How to Write Great Law School Personal Statement in 2023 | with Format and Examples
Here is your ultimate law school personal statement guide! This post teaches you how you can draft flawless law school personal statements with high accuracy.
By following the guidelines, you could produce highly convincing personal statements to guarantee your law school admission!
You will know how to:
- Produce error-free personal statements.
- Bring about your personal touch.
- Know what to include.
- Know what to avoid.
- Be aware of general mistakes.
What is a Law School Personal Statement
A law school personal statement is your direct appeal to the admission council at your dream institution. You could include your background, ambitions, highlight what makes you a deserving candidate and more through this personal statement.
Why Law School Personal Statement?
Law is a field where you work directly with people. The committee wants to know who you are, and not just how much you score in your examinations.
How is it Important
- You get to tell your story.
- Your successes are highlighted.
- Your worth as a student becomes evident.
- You build a connection and image.
- You show your potential to grow.
- You appear more humane
What Does a Winning Law School Personal Statement Look Like?
There are many components that go into a successful personal statement. From the format, the content and the ideology behind it, everything matters.
- It is clear and accurate.
- There is no exaggeration.
- Presents an honest idea of who you are.
- Tells your story in an intriguing manner.
- Stands out from the rest.
- Doesn’t repeat what is in the résumé.
How Does the Admission Committee Evaluate Your Personal Statement?
Look at Who You Are
Your personal statement gives you the opportunity to present yourself to the committee as you are and they will look into this.
Assesses Your Communication Skills
Communication is important for an attorney or lawyer. Law school admission committees assess your communication abilities using the statement.
Understands What Makes You Unique
Do you stand out from the other applicants? If yes, how do you achieve this? Your personal statement gives them an idea.
Assesses Your Strengths and Weaknesses
By identifying your strengths and weaknesses, the committee will have a clear idea of whether you will potentially make a great lawyer or not.
Sees How You Will Fit
Are your skills and passions aligned with a career in law? Your personal statement could give the committee an idea about this.
Are Your Goals Real?
How passionate and serious are you about a career as a lawyer? Are your goals more worthy then the other applicants?
Try These Brainstorming Topics on Your Law School Personal Statement
Your law school personal statement says a lot about you as a student and a potential future lawyer. There are various topics that you could broach on and focus on which would present you in a unique light to the committee. Here are some law school personal statement ideas from us:
- Talk about an incident that changed your entire worldview.
- Are you from a minority community? Talk about the struggles associated.
- If you have any significant turning point in your life, you can talk about that.
- Talk about any innovative research project or discipline that fascinates you.
- Talk about how your actions have affected the community positively.
- You could highlight how your upbringing has affected your passions.
How to Write Law School Personal Statement in Easy 6 Steps
Do your research
Try to understand what makes law school personal statements stand out. Also research on what the committee is likely to look for.
Gather facts and figures
Your personal rankings, what you know about the university and its metrics- facts and figures makes everything appear more digestible.
Have a clear idea
Gather all the information that you need. Have a clear idea about what you want to include in your law school personal statement.
Write the first draft
Prepare the first draft keeping in mind that you might have to revise it multiple times to get it right.
Proofread and Edit
Law school personal statement editing is just as important as drafting. Make sure that you proofread everything and edit as needed.
Final Assessment
Assess the quality of your personal statement and make sure it is completely error-free before you go ahead and submit it.
Read more here on personal statement:
Sample for Law School Personal Statement
Law school personal statement sample prepared by us for getting a clear idea about how you can prepare your own. It is important to keep in mind that this is just a reference.
Law School Personal Statement
I had an inherent interest in social services right from my formative years. I used to help people who in need by being part of an organization named ABC. During my college days, I enhanced my social commitment by being part of number of more organization. So as a part of one of our commitments, I had a chance to visit district court. Though our legal system take too long to produce a verdict in a case, there are many things that a lawyer can provide to his/her client like relief, passion, etc. But what I got to experience there was just opposite. I saw many rural people with less educational background being traumatized by some lawyers for their high demand of fees. I was shocked to see such an attitude from our legal guardians. When I interfered, they were against me. But my basic legal knowledge got through over them and I made arrangement for better lawyers for that poor people. This made me to think about the long legal process in my country which is inaccessible and exhaustive for normal people from poor financial background.
So in order to tackle the above mentioned problem, I, along with my friends, organized a legal group named XYZ, so that we laymen could help the poor people with legal aid. Some of the Lawyers who had a humanitarian approach agreed to be part of our venture and we had a great time with this organization. As part of XYZ, I took care of a number of legal documents and legal procedures which built a strong interest in me to get into this path. As my bachelors was in Political Science I had a strong base in the constitutional history and other political matters of my country So, since I had a strong interest in the legal system of my country, I made up my decision to wear the black robe to help the people in need. This is my strong motivation behind my choice of a Law career.
As a person with strong human ties and friendly nature, I know I can excel in my chosen field. Once I helped a widowed lady who struggled to get her part of property from her ambitious brother in-laws. The case was a little complicated, but our lawyers took up the case and I helped her with her legal procedures. But even before the case was taken to court and we filed a case, I decided to meet the in-laws of this lady in person. I explained the legal causes they would have if they are found guilty and read them out the cases that could be charged against them. After long negotiation, they agreed to concede and the case was compromised. This was a groundbreaking relief for me that I could help a person in a legal case even before becoming a lawyer. With a strong determination to help the disadvantaged and poor, I seek to have a law degree to help the people in need and create an impact in our society and address the weaknesses of our legal system.
Read more here on personal statement:
| Anesthesiology | Emergency Medicine | Neurology | Radiology |
| Dental School | Family Medicine | Internal Medicine | Urology |
| Dermatology | General Surgery | Psychiatry | Pediatrics |
| Ophthalmology | Medical School | Nursing Job | Pathology |
How Long is Law School Personal Statement
The ideal law school personal statement word count is between 500-1000 words but this depends on your university’s specific demands as well. Go through the guidelines specified by the institution first.
How to Format a Winning Law School Personal Statement
Let us guide you on what the ideal law school personal format is:
Throughout :
Do not include any titles. Maintain a standard font like times new Roman and keep the font size between 11 and 12.
Margins:
It is ideal to have 1 inch margins throughout.
Header:
Check with your universities particular guidelines to see if they have mentioned anything. Otherwise, make sure to include your name, Application number, “Personal Statement” and page number as well.
Body:
Indent the paragraphs at 0.5 inches. Make sure that the content is aligned to the left and you could use double spaces while separating paragraphs. Use single space after periods.
Conclusion:
do not add any signature while ending the statement.
How Should Be A Law School Personal Statement Header
It is important to have a well-formatted law school personal statement header. You can choose to use one line format or three line format. Ideally, depending on the length of your personal statement, you can choose whether you want to keep it within one line or include three.
Common Mistakes
These are some of the most common mistakes that lead to the preparation of bad law school personal statements.
- They are extremely long or too short.
- The formatting is most probably not accurate.
- The personal statements appear to be rather generic.
- There is no authenticity to the personal statement.
- It does not paint a clear picture about your future goals.
- There is a lot of exaggeration about successes and no mention of failure.
Tips from Industry Experts
Here are some exclusive tips brought to you by industry experts who have drafted numerous excellent law school personal statements.
Tell your story
This is your chance to tell your story. Talk about what makes you unique without sounding arrogant or ambitious without a social cause. Your motivation needs to be very clear.
Be Crisp and Clear
Have a very clear idea about what your future goals are and present them in the most appeasing manner. None of these goals should appear to be generic and they should give a clear picture about why you have chosen law.
Your personal traits
Think about what makes a good lawyer in your opinion. Stick to these points and highlight the traits that are present in you that would make you a reliable and trustworthy representative of the people.
Downfalls and more
Talk about your failures. Describe what you learned from the experience and how this has helped you grow as a student and a person. Show your determination to never make the same mistakes ever again.
Your passion: What drives you?
What keeps you passionate about a career in the field of law? Is there a specific incident in your life that attracted you towards this field? Answer these questions in appropriate detail.
Honesty and Credibility
Be honest throughout the personal statement. It is very important to maintain authenticity by presenting facts that are verifiable by the institution. This creates a great image about you in the beginning itself.
Final Checklist:
When you do your final law school personal statement review, look for these things:
- Make sure that there are no errors.
- Ensure that it sounds authentic.
- Look for grammar and spelling mistakes.
- Double check the formatting.
- Read the statement at least twice before submitting.
- Go through the university guidelines and see if everything is done right.
Best Law Schools You Should Try:
Here are some of the best law schools in the world that you could try applying for:
- Harvard Law
- Yale University
- University of Chicago
- Stanford University
- Cambridge University
- Florida State University
- Vermont Law School
- University of Calgary
- Texas A&M University
- Penn State Law
What Are Your Thoughts?
Do you think that we have missed out on anything? Please let us know in the comments if you feel that there are any points that we need to add. We hope that you found our law school personal statement writing guidelines effective.
We hope that the blog has been helpful in helping you construct the perfect law school personal statement.
