditionally promoted fields for many Chinese people. For this reason, there is a stereotype that Chinese people lack the creativity that Western culture has traditionally fostered. However, because China is a country with 1.3 billion people, there is the potential for China to provide the world with an entirely new kind of fashion that will revolutionize the world with a style influenced by Chinese culture.” As you can see, Jasmine confronts the stereotype of Chinese students focusing on math and medicine head-on. Yet, instead of making the stereotype her primary focus, she instead discusses how in spite of those outdated ideas, China actually has a huge potential to become a global leader in the fashion world. 3. Make sure it ties in with your overall message. As with any issue or topic you discuss in your law school personal statement, you shouldn’t talk about stereotypes just to make a certain impression on your readers. Don’t include anything that doesn’t tie in with your larger message about your experiences, passions, and how they tie into your plans for the future. You can see how Jasmine accomplished this in the excerpt above. The overall message of her law school personal statement was how she plans to pursue fashion law to help China become more recognized as a worldwide leader in fashion. While it’s obvious to the reader that she may have witnessed stereotyping against Chinese people first-hand, she only mentions this because it supports the overarching ideas in her law school personal statement. Writing about stereotypes and other sensitive subjects isn’t always easy, but it can be done. And, if you do it correctly, it could make an outstanding impression on admission officers. Just remember to follow the 3 tips above, and reach out to me if you have any questions or want help using these strategies in your law school personal statement. Talk soon, Steve P.S. For more advice on how to tackle personal subjects in your law school personal statement, be sure to check out these law school admissions articles.

Recommended Resources: 1. Law School Admissions Coaching Get personalized 1-1 help on every aspect of the law school admission process -- or just the law school personal statement. 2. Law School Admissions Guide I've written a concise guide to the law school admission process with tips on completing every aspect of your applications from start to finish. It's a small price to pay for a whole lot of guidance, and it's short enough that you'll actually read the whole thing. 3. Law School Admissions Cheat Sheet Quick-reference guide for the law school personal statement, the "Why X?" essay, and the law school résumé. (You can also get it with the LSAT Cheat Sheets.)

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Seven Strategies for 1L Year

 

Law school personal statement inspiration

One common law school personal statement theme is writing about someone who inspires you” I often recommend against this because it takes the focus away from you - and this is supposed to be a personal statement.

Even if this won’t be your final topic, it might be helpful to play around with some ideas. In fact, you might be surprised by what you discover when you do some brainstorming on this topic.  Let me share some tips to help you get started: 1. Think about the word “inspire.” Oftentimes, students who choose this topic lose focus and begin to think only about a person. But remember: inspiration is an action. Whether you’re writing about your mom or a public figure, focus on the way that person has impacted your actions or beliefs. Cite specific examples to back up your claims. 2. Choose someone who means something to you. Just because someone has won a Nobel Peace Prize doesn’t mean they’ve made the greatest impact on your life. It doesn’t matter if the name of your “someone” will be recognizable by admission officers. As long as you can illustrate how that person has truly changed your life in relation to your goals for the future, that’s all that matters. 3. Remember, this is about you. Here comes the tricky part. While you may want to write about someone who’s inspired you, the overall law school personal statement should still remain focused on you. It’s easy to get caught up in all of the wonderful things you’d like to say about this person, but you’re the person applying to law school. Admission officers want to read about you. Jasmine, the student whose law school personal statement I featured in my most recent article, handled this masterfully. She dedicates only one paragraph to the designers who have influenced her, saying: “The Chinese fashion designer Anna Sui has inspired me a great deal. Her style provides me with a sense of direction that modern Chinese fashion can take. Her mysterious and exotic collections make use of Asian styles in a rich and luxurious manner.” Then, in the next paragraph, she returns the focus to herself, saying: “As an attorney focused on fashion, I will go to China in order to seek out and develop native Chinese design and fashion talent… With my background in business management and a year of study in design, combined with a degree in fashion merchandising from the Fashion Institute of Technology, I will be uniquely positioned to assist China in its development as a center of global fashion. Do you see how Jasmine wrote about how the actions of the designer inspired her, instead of just the person herself? Then, she redirected the law school personal statement to bring readers’ attention back to her own goals and future plans. So, if you skipped this topic because you can’t imagine writing an entire personal statement about someone else, it’s time to revisit it! It would actually be a bad idea to focus your whole essay on another person. However, writing about the impact someone has made on you is an excellent way to showcase your love for learning and inspiration – which is precisely what admission officers what to see. In my next article, I’ll share a potentially surprising law school personal statement topic that can work very well – if you do it the right way. Stay tuned, Steve P.S. If you don’t love the idea of writing about someone else, no problem! (It’s not for everybody.) Check out my articles on law school admissions to help you get some ideas flowing. And if you have trouble coming up with ideas for your law school application essays, just reach out and I’ll do what I can to help.

Recommended Resources: 1. Law School Admissions Coaching Get personalized 1-1 help on every aspect of the law school admission process -- or just the law school personal statement. 2. Law School Admissions Guide I've written a concise guide to the law school admission process with tips on completing every aspect of your applications from start to finish. It's a small price to pay for a whole lot of guidance, and it's short enough that you'll actually read the whole thing. 3. Law School Admissions Cheat Sheet Quick-reference guide for the law school personal statement, the "Why X?" essay, and the law school résumé. (You can also get it with the LSAT Cheat Sheets.)

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Law school personal statement - digging deeper

If you’ve never seen the phrase “dig deeper” written in the margins of one of your papers, consider yourself lucky. It seems as if it’s something every professor always says, and for most students, it just sounds like more work.   You might not want to hear this, but your professors are actually right. In order to produce an excellent essay, you really do have to dig deeper.

But what you don’t have to do is make it harder than it has to be. Yes, “digging deeper” requires a bit of extra thinking, but you won’t need to scrap your law school personal statement idea altogether if someone prompts you to dig deeper. Instead, it might mean taking an existing idea and expanding on it. Let’s find out what “digging deeper” actually means with an example from one of my recent students. Jasmine began her law school personal statement with a story about how she helped a Chinese-American friend pick out clothes for an important job interview. On the surface, this anecdote illustrates Jasmine’s interest in fashion. It shows how she enjoys helping others feel confident through their clothing choices. But it’s not enough.  You see, the anecdote is only one part of a larger story. After reading about her experience, we might still have questions, such as: Why is fashion so important to her? What does she find exciting about the world of fashion? What are her future plans for pursuing a career in fashion law? Instead of simply stating that she likes fashion and citing an instance when she used her passion to help a friend, Jasmine transforms her law school personal statement into a much more compelling story by answering those questions.   Her Chinese-American friend, she says, is like many other Chinese immigrants. They have ambitious career goals, but typically don’t pay much attention to details like appearances. Yet, Jasmine argues that appearances can go a long way in helping someone gain the respect and opportunities needed for success. Jasmine also notes that although modern Chinese fashion has gained popularity in Western culture, countries like the U.S. still have only had a small glimpse of what Chinese designers can do. So, Jasmine’s goal in pursuing fashion law, is to “assist China in its development as a center of global fashion.” In doing so, she also hopes to help people like her friend embrace Chinese fashion and all of its benefits, including dressing the part for important professional events. As you can see, Jasmine took just two elements – a love for fashion and a tale about helping a friend – and turned them into a law school personal statement that would make a major impact on admission officers. Believe it or not, you can do the very same thing. All you have to do is dig a little deeper to get there. In my next article, I’ll share how to write about someone who inspires you with examples from Jasmine’s law school personal statement, so stay tuned!  Until next time, Steve P.S. In the meantime, you can find out more about what to include in your law school application in these articles.

Recommended Resources: 1. Law School Admissions Coaching Get personalized 1-1 help on every aspect of the law school admission process -- or just the law school personal statement. 2. Law School Admissions Guide I've written a concise guide to the law school admission process with tips on completing every aspect of your applications from start to finish. It's a small price to pay for a whole lot of guidance, and it's short enough that you'll actually read the whole thing. 3. Law School Admissions Cheat Sheet Quick-reference guide for the law school personal statement, the "Why X?" essay, and the law school résumé. (You can also get it with the LSAT Cheat Sheets.)

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Law school personal statement - best time to start

Law school admissions is conducted on a rolling basis, so the earlier you apply, the better. However, your goal application submission date is not be the only date you should be concerned about when applying to schools. Instead, it’s a good idea to focus on when you should start everything. This gives you plenty of “buffer room” to take your time and really do your best on every part of the application. It also allows you plenty of time to reach out for help if you need to.

This is especially important for the written part of your application. The last thing you want to do is put more stress on yourself when you need to write an exceptional law school personal statement. So, what’s the ideal time to begin writing the law school personal statement? The answer may not be what you think. The general time frame I recommend for the students I work with to start their first draft is 3-4 months before they plan to submit their law school application. But that doesn’t really answer the question of when the best time to write the law school personal statement is. So, while the perfect time is different for everybody, here’s how I help my students discover the best time for them:   • It’s After You’ve Done Some Brainstorming One thing that doesn’t work for most students is diving right into the law school personal statement without first doing some brainstorming. It’s a good idea to sit down and come up with some creative ideas about personal experiences you’ve had that impacted your education or outlook on life. Do this days or even weeks before you actually plan to write your first draft to give yourself ample time to build on your initial thoughts.  • It’s When You Have No Other Obligations Pick a time when you have no looming responsibilities weighing on you. Finish your school, any necessary chores, or other obligations before sitting down to write. Some students even find it helpful to clean their whole rooms before getting started, because they need a clutter-free environment to focus. If that’s what it takes, fine – but be sure to recognize the differences between procrastinating and supporting the creative process. • It’s After You’ve Completed The Rest of the Application Your law school personal statement needs to say something different about you than what’s listed in other parts of your application. Tell admission officers something they won’t find out about you from your LSAT scores, GPA, extracurricular activities, and letters of recommendation. Doing these portions first will help you to avoid repeating yourself. • It’s DEFINITELY Not Right Before the Due Date Lastly, but most importantly, it’s absolutely imperative to avoid putting your law school personal statement off until the last minute. If you find the deadline is quickly approaching, ignore all the recommendations I shared above and simply sit down and write. Even if it’s not the best writing you’ve ever done, you’ll at least have a starting point you can work with. Ultimately, the best time to write the law school personal statement is the time that’s right for you. If possible, I recommend blocking off at least a couple of hours and telling family members that you’ll be busy for that period. (Hint: turning off the Internet connection might help with distractions.) Your first draft might not take several hours, but in case you find yourself on a roll, you’ll have plenty of time to keep going after you get started! Until next time, Steve  P.S. If you feel like you’re doing well while writing your law school personal statement and then all of a sudden you become stuck, don’t panic. Walk away from your laptop or computer for a while. Give it a few minutes, hours, or even a couple of days before you come back to it again. The advantage of starting 3-4 months before you have to submit your application is that you can take a few “mini breaks” without worrying about your deadline. P.P.S. If you’re not an “early bird” with your law school applications, that’s ok, too. I can still help in the final months and weeks (even the final week). Just reach out. I’d love to help you get into your dream school, even if it means working on your law school application essays at the last minute.

Recommended Resources: 1. Law School Admissions Coaching Get personalized 1-1 help on every aspect of the law school admission process -- or just the law school personal statement. 2. Law School Admissions Guide I've written a concise guide to the law school admission process with tips on completing every aspect of your applications from start to finish. It's a small price to pay for a whole lot of guidance, and it's short enough that you'll actually read the whole thing. 3. Law School Admissions Cheat Sheet Quick-reference guide for the law school personal statement, the "Why X?" essay, and the law school résumé. (You can also get it with the LSAT Cheat Sheets.)

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