Law School Personal Statements: Keys to Success?

By Draza Kolpack

Applying into a post-graduate program is certainly a stressful time for any student, whether they are coming directly out of their undergraduate degree or returning for additional schooling after some time gather experience in the workforce- and of course applying to law school is no different. Among the grades and various test scores that these programs dissect when considering an application, there is another crucial determining factor: a personal statement, 2-4 pages that sums up an applicant’s moral character, credibility, reason for wanting to practice law, and how they are the perfect fit for the program they are applying for. But how is the perfect personal statement crafted? Which styles of writing best suit this niche piece? While it is clear that not every program is the same or provides the same prompts, and that every individual has their own experiences that lend themselves to infinite variability, I have chosen a successful personal statement to analyze myself; in this article I plan to illustrate the stylistic choices, strategies, and personal nuances that made this applicant successful in applying to this incredibly competitive field.

To understand the stylistic strategies that I will be discussing in this piece, it is crucial to understand the styles in which they are rooted. The official style, often found in academic and bureaucratic writing, is characterized by the use of passive or impersonal voice, complex sentences, slow sentence openings, shapeless or ‘unspeakable’ form, excessive use of jargon, a bureaucratic tone, and higher levels of abstraction alongside a number of other nuances. This lays in juxtaposition to the plain style, a style of writing that utilizes an active voice, simpler sentences, an informal tone/diction, and clear subjects with the intention of producing writing that is clear and concise to a large majority of readers in the target audience. The creative style allows authors to supplement a number of facets within their writing regardless of the style employed: strategies supporting emphasis, transitions, clarity, figurative language, syntax, restatement, sound, drama, and word play can all be utilized to make a good piece of writing great; whether one is looking to deliver a more personal tone through their writing, to drive a point home for the purpose of persuasion or understanding, or to simply elevate writing without making it too flowery, the creative style demonstrates that it can certainly be applicable in a number of settings. While not always necessary or desirable, I find that blending these styles (to a degree) is a great way to illustrate your skill as an author; in the case of a personal statement for law school, utilizing the strong diction and jargon that will be necessary in your future field while writing plainly to demonstrate your skill/knowledge in wielding these concepts can be an exceptionally useful skill.

Passage One:

“While I learned to advocate for myself throughout high school, I also learned to advocate for others. My neighbors, knowing my desire to be a lawyer, would often ask me to advocate on their behalf with small grievances. I would make phone calls, stand in line with them at government offices, and deal with difficult landlords. A woman, Elsa, asked me to review her rental agreement to help her understand why her landlord had rented it to someone else, rather than renewing her lease. I scoured the rental agreement, highlighted questionable sections, read the Residential Tenancies Act, and developed a strategy for approaching the landlord”

             What do we see here? The use of active voice, the shorter, less complex sentences, and the ultimately less abstract form of this passage ultimately lends itself to the plain style; the language utilized is easily read and understood, characteristics that serve narrative writing well. The addition of relatively strong diction and a few instances of jargon are skillfully used to promote the author’s credibility as an applicant to the legal program of their choice. It is also important to note that in this passage the author uses exemplum, a creative strategy which means to simply provide a specific, often concrete, example, to highlight pivotal moments in their mindset and/or career that exemplify their individual experience, personify the author, and present them as an ideal candidate.

Passage Two:

I broke from the belief systems I was born into. I did this through education, mentorship, and self-advocacy. There is sadness because in this transition I left people behind, especially as I entered university. However, I am devoted to my home community. I understand the barriers that stand between youth and their success. As a law student, I will mentor as I was mentored, and as a lawyer, I will be a voice for change.

            This passage has many parallels in regards to stylistic choice as passage one. The key element I would like to focus on is this author’s use of the creative style strategy, climax; this conclusion to the personal statement also works as a climax or a culmination of all the growth they wrote about in this piece, driving home the message of how their experience shaped them and why they should be accepted by using short, abrupt sentences with powerful content.

Readability Statistics: (From the article as a whole)

 

(Gunning Fog Index: estimated grade level required to understand text / Flesch Reading Ease: scale from 1-100, 1 being most difficult to read and 100 being the easiest)

            Though I have been touching on this concept for the majority of this article, we must discuss this piece of writing in its primary context- a personal statement as part of an application to a law school. Without knowing the school for which this applicant was applying, it is difficult to know what the exact prompt they were provided with was. The safe assumption, however, is that this personal statement was written with the intention of illustrating the applicant’s credibility and experience as well as demonstrating why they would be a good fit for the program specifically (much like a job interview in which one applies themselves to the company’s statement or message). In the end, I feel that the utilization of primarily plain and creative styles served to best illustrate the applicant’s moral character and ideology, something that is undoubtably taken into account because grades and other achievements/opportunities participated in are taken into account separately from the personal statement. But I feel like it would be negligent to call the official style less than useful in this context; while it is true that the plain and creative styles fit the narrative form of this piece, the official style is used subtly as a means of demonstrating the author’s ability to craft words and use diction appropriate for the field. I find that this piece is a good opportunity for writers to practice their ability to blend these styles in a way that exemplifies your skill as a writer without falling into the potential floweriness of the official and creative styles, or the sometimes-lacking nature of the plain style. But does this answer the question of “what stylistic choices are more suitable for a personal statement?” No, not necessarily, but I think it is important to recognize that individuality is often just as important as finding that perfect style; even disregarding that each program may have a different prompt which may lead to different stylistic choices taking priority, your own story can be bent and presented in infinite ways by utilizing a plethora of writing genres and styles.