Crafting Your Law School Personal Statement: Deploy Details

Over the next four days, we’ll highlight one takeaway daily from Marion Roach Smith’s approach to memoir that will help you craft a strong personal statement. Also, be sure to check out her memoir manifesto.

Think small. Memoir requires that you share your growth with the audience, which can be done effectively by incorporating small details. Smith notes the power of observation for showing the reader your journey to transcendence. She writes, “Never forget about the small stuff and how it reveals the big stuff of life.” Small details also create a relationship with your reader, drawing them into the experience. 

Crafting Your Law School Personal Statement: Structure

Over the next four days, we’ll highlight one takeaway daily from Marion Roach Smith’s approach to memoir that will help you craft a strong personal statement. Also, be sure to check out her memoir manifesto.

Structure. Memoir is created out of three components. Prior to writing, sit down and consider the building blocks of your piece.

1) What is this about (think: universal, e.g., connecting with and empowering your team, trying and trying again to find the right approach to solve a complex problem)?

2) What is your argument (something that you learned based on your experience)?

3) What experiences from your life will you deploy to prove your argument? 

Crafting Your Law School Personal Statement: Lessons from Memoir Writing

A memoir requires more than a recounting of events from your life. Rather, you must show the reader that you’ve experienced transcendence. Marion Roach Smith calls it the “golden rule” of memoir. She writes, “Memoir is not about what you did. Memoir is about what you did with it.” The experience is not the focus or the reason for the writing, just the vessel for sharing a more universal learning with your audience. 

Smith expands this thought when she writes, “Specifically memoir is a promise from me that I experienced something, I’ve given some real thought to it and now know what it is, and now I am going to share what I now know with you. The promise is not that I am going to recreate the experience or make you relive it with me.” 

This approach also aligns with what admissions committees are seeking in your personal statement. From your past experiences, they want to learn more about your potential and character. Show them how a recent discovery helped you evolve, how you’ve refined your abilities in innovation and/or leadership, and/or teamwork. Prove to them that you are ready to pursue a graduate education and career path.

Over the next four days, we’ll highlight one takeaway from Marion Roach Smith’s approach to memoir that will help you craft a strong personal statement. Check in daily. Also, be sure to check out her memoir manifesto. 

How to Use Hobbies to Bolster Your Law School Application

Hobbies. They are not a make or break component of the law school application, but they are an opportunity to provide the admissions committee with a view of the person beyond the test scores and transcripts. Hobbies are also an effective way to demonstrate how you will add to the diversity of the incoming class, showcase qualities you will need as a law student/lawyer, and/or provide insight into how you may relieve stress during law school. With many law schools’ increased focus on student mental health, this is particularly noteworthy. 

Within your application, hobbies might be embedded within your personal statement, included in your resume, or referenced as anecdotes in interview responses. While hobbies can be powerful for demonstrating some of your personal qualities, we recommend considering the following guidelines before you highlight them in your application:

• Be current. If you played the trumpet in the high school band, but haven’t picked it up since then, consider what hobbies are more relevant to your life now. What do you turn to for fun, and what do you see yourself doing for stress relief in law school?

• Be specific in your description. Provide a sense of how often, and how long you have been pursuing the hobby, as well as what the hobby entails. It’s great that you love to read, do yoga, and travel, but so do many others. Consider the unique ways you have engaged with your interests. Did you launch a monthly book club for discussing the NYT best sellers? Write book reviews for the school paper? Did you gain a yoga teaching certification or take part in a unique yoga retreat? Do you travel to particular destinations or did you engage in a volunteer experience while abroad?

• State how your hobby has impacted your personal growth. Did an experience within your hobby contribute to a change in your perspective or influence your decision to apply to law school? What attributes have you developed through your hobby that will benefit you as a law student and lawyer (resilience, effective communication and collaboration skills, the ability to thrive in a diverse environment, etc.)? 

• When possible, provide an experience or milestone that differentiates your involvement in the hobby. Many people play an instrument, but fewer start a quartet or play in the university band. Many people enjoy running or fitness, fewer run the NY marathon to support a favorite cause/organization or start a running club. Providing the specific way(s) that you’ve engaged with your hobby will demonstrate to the admissions committee what you may offer to your incoming class.

Structure Your Law School Personal Statement for Maximum Impact

When writing your law school personal statement, we encourage you to think like a storyteller rather than an academic. One of the goals of your writing is to inform, but it is equally important to engage your reader and get them personally invested in your journey. 

You might even take a cue from an action movie. When the lights go down and the curtain goes up, you see the star in a sports car going full throttle. What you don’t know, immediately, is who or where they are. Narrative writing does not have to be linear. After leading with an attention-grabbing scene, the writer can go back and provide additional context and information on what’s missing. 

Here is one type of outline example: 

Event/Problem: Engage your reader immediately in a scene that shows you in action. Is it a high-stress experience? A significant interaction? An unforgettable, formative moment? Then, share what you’re doing. 

Context/Background Info: Give the reader a wide-view angle on the situation. Who are you in this scenario? How did you get here? What are your responsibilities and greatest challenges in this role/scene? 

Re-engagement: This is the heart of the essay. You've introduced the event/problem and yourself. Now, take us back to the anecdote. Show your leadership, integrity, perseverance, critical thinking, or collaboration in action. Delve into the complexities of solving a problem. Sometimes there isn't a solution or grand finale. That's okay. You just want to make it clear why this is the scenario you opened with—why this was meaningful to you. And you don't have to bang the reader over the head with claims of your best qualities; you want to show them those qualities through your story. 

Takeaway/Reflection: What did you learn via your experience? How did it change you? What was the impact on your life or path? This should show that you’re dedicated to growth, self-awareness, and your values, and where these things will take you. 

Conclusion: How did this experience reinforce your commitment to the study of law and the pursuit of a legal career?

Feeling Stuck Writing your Law School Personal Statement? Here’s How to Move Forward.

You have an excellent academic record, a list of extracurricular activities and internships that showcase your varied interests and abilities, a few willing recommenders, and a list of your dream law schools. What you need now is a personal statement, but you can’t seem to put words to paper. Don’t worry, getting started is the hardest part. 

First, step away from your computer. Before you ever begin drafting text, we recommend that you invest some time in a brainstorm. Take a walk down memory lane and think about the moments that have inspired your path to date. Pay particular attention to those experiences that prompted an evolution in your perspective and reinforced your interest in the study of law, as well as those that could show the reader your intellectual curiosity, integrity, perseverance, and abilities in critical thinking, problem solving, and collaboration. 

Write these stories down using as much detail as possible. This will not only benefit you as you draft your personal statement, but it will also be a great reference as you write additional essays or prepare for interviews. Keep in mind that the stories you will use in your personal statement should go deep rather than wide, which is in contrast to the general overview of your experiences that you will provide in your resume. 

Once you’ve spent time brainstorming and documenting memories, put together an outline for your personal statement. You’ll want to select a few key anecdotes that will show the reader who you are and demonstrate some of the attributes that will help you to succeed in law school and beyond. You’ll also want to consider how the stories you select will work within the broader context of your application. For example, if you’ve majored in history and feel confident one of your history professors will reference the thesis you wrote and group project in which you thrived in his Letter of Recommendation, it may be worthwhile to take a deep dive into the substantive quantitative and analytical work you did for that non-profit organization over the summer. 

Now, you are ready to begin your first draft. Good luck!

Related Blogs:

• Five Qualities that Law School Admissions Committees Look for in Applicants

• Crafting Your Personal Statement: Lessons from Memoir Writing