Navigating Law School Applications — Personal Statement Edition
Congratulations, you’ve decided to go to law school. Now it’s time to consider the (dreadful) application process.
The application process in Ontario is facilitated by OUAC. The process requires applicants to submit a few components in their application, including post-secondary school transcripts, reference letters, a personal statement, autobiographical sketch (similar to a resume), and your LSAT score. The most notable components of this application process are the personal statement and the LSAT (which I will discuss in a later article). This week I want to talk about the personal statement and how I navigated writing it.
Each school requires students to submit a personal statement. While the topic differs slightly between schools, they are generally very similar, and some are almost identical to one another. The topics ask applicants to discuss any relevant work or extra-curricular experience they may have, any academic or personal achievements, why they want to study law, what area of law they’re interested in, etc.
When I started writing the personal statements, I thought I had no relevant experience to speak about.
How do you decide what to write about? My advice to you is that any experience you’ve had is important. When I started writing the personal statements, I thought I had no relevant experience to speak about. All my work experience from my undergrad years was in marketing, and my extra-curricular experiences were with charities, peer support groups, etc. Although, none of my experience had any relation to law. This stressed me out for a while, and I thought it meant I didn’t have a chance at getting accepted.
As I shared in last week’s blog article (about how I decided to go to law school), I didn’t think I was going to apply to law school for a few years throughout my undergrad degree, and as such I didn’t set myself up for any law related work or volunteer experiences. During my application process I thought this would disadvantage me, but in hindsight I don’t think it did.
My advice to anyone applying to law school is that all of your experience is important. Even if it is not directly related to the legal field, it’s important. There are so many transferable skills that you learn at every job that can be highlighted in a personal statement and will be favourable to a career in law (i.e. leadership skills, project management, analytical abilities).
So, I learned that I had to focus on what the skills were that I learned from each experience and what my key takeaways were. I made sure that I was expressing this within my personal statement and describing how those skills and key takeaways will help me in law school and in a future career in law.
While some of the topics at certain schools are very similar to one another, you should not make the mistake of submitting the same personal statement to each school. I almost made this mistake, before receiving advice from my mentor, who is a lawyer and professor, that I should tailor the personal statement to the specific school I’m applying to. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel with each personal statement, rather you can reuse experiences, stories and ideas, but you should make an effort to tailor the narrative to that school.
Now, you might be wondering how you’re supposed to go about tailoring your narrative to the school… To do this, start by doing your research into each specific law school and see what areas of law they put emphasis on. For example, if you’re looking into Western Law, you will notice that the school puts a focus on corporate law, and as such you may want to include any business experiences in your application, or express an interest in working in corporate law (if this is an interest of yours).
On the other end of the spectrum, if you’re applying to the University of Ottawa law school, then you may notice this school is focused more on social justice and advocacy for marginalized populations, so you might emphasize any volunteer or charitable work you’ve done. This will be important for showing how you are a good fit for their specific law school.
My last piece of advice to everyone (and this is probably a no brainer), is have people edit and proofread your statement for you. This is so important! You don’t realize how many spelling and grammatical errors you can miss when proofreading your own work. Also, I personally notice that occasionally I will write sentences or paragraphs that make sense in my head, but they don’t make sense to others when they edit my work. This is why it’s so valuable to have a second or third set of eyes.
When I was writing my personal statements, I always had my father review my writing, and I also sent my work to my mentor. My mentor was a professor I had in undergrad and she is also a lawyer. She was a very valuable asset for editing and strengthening my writing, and she provided powerful insights into the industry of law that I was able to incorporate into my writing. I highly recommend reaching out to any professors or lawyers you know for help, because their insight is invaluable.
Overall, the personal statement is an important tool for law schools to get a sense for who you are as a person, how your experience will aid you in succeeding in law, what your interests are, and your writing ability. So, it is important that you put a great deal of time and consideration into your writing.
The personal statements are an excellent tool for differentiating yourself from the other applicants, and also a great way to supplement an average LSAT score or average CGPA. Personally, my LSAT score was less than competitive, so I used the personal statement to highlight why I was still a good candidate and a good fit for their schools based on my relevant experiences.
I hope this article provided helpful and practical advice. Best of luck to all you future lawyers!
This article is also available in audio form, to listen please click here.
