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Friendly Advice from Doc. J. on writing your personal statement:

First, trust that your experiences will make an incredibly compelling personal statement! The mantra “Don’t compare yourself to others” is helpful for keeping yourself sane and focused along the way. Second, baby steps are okay!

How to begin the process of writing your personal statement:
Begin by writing down a few brief stories. Each one should make a strong argument for why you should be admitted to law school:

1. Tell about a time you were a strong leader in college or after college. This can be in a classroom setting, at work, or in a volunteer activity. What was the problem? How did you solve it? In what specific ways did you lead others? What positive tangible impacts did your leadership have? What did you learn from this experience? Or you can tell about being a supportive teammate. These are two sides of the same coin. ☺

2. You’ll want to show the admissions committee members that you are intelligent, especially that you analyze and interpret information well (both logically and ethically). Tell a story about how you developed your critical thinking and argumentation skills. Perhaps you wrote an argumentative essay or thesis in college you are proud of, won a debate tournament, wrote a grant for an activity, or analyzed the best way to complete a task for one of your work or volunteer positions. Provide the admissions committee members with evidence that you can think on your feet, communicate well, and that you can also be trusted to analyze a problem fully and make a thoughtful recommendation supported by a strong argument for your point of view. Show you can see from multiple perspectives.

3. Tell about a time you had a positive tangible impact on others. Maybe you led a study group, helped tutor economically disadvantaged children, or even saved your company thousands of dollars by catching an error or making a process more efficient. This kind of story will show you have had real-world experience, and it also often demonstrates that you can look at issues from multiple perspectives.

Why stories?
Stories are a powerful tool for personal statement writers because they provide evidence to support your claims about your skills and abilities. Once admissions committee members see specific evidence of leadership, critical thinking, and other “lawyerly” skills already in place, they will be more eager to admit you. Additionally, stories hold the interest and focus of the reader, since the human mind responds pleasurably to stories by imagining characters, settings and actions. Finally, stories gently force the reader to interpret your actions, thus getting them mentally involved as you “show” them your skills and talents (rather than “tell” them—remember that old thing from high school English? ☺).

What next?
Once you have written down several stories that provide strong evidence for your skills and abilities, synthesize them into an essay. Some applicants choose to focus on one event in their life, and that one story allows them to weave in evidence of their leadership skills, intellectual excellence, and how they have had tangible impact on others. More often, applicants weave together several stories linked by a unifying theme, image, or metaphor. Once you decide on the stories you want to use, strive for adding other engaging elements of style to your essay. Style makes the essay pleasurable for the reader—it can incorporate moments of humor, poignancy, or vivid description to make the reader enjoy the essay.

Why law?
Don’t forget to argue why you want to go to law school and what field you are interested in based on your experiences. If possible, it is always stronger to tailor your personal statement to specific schools. Argue how a law school’s specific resources meet your needs exactly and what you will bring to their program.

Important Note: You don't necessarily need it, but f you would like more information about law school application essays, a free copy of the ebook Top-Law-Schools.com Guide to Personal Statements by Ken DeLeon, J.D., and Joann Kleinneiur McEntire, Ph.D., is available online at Top-Law-Schools.com. Top-Law-Schools.com Guide to Personal Statements is an e-book offering law school applicants over 200 pages of advice on writing a strong personal statement for the admissions application. This e-book includes over 30 examples of personal statements with extensive commentary on "What's Strong" and "What's Wrong" for each statement. The e-book also includes appendices on supplementary admissions essays, letters of recommendation, and letters of continued interest, among others. The first author, Ken DeLeon, J.D., runs Top-Law-Schools.com, the nation's premier advice website for law school applicants. The second author, Joann Kleinneiur McEntire, Ph.D., runs Revision Editing, a professional personal statement editing service. This is the only book on the market that includes detailed commentary on every personal statement, showing you the feedback an applicant would receive from a private editing service.