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18 Law School Personal Statement Examples That Got Accepted!

This blog contains law school personal statement examples written by applicants who were successfully accepted to multiple law schools after working with our admissions experts as part of our  application review programs . Your  law school personal statement  is one of the most important parts of your application and is your best opportunity to show admissions officers who you are behind your numbers and third-party assessments. Because of its importance, many students find the personal statement to be daunting and demanding of the full scope of their skills as writers. Today we're going to review these excellent law school personal statement examples from past successful applicants and provide some proven strategies from a former admissions officer that can help you prepare your own stellar essay. 

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Article Contents 44 min read

Law school personal statement example #1.

When I was a child, my neighbors, who had arrived in America from Nepal, often seemed stressed. They argued a lot, struggled for money, and seemed to work all hours of the day. One day, I woke early in the morning to a commotion outside my apartment. Police officers were accompanying my neighbors out of the building. They were being deported. In my teens, I was shocked to see that our kind, friendly neighbors had exhausted their last chance to stay in America as they lost a court appeal. 

Since that time, I have worked closely with the many immigrant families in my neighborhood, and now university town. I began by volunteering at a local community center. Together with social workers, I served food and gave out clothes to new arrivals. My diligent work ethic led to more responsibility, and I received training in basic counseling techniques, first aid skills and community services. Soon, I was tasked with welcoming new community members and assessing their health and social needs. I heard the many difficult stories of those who had traveled thousands of miles, often through several countries, risking everything to reach a safe, welcoming country. I was proud to contribute in some small way to making America welcoming for these individuals.

The community center is where I had my first formal contact with legal aid lawyers, who were a constant source of knowledge and support for those who needed assistance. I was struck by the lawyers’ ability to explain complex legal processes to nervous and exhausted incomers: law, I realized, was about more than procedure. I decided that I, too, would strive to balance a wealth of technical knowledge with my caring, compassionate personality.

As soon as I enrolled in university, I knew I had the chance to do so. In my very first week, I signed up to volunteer at the university’s legal aid center, where I worked closely with law professors and students on a range of cases. Academically, I have focused on courses, such as a fourth-year Ethics seminar, that would help me develop rigorous critical reasoning skills. More importantly, I knew that, given my experience, I could be a leader on campus. I decided to found a refugee campaign group, Students4Refugees. Together with a group of volunteers, we campaigned to make our campus a refugee-friendly space. I organized a series of events: international student mixers, an art installation in our student commons, and concerts that raised over $5,000 for the charity Refugee Aid. I am proud to say that my contributions were recognized with a university medal for campus leadership.

I have seen time and again how immigrants to the United States struggle with bureaucracy, with complex legal procedures, and with the demands of living in a foreign and sometimes hostile climate. As I plan to enter law school, I look back to my neighbors’ experiences: they needed someone who knew the law, who could negotiate with the authorities on their behalf, who could inform them of their rights—but they also needed someone who would provide a caring and compassionate outlet for their stresses. I know that Townsville University’s combination of academic rigor, legal aid services, and history of graduates entering labor and non-profit sectors will allow me to develop these skills and continue making contributions to my community by advocating for those in need.

• Thematic consistency: It focuses on just one theme: justice for immigrants. Each paragraph is designed to show off how enthusiastic the student is about this area of law. Personal statements—including those for law school—often begin with a personal anecdote. This one is short, memorable, and relevant. It establishes the overall theme quickly. By constraining their essay’s focus to a single general theme, the writer can go into great depth and weave in emotional and psychological weight through careful and vivid description. The personal statement isn’t a standard 3-paragraph college essay with a spotlight thesis statement, but it conveys similar impact through presenting a central focus organically, without resorting to simply blurting out “the point” of the piece.   
• Shows, rather than tells: Connected to this, this statement focuses on showing rather than telling. Rather than simply telling the reader about their commitment to law, the applicant describes specific situations they were involved in that demonstrate their commitment to law. “Show don’t tell” means you want to paint a vivid picture of actions or experiences that demonstrate a given quality or skill, and not simply say "I can do X." Make it an experience for your reader, don't just give them a fact. 
• Confident, but not arrogant: Additionally, this personal statement is confident without being boastful—leadership qualities, grades, and an award are all mentioned in context, rather than appearing as a simple list of successes. 
• Specific to the school: It ends with a conclusion that alludes to why the applicant is suitable for the specific school to which they’re applying and points to their future career plans. Thoroughly researching the law school to which you’re applying is incredibly important so that you can tailor your remarks to the specific qualities and values they’re looking for. A law essay writing service is really something that can help you integrate this aspect effectively. 

What Should a Law School Personal Statement Do?

1.      be unique to the school you’re applying to.

Students are always asking how to write a personal statement for law school, particularly one that stands out from all the rest. After all, advice from most universities can often be quite vague. Take this zinger from the  University of Chicago : “Write about something personal, relevant, and completely individual to you… Just be yourself.” Every school will have different requirements or content they want to see in a personal statement. This is why it’s a good idea to review specific guidelines for the school to which you’re applying. For example, you can read Yale Law School personal statement examples , Stanford Law personal statement examples , and an NYU personal statement to get an idea of what these schools look for.

2.      Demonstrate your skills and capabilities

For motivated students with the world at their fingertips, it’s a tough ask to narrow your character down into a few hundred words! But this is exactly the point of such generic guidelines—to challenge aspiring law students to produce something unique and convincing with minimal direction by the university. Law is, after all, a profession that demands your language to be persuasive, and the personal statement is merely one of many exercises where you can demonstrate your language skills. 

3.      Meet basic requirements

While the law school personal statement is about far more than just following essay directions, you still need to keep basic formatting and length restrictions in mind. Most law schools ask for a 2-page personal statement, but lengths can range from 2-4 pages. Georgetown Law School , for instance, recommends a 2-page personal statement but explicitly states that there is no official minimum or maximum. In general, length does not make a personal statement better. Rambling, meandering sentences and tiresome descriptions will only hurt the impact of your ideas, especially considering how many thousands of pages admissions committees have to churn through each year.  

In short, keep to 2 double-spaced pages, and only go below or above this is if you absolutely have to, and if the school to which you're applying allows it. You want to keep things as widely applicable as possible while drafting your personal statement, meaning that you don't want to draft a 4 page letter for the one school that allows it, and then have to significantly rewrite this for your other schools. Stick to 2 pages. 

4.      Embody what the school is looking for

Lastly, many law schools won’t offer hyper-specific prompts, but will give you general law school admissions essay topics to follow. For instance, the University of Washington’s law school provides a number of topics to follow, including “Describe a personal challenge you faced” or “Describe your passions and involvement in a project or pursuit and the ways in which it has contributed to your personal growth and goals.” These topics may feel specific at first, but as you begin drafting, you’ll likely realize you have dozens of memories to choose from, and numerous ways of describing their impact. While drafting, try to explore as many of these options as possible, and select the best or most impactful to use in your final draft.  

Want to write the perfect law school personal statement? Watch this video:

Law School Personal Statement Example #2

In my home community, the belief is that the law is against us. The law oppresses and victimizes. I must admit that as a child and young person I had this opinion based on my environment and the conversations around me. I did not understand that the law could be a vehicle for social change, and I certainly did not imagine I had the ability and talents to be a voice for this change. I regularly attended my high school classes because I enjoyed the discussions and reading for English and history, and writing came easily to me, but I wasn’t committed to getting good grades because I felt I had no purpose. My mindset changed as I spent time with Mark Russell, a law student who agreed to mentor and tutor me as part of a “high school to law school” mentorship program. Every week, for three years, Mark and I would meet. At first, Mark tutored me, but I quickly became an “A” student, not only because of the tutoring, but because my ambitions were uncorked by what Mark shared with me about university, the law, and his life. I learned grades were the currency I needed to succeed. I attended mock trials, court hearings, and law lectures with Mark and developed a fresh understanding of the law that piqued an interest in law school. My outlook has changed because my mentor, my teachers, and my self-advocacy facilitated my growth. Still, injustices do occur. The difference is that I now believe the law can be an instrument for social change, but voices like mine must give direction to policy and resources in order to fight those injustices.

Early in my mentorship, I realized it was necessary to be “in the world” differently if I were to truly consider a law career. With Mark’s help and the support of my high school teachers, I learned to advocate for myself and explore opportunities that would expand my worldview as well as my academic skills. I joined a Model UN club at a neighboring high school, because my own school did not have enough student interest to have a club. By discussing global issues and writing decisions, I began to feel powerful and confident with my ability to gather evidence and make meaningful decisions about real global issues. As I built my leadership, writing, and public speaking skills, I noticed a rift developing with some of my friends. I wanted them to begin to think about larger systemic issues outside of our immediate experience, as I was learning to, and to build confidence in new ways. I petitioned my school to start a Model UN and recruited enough students to populate the club. My friends did not join the club as I’d hoped, but before I graduated, we had 2 successful years with the students who did join. I began to understand that I cannot force change based on my own mandate, but I must listen attentively to the needs and desires of others in order to support them as they require.

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. Elsa and I sat down with the landlord and, upon seeing my binder complete with indices, he quickly conceded before I could even speak. That day, I understood evidence is the way to justice. My interest in justice grew, and while in university, I sought experiences to solidify my decision to pursue law.

Last summer, I had the good fortune to work as a summer intern in the Crown Attorney’s Office responsible for criminal trial prosecutions. As the only pre-law intern, I was given tasks such as reviewing court tapes, verifying documents, and creating a binder with indices. I often went to court with the prosecutors where I learned a great deal about legal proceedings, and was at times horrified by human behavior. This made the atmosphere in the Crown Attorney’s office even more surprising. I worked with happy and passionate lawyers whose motivations were pubic service, the safety and well-being of communities, and justice. The moment I realized justice was their true objective, not the number of convictions, was the moment I decided to become a lawyer.

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.

What’s Great about this Second Law School Personal Statement?

• It tells a complete and compelling story: Although the applicant expressed initial reservations about the law generally, the statement tells a compelling story of how the applicant's opinions began to shift and their interest in law began. They use real examples and show how that initial interest, once seeded, grew into dedication and passion. This introduction implies an answer to the " why do you want to study law? ” interview question.
• It shows adaptability: Receptiveness to new information and the ability to change both thought and behavior based on this new information. The writer describes realizing that they needed to be "in the world" differently! It's hard to convey such a grandiose idea without sounding cliché, but through their captivating and chronological narrative, the writer successfully convinces the reader that this is the case with copious examples, including law school extracurriculars . It’s a fantastic case of showing rather than telling, describing specific causes they were involved with which demonstrate that the applicant is genuinely committed to a career in the law. 
• Includes challenges the subject faced and overcame: This law school personal statement also discusses weighty, relatable challenges that they faced, such as the applicant's original feeling toward law, and the fact that they lost some friends along the way. However, the applicant shows determination to move past these hurdles without self-pity or other forms of navel-gazing.  Additionally, this personal statement ends with a conclusion that alludes to why the applicant is suitable for the specific school to which they’re applying and points to their future career plans. The writer manages to craft an extremely immersive and believable story about their path to the present, while also managing to curate the details of this narrative to fit the specific values and mission of the school to which they’re applying.

What’s Great About This Third Law School Personal Statement? 

• Description is concise and effective: This writer opens with rich, vivid description and seamlessly guides the reader into a compelling first-person narrative. Using punchy, attention-grabbing descriptions like these make events immersive, placing readers in the writer's shoes and creating a sense of immediacy. 
• Achievements are the focus: They also do a fantastic job of talking about their achievements, such as interview team lead, program design, etc., without simply bragging. Instead, they deliver this information within a cohesive narrative that includes details, anecdotes, and information that shows their perspective in a natural way. Lastly, they invoke their passion for law with humility, discussing their momentary setbacks and frustrations as ultimately positive experiences leading to further growth. 

Want more law school personal statement examples from top law schools?

• Harvard law school personal statement examples
• Columbia law school personal statement examples
• Cornell law school personal statement examples
• Yale law school personal statement examples
• UPenn law school personal statement examples
• Cambridge law school personal statement examples

Law School Personal Statement #4

What’s great about this fourth law school personal statement.

• Engaging description: Like the third example above, this fourth law school personal statement opens with engaging description and first-person narrative. However, the writer of this personal statement chooses to engage a traumatic aspect of their childhood and discuss how this adversity led them to develop their desire to pursue a career in law.  
• Strong theme of overcoming adversity: Overcoming adversity is a frequent theme in personal statements for all specialties, but with law school personal statements students are often able to utilize uniquely dramatic, difficult, and pivotal experiences that involved interacting with the law. It may be hard to discuss such emotionally weighty experiences in a short letter but, as this personal statement shows, with care and focus it's possible to sincerely demonstrate how your early struggles paved the way for you to become the person you are now. It's important to avoid sensationalism, but you shouldn't shy away from opening up to your readers about adverse experiences that have ultimately pointed you in a positive direction. 

Why "show, don't tell" is the #1 rule for personal statements:

Law School Personal Statement Example #5

What’s great about this fifth law school personal statement  .

• Highlights achievements effectively: This writer does a fantastic job of incorporating their accomplishments and impact they had on their community without any sense of bragging or conceit. Rather, these accomplishments are related in terms of deep personal investment and a general drive to have a positive impact on those around them—without resorting to the cliches of simply stating "I want to help people." They show themselves helping others, and how these early experiences of doing so are a fundamental part of their drive to succeed with a career in law.   
• Shows originality: Additionally, they do a great job of explaining the uniqueness of their identity. The writer doesn't simply list their personal/cultural characteristics, but contextualizes them to show how they've shaped their path to law school. Being the child of a Buddhist mother and a Hindu father doesn’t imply anything about a person’s ability to study/practice law on its own, but explaining how this unique aspect of their childhood encouraged a passion for “discussion, active debate, and compromise” is profoundly meaningful to an admissions panel. Being able to express how fundamental aspects of law practice are an integral part of yourself is a hugely helpful tactic in a law school personal statement. 

If you\u2019re heading North of the border, check out list of  law schools in Canada  that includes requirements and stats on acceptance. ","label":"Tip","title":"Tip"}]" code="tab2" template="BlogArticle">

Law School Personal Statement Example #6

What’s great about this sixth law school personal statement .

• Weaves in cultural background: Similar to the writer of personal statement #5, this student utilizes the cultural uniqueness of their childhood to show how their path to law school was both deeply personal and rooted in ideas pervasive in their early years. Unlike the writer of statement #5, this student doesn't shy away from explaining how this distinctiveness was often a source of alienation and difficulty. Yet this adversity is, as they note, ultimately what helped them be an adaptable and driven student, with a clear desire to make a positive impact on the kinds of situations that they witnessed affect their parents.  
• Describes setbacks while remaining positive: This writer also doesn't shy away from describing their temporary setbacks as both learning experiences and, crucially, springboards for positively informing their plans for the future. 

What’s Great About This Seventh Law School Personal Statement? 

• The writer takes accountability: One of the hardest things to accomplish in a personal statement is describing not just early setbacks that are out of your control but early mistakes for which you must take responsibility. The writer of this personal statement opens with descriptions of characteristics that most law schools would find problematic at best. But at the end of this introduction, they successfully utilize an epiphany, a game-changing moment in which they saw something beyond their early pathological aimlessness, to clearly mark the point at which they became focused on law.  
• The narrative structure is clear: They clearly describe the path forward from this moment on, showing how they remained focused on earning a law degree, and how they were able to work through successive experiences of confusion to persist in finishing their undergraduate education at a prestigious university. Of course, you shouldn't brag about such things for their own sake, but this writer makes the point of opening up about the unique feelings of inadequacy that come along with being the first person in their family to attend such a school, and how these feelings were—like their initial aimlessness—mobilized in service of their goal and the well-being of others. Their statement balances discussion of achievement with humility, which is a difficult but impactful tactic when done well. 

Law School Personal Statement Example #8

What’s great about this eighth law school personal statement .

• Shows commitment to the community: Commitment to one’s community is a prized value in both law students and law professionals. This writer successfully describes not only how they navigated the challenges in their group environments, such as their internship, the debate team, etc., but how these challenges strengthened their commitment to being a positive part of their communities. They don’t simply describe the skills and lessons they learned from these challenging environments, but also how these challenges ultimately made them even more committed to and appreciative of these kinds of dynamic, evolutionary settings.  
• Avoids negative description: They also avoid placing blame or negatively describing the people in these situations, instead choosing to characterize inherent difficulties in terms neutral to the people around them. In this way, you can describe extremely challenging environments without coming off as resentful, and identify difficulties without being accusatory or, worse yet, accidentally or indirectly seeming like part of the problem. This writer manages to convey the difficulty and complexity of these experiences while continually returning to their positive long-term impact, and though you shouldn’t seek to “bright-side” the troubles in your life you should absolutely point out how these experiences have made you a more capable and mature student. 

Watch this for more law school personal statement examples!

Law School Personal Statement Example #9

What’s great about this ninth law school personal statement  .

• The writer effectively describes how their background shaped their decision to pursue law: Expressing privilege as adversity is something that very few students should even attempt, and fewer still can actually pull it off. But the writer of this personal statement does just that in their second paragraph, describing how the ease and comfort of their upbringing could have been a source of laziness or detachment, and often is for particularly well-off students, but instead served as a basis for their ongoing commitment to addressing the inequalities and difficulties of those less comfortable. Describing how you’ve developed into an empathic and engaged person, worked selflessly in any volunteer experiences, and generally aimed your academic life at a career in law for the aid of others—all this is incredibly moving for an admissions board, and can help you discuss your determination and understanding of exactly why you desire a career in law.  
• The student shows adaptability, flexibility, and commitment: Additionally, this writer is able to show adaptability while describing their more prestigious appointments in a way that’s neither self-aggrandizing nor unappreciative. One of the big takeaways from this statement is the student’s commitment and flexibility, and these are both vitally important qualities to convey in your law school personal statement.  

Law School Personal Statement Example #10

What’s great about this tenth law school personal statement .

Shows passion: If you’re one of the rare students for whom service to others has always been a core belief, by all means find a novel and engaging way of making this the guiding principle of your personal statement. Don’t overdo it—don’t veer into poetry or lofty philosophizing—but by all means let your passion guide your pen (well…keyboard). Every step of the way, this student relates their highs and lows, their challenges and successes, to an extremely earnest and sincere set of altruistic values invoked at the very beginning of their statement. Law school admissions boards don’t exactly prize monomania, but they do value intense and sustained commitment.  

Shows maturity: This student also successfully elaborates this passion in relation to mature understanding. That is, they make repeated points about their developing understanding of law that sustains their hopefulness and emotional intensity while also incorporating knowledge of the sometimes troubling day-to-day challenges of the profession. Law schools aren’t looking for starry-eyed naivete, but they do value optimism and the ability to stay positive in a profession often defined by its difficulties and unpredictability. 

Every pre-law student blames their lack of success on the large number of applicants, the heartless admissions committee members, or the high GPA and LSAT score cut offs. Check out our blog on  law school acceptance rates  to find out more about the law school admission statistics for law schools in the US . Having taught more than a thousand students every year, I can tell you the REAL truth about why most students get rejected: 

Need tips on your law school resume?

8 Additional Law School Personal Statement Examples

Now that you have a better idea of what your law school personal statement should include, and how you can make it stand out, here are five additional law school personal statements for you to review and get some inspiration:

Law school personal statement example #11

According to the business wire, 51 percent of students are not confident in their career path when they enroll in college. I was one of those students for a long time. My parents had always stressed the importance of education and going to college, so I knew that I wanted to get a tertiary education, I just didn’t know in what field. So, like many other students, I matriculated undecided and started taking introductory courses in the subjects that interest me. I took classes from the department of literature, philosophy, science, statistics, business, and so many others but nothing really called out to me.

I figured that maybe if I got some practical experience, I might get more excited about different fields. I remembered that my high school counselor had told me that medicine would be a good fit for me, and I liked the idea of a career that involved constant learning. So, I applied for an observership at my local hospital. I had to cross “doctor” off my list of post-graduate career options when I fainted in the middle of a consultation in the ER.

I had to go back to the drawing board and reflect on my choices. I decided to stop trying to make an emotional decision and focus on the data. So, I looked at my transcript thus far, and it quickly became clear to me that I had both an interest and an aptitude for business and technology. I had taken more courses in those two fields than in any others, and I was doing very well in them. My decision was reaffirmed when I spent the summer interning at a digital marketing firm during my senior year in college and absolutely loved my experience. 

Since graduating, I have been working at that same firm and I am glad that I decided to major in business. I first started as a digital advertising assistant, and I quickly learned that the world of digital marketing is an incredibly fast-paced sink-or-swim environment. I didn’t mind it at all. I wanted to swim with the best of them and succeed. So far, my career in advertising has been challenging and rewarding in ways that I never could have imagined. 

I remember the first potential client that I handled on my own. Everything had been going great until they changed their mind about an important detail a day before we were supposed to present our pitch. . I had a day to research and re-do a presentation that I’d been preparing for weeks. I was sure that I’d be next on the chopping block, but once again all I had to was take a step back and look at the information that I had. Focusing on the big picture helped me come up with a new pitch, and after a long night, lots of coffee, and laser-like focus, I delivered a presentation that I was not only proud of, but that landed us the client. 

Three years and numerous client emergencies later, I have learned how to work under pressure, how to push myself, and how to think critically. I also have a much better understanding of who I am and what skills I possess. One of the many things that I have learned about myself over the course of my career is that I am a fan of the law. Over the past three years, I have worked with many lawyers to navigate the muddy waters of user privacy and digital media. I often find myself looking forward to working with our legal team, whereas my coworkers actively avoid them. I have even become friends with my colleagues on the legal team who also enjoy comparing things like data protection laws in the US and the EU and speculating about the future of digital technology regulation. 

These experiences and conversations have led me to a point where I am interested in various aspects of the law. I now know that I have the skills required to pursue a legal education and that this time around, I am very sure about what I wish to study. Digital technology has evolved rapidly over the last decade, and it is just now starting to become regulated. I believe that this shift is going to open up a more prominent role for those who understand both digital technology and its laws, especially in the corporate world. My goal is to build a career at the intersection of these worlds.

Law school personal statement example #12

The first weekend I spent on my undergrad college campus was simultaneously one of the best and worst of my life. I was so excited to be away from home, on my own, making new friends and trying new things. One of those things was a party at a sorority house with my friend and roommate, where I thought we both had a great time. Both of us came from small towns, and we had decided to look out for one another. So, when it was time to go home, and I couldn't find her, I started to worry. I spent nearly an hour looking for her before I got her message saying she was already back in our dorm. 

It took her three months to tell me that she had been raped that night. Her rapist didn't hold a knife to her throat, jump out of a dark alleyway, or slip her a roofie. Her rapist was her long-term boyfriend, with whom she'd been in a long-distance relationship for just over a year. He assaulted her in a stranger's bedroom while her peers, myself included, danced the night away just a few feet away. 

I remember feeling overwhelmed when she first told me. I was sad for my friend, angry on her behalf, and disgusted by her rapist's actions. I also felt incredibly guilty because I had been there when it happened. I told myself that I should have stayed with her all night and that I should have seen the abuse - verbal and physical harassment- that he was inflicting on her before it turned sexual. But eventually, I realized that thinking about what could, should, or would've happened doesn't help anyone. 

I watched my friend go through counseling, attend support groups, and still, she seemed to be hanging on by a thread. I couldn't begin to imagine what she was going through, and unfortunately, there was very little I could do to help her. So, I decided to get involved with the Sexual Assault Responders Group on campus, where I would actually be able to help another survivor. 

My experience with the Sexual Assault Responders Group on campus was eye-opening. I mostly worked on the peer-to-peer hotline, where I spoke to survivors from all walks of life. I was confronted by the fact that rape is not a surreal unfortunate thing that happens to a certain type of person. I learned that it happens daily to mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, and friends. I also learned that most survivors try to manage this burden on their own, afraid of judgment and repercussions and fearful of a he-said-she-said court battle.

I am proud to say that I used my time in college to not only earn an education, but also to advocate for survivors of sexual assault. I protested the university's cover-up of a gang rape that took place in one of the fraternity houses on campus. I spearheaded a 'no means no' campaign to raise awareness about consent on campus. I also led several fundraising campaigns for the Sexual Assault Responders Group that allowed us to pay for legal and mental health counselors for the survivors who came to us for support. 

One of the things that this experience helped me realize is that sexual assault survivors often do not know where to turn when the system tries to tell them that it'd be best to just keep quiet and suffer in silence. My goal is to become one of those people that they can turn to for counsel and support. I believe that a law degree would give me the knowledge and tools that I need to advocate for survivors on a more significant scale. 

Need tips for your law school optional essays? Check out this infographic:

Law school personal statement example #13

I grew up in two different worlds. My world at home was full of people of various skin tones and accents. It was small, loud, and often chaotic in the best ways. I remember walking home and getting to experience music from across the world before I got to my apartment building. Loud reggaeton and afrobeat were always playing somewhere in the distance. Aunties and uncles usually stopped by unannounced and slipped money in your palm when they hugged you goodbye. And the smell of fried plantains was almost always present. 

My other world was in school. It was a much quieter, more organized world with white hallways, navy blazers, and plaid skirts. It was full of people who did not look or sound like me and teachers who thought my hair was "interesting." It was also full of great books and engaging debates about everything from foreign policy to the influence of Jazz on hip hop. 

I lived in these two worlds because I was born and raised in Xtown, but I went to a private school in a much richer neighborhood. I loved both of my worlds, but I hated that I had to act differently in both of them. When in school, I had to "code switch" to sound like I belonged there. When I was at home, all the people who shared the interests I was developing in school were either working or in college, so I had no one to talk to about them. 

My words never felt more divided until I started considering a career in law. I remember telling one of my uncles that I wanted to become a lawyer and his response was, "So you want to become the man, huh?" 

I wasn't surprised by his response, or at least I shouldn't have been. One of the things that I know for sure about the first world I lived in is that many of its inhabitants do not trust the law. I had believed this for so long simply because of the conversations that I would hear around me. However, in my second world, I was learning about all of these great freedoms and rights that the law was designed to give all Americans, and I wanted to bring those to my community. 

I started working on this during the summer before my final year of high school. I got an internship with the legal aid office in my neighborhood and spent three months learning from people who, like me, had grown up in Xtown and wanted to help people. During my time in the legal aid office, I understood that the people in my community did not trust the law for two main reasons: 1. They did not understand a lot of it, and 2. It had been used against people like us many times. 

I remember one particular case that Ms. Sharma - the lawyer I was learning from then and who still mentors me today - handled that summer. It was the case of a young mother who had received a notice of eviction from her landlord two days after refusing his advances. The man claimed that she violated her contract because she made homemade shea butter that she sold on Etsy. Ms. Sharma had me look through her rental agreement. After she confirmed that I was right in determining that the young mother had not violated her contract, she contacted the landlord to advise him that what he was doing was intimidation and sexual harassment. 

My experiences in the legal aid office with Ms. Sharma opened my eyes to the disgusting behavior of human beings, but it also gave me the opportunity to see that the law was my opportunity to use what I learned in my second world to help the community that I was raised in. I returned to school with a new motivation that followed me to college. In addition to completing my bachelor's degree in sociology and African American studies, I spent most of my college years participating in legal internships and community outreach programs. 

I believe that these experiences have given me the foundation I need to be a successful law student and, eventually, a lawyer who can truly be an advocate for members of his community. 

Law school personal statement example #14

One day, my parents noticed that the other children in my age group had been speaking and communicating, but I had not. At first, they thought that my lack of speech was just me being shy, but eventually, they realized that on the rare occasions that I did speak, my words were practically incomprehensible. It wasn't long before they took me to a specialist who diagnosed me with a severe phonological disorder that hindered my ability to verbalize the basic sounds that make up words.

I started going to speech therapy when I was three years old. I saw numerous speech therapists, many of whom believed that I would never be able to communicate effectively with others. Lucky for me, my parents did not give up on me. I went to speech therapy thrice a week until the 8th grade, and I gave every single session my all. I also spent a lot of time in my room practicing my speech by myself. My efforts paid off, and even though I didn't become a chatterbox overnight, I could at least communicate effectively. 

This was a short-lived victory, though. A year later, my speech impediment was back, and my ability to articulate words was once again severely limited. This complicated matters because it was my freshman year of high school, and I was in a brand-new school where I did not know anyone. Having been bullied in middle school, I knew first-hand how vicious kids can be, and I didn't want to be the butt of any more jokes, so I didn't try to speak at school. I knew that this was preventing me from making new friends or participating in class and that it was probably not helping my impediment, but I was not ready to face the fact that I needed to go back to speech therapy. 

Eventually, I stopped resisting and went back to speech therapy. At the time, I saw it as accepting defeat, and even though my speech improved significantly, my self-confidence was lower than it had ever been. If you ask any of my high school classmates about me, they will likely tell you that I am very quiet or timid – both of which are not true, but they have no way of knowing otherwise. I barely spoke or interacted with my peers for most of high school. Instead, I focused on my studies and extracurricular activities that didn't involve much collaboration, like yearbook club and photography. 

It was only when I was getting ready for college that I realized that I was only hurting myself with my behavior. I knew I needed to become more confident about my speech to make friends and be the student I wanted to be in college. So, I used the summer after my high school graduation to get some help. I started seeing a new speech therapist who was also trained as a counselor, and she helped me understand my impediment better. For example, I now know that I tend to stutter when stressed, but I also know that taking a few deep breaths helps me get back on track. 

Using the confidence that I built in therapy that summer, I went to college with a new pep in my step. I pushed myself to meet new people, try new things, and join extracurricular organizations when I entered college. I applied to and was accepted into a competitive freshman leadership program called XYZ. Most of XYZ's other members were outgoing and highly involved in their high school communities. In other words, they were the complete opposite of me. I didn't let that intimidate me. Instead, I made a concerted effort to learn from them. If you ask any of my teammates or other classmates in college, they will tell you that I was an active participant in discussions during meetings and that I utilized my unique background to share a different perspective.

My experience with XYZ made it clear to me that my speech disorder wouldn't hold me back as long as I did not stand in my own way. Once I understood this, I kept pushing past the boundaries I had set for myself. I began taking on leadership roles in the program and looking for ways to contribute to my campus community outside of XYZ. For example, I started a community outreach initiative that connected school alumni willing to provide pro bono services to different members of the community who were in need. 

Now, when I look back at my decision to go back to speech therapy, I see it as a victory. I understand that my speech impediment has shaped me in many ways, many of which are positive. My struggles have made me more compassionate. My inability to speak has made me a better listener. Not being able to ask questions or ask for help has made me a more independent critical thinker. I believe these skills will help me succeed in law school, and they are part of what motivates me to apply in the first place. Having struggled for so long to speak up for myself, I am ready and eager for the day when I can speak up for others who are temporarily unable to. 

“ You talk too much; you should be a lawyer.” 

I heard that sentence often while growing up because Congolese people always tell children who talk a lot that they should be lawyers. Sometimes I wonder if those comments did not subconsciously trigger my interest in politics and then the law. If they did, I am grateful for it. I am thankful for all the experiences that have brought me to this point where I am seeking an education that will allow me to speak for those who don’t always know how to, and, more importantly, those who are unable to. 

For context, I am the child of Congolese immigrants, and my parents have a fascinating story that I will summarize for you: 

A 14-year-old girl watches in confusion as a swarm of parents rush through the classroom, grabbing their children, and other students start running from the class. Soon she realizes that she and one other student are the only ones left, but when they both hear the first round of gunshots, no one has to tell them that it is time to run home. On the way home, she hears more gunshots and bombs. She fears for her survival and that of her family, and she starts to wonder what this war means for her and her family. Within a few months, her mother and father are selling everything they own so that they can board a plane to the US.

On the other side of the town, a 17-year-old boy is being forced to board a plane to the US because his mother, a member of parliament and the person who taught him about the importance of integrity, has been executed by the same group of soldiers who are taking over the region. 

They met a year later, outside the principal’s office at a high school in XXY. They bonded over the many things they have in common and laughed at the fact that their paths probably never would have crossed in Bukavu. Fast forward to today, they have been married for almost two decades and have raised three children, including me. 

Growing up in a Congolese household in the US presented was very interesting. On the one hand, I am very proud of the fact that I get to share my heritage with others. I speak French, Lingala, and Swahili – the main languages of Congo – fluently. I often dress in traditional clothing; I performed a traditional Congolese dance at my high school’s heritage night and even joined the Congolese Student Union at Almamatter University. 

On the other hand, being Congolese presented its challenges growing up. At a young age, I looked, dressed, and sounded different from my classmates. Even though I was born in the US, I had picked up a lot of my parents’ accents, and kids loved to tease me about it. Ignorant comments and questions were not uncommon. “Do you speak African?” “You’re not American! How did you get here?” “You don’t look African” “My mom says I can’t play with you because your parents came here to steal our jobs”. These are some of the polite comments that I heard often, and they made me incredibly sad, especially when classmates I considered my friends made them. 

My parents did not make assimilating any easier. My mother especially always feared I would lose my Congolese identity if they did not make it a point to remind me of it. She often said, “Just because you were born in America doesn’t mean that you are not Congolese anymore.” On one occasion, I argued that she always let me experience my Congolese side, but not my American side. That was the first time she told me I should be a lawyer. 

Having few friends and getting teased in school helped me learn to be comfortable on my own. I Often found refuge and excitement in books. I even started blogging about the books I read and interacting with other readers online. As my following grew, I started to use my platform to raise awareness about issues that I am passionate about, like climate change, the war in Congo, and the homeless crisis here in XXY. I was able to start a fundraising campaign through my blog that raised just under $5000 for the United Way – a local charity that helps the homeless in my city. 

This experience helped me understand that I could use my skills and the few tools at my disposal to help people, both here in America and one day, maybe even in Congo. I realized that I am lucky enough to have the option of expanding that skillset through education in order to do more for the community that welcomed my grandparents, uncles, aunties, and parents when they had nowhere else to go. 

The journey was not easy because while I received immense support and love from my family for continuing my education, I had to teach myself how to prepare and apply to college. Once there I had to learn on my own what my professors expected of me, how to study, how to network, and so much more. I am grateful for those experiences too, because they taught me how to be resourceful, research thoroughly, listen carefully, and seek help when I need it. 

All of these experiences have crafted me into who I am today, and I believe that with the right training, they will help me become a great attorney.

Law School Personal Statement Example #16

During my undergraduate studies, in the first two years, I wasn’t entirely sure what I wanted to do with my career. I enjoyed doing research, but I found that I became more interested in presenting the research than the process of contributing to it. I spoke to most of my science professors to ask if I could participate in their research. I worked in biology labs, chemistry labs, and in psychology classrooms working on a variety of projects that seemed meaningful and interesting. I gained new perspectives on study habits and mental health; the influence of music on the human mind; and applications of surface tension. I noticed that I was always taking the lead when we were presenting our findings to peers and research groups. I enjoyed yielding questions and addressing the captivating the audience with engaging gestures and speech. This was what led me to consider a career in law.

I always thought that I would become a scientist, so when I discovered that there were aspects of law that could be considered “scientific”, I was all ears. Still during my second year of undergraduate studies, I wanted to join an environmental awareness group, but noticed there weren’t any active. So, I took it upon myself to create my own. I wanted to do cleanup projects across the city, so I mapped out parks and areas that we could walk or drive to. I advertised my project to other students and eventually gained approximately fifteen students eager to help out. I was struck by the pollution in the water, the negligence of park maintenance. I drafted a letter to the municipal government and petitioned for a stricter environmental compliance approach. I wanted to advertise fines to hold polluters accountable, as there were hardly any to enforce the rules. A letter was returned to me stating that the government would consider my request. I felt a sense of gratification, of purpose; I discovered that I had the ability to enact change through policy. This drew me closer to the prospect of building a future in law, so I looked at other avenues to learn more.

I still wanted to find a way to bring together my love of science and discourse/communication. As a science student, I had the privilege of learning from professors who emphasized critical thinking; and they gave me a chance to learn that on my own. I took an internship as an environmental planner. There, I helped present project ideas to various groups, updating demographic/development information, and managing planning processes. I engaged in analytical thinking by looking at maps and demographic information to develop potential plans for land use. It was also the experience I was looking for in terms of a balance between science and oral communication. Using data analysis, I spoke to other planners and review boards to bring ideas together and execute a plan.

Through science, I learned how to channel my curiosity and logical thinking; as an advocate, I learned how to be creative and resourceful. Presenting research findings and being questioned in front of a group of qualified researchers, having to be sharp and ready for anything, taught me how to be more concise in speech. Developing an advocacy group dedicated to improving my community showed me what it lacked; it opened my eyes to the impact of initiative and focused collaboration. I was eager to begin another science project, this time with the environment in mind. It was titled “determining and defining the role of sociodemographic factors in air pollution health disparities”. I compiled and summarized relevant research and sent it over to a representative of the municipal government. In a couple of weeks, my request to increase advertising of fines in public areas was agreed to.

This Juris Doctor/Master in Environmental Studies program will allow me to continue deepening my knowledge of environmental law. With my goal of developing a career in environmental affairs, overseeing policies that influence land protection/use, I know that this program will give me the tools I need to succeed. With my experience working with large groups, I also believe I will fit into the larger class sizes at your institution. I understand the value of working together and how to engage in healthy discourse. With your Global Sustainability Certification, I will equip myself the expertise I need to produce meaningful change in environmental policy.

Here's how a law school advisor can help you with your application:

Law School Personal Statement #17

Growing up in a poor neighborhood, what my friends used to call “the ghetto”, I was always looking for my way out. I tried running away, but I always ended up back home in that tiny complex, barely enough room to fit all my brothers and sisters with my parents. My dad was disabled and couldn’t work, and my mother was doing her best working full-time as a personal-support worker. There was nothing we could do to get out of our situation, or so it seemed. It wasn’t until years later when I started my undergraduate degree that ironically, after I found my way out, that I began looking for a way to come back. I wanted to be a voice for people living in those bleak conditions; hungry, without work. Helpless.

Getting my degree in social work was one of the best decisions of my life. It gave me the tools to lobby for solutions to problems in poor communities. I knew my neighborhood better than anyone because I grew up there. I had the lived experience. I started working with the local government to develop programs for my clients; the people living in those same neighborhoods. We worked to provide financial assistance, legal aid, housing, and medical treatment—all things sorely lacking. My proudest moment was securing the funds and arranging surgery for my father’s bad hip and knees. I’m currently working on a large project with one of the community legislators to lobby for a harm reduction model addressing addiction in our communities.

With five years of experience as a social worker, I knew it was time for a career change when I learned that I could have more influence on public opinion and legislative decisions as a social-security disability lawyer. I knew firsthand that people victimized from racism, poverty, and injury needed more help than they were currently allotted. I knew that, from becoming and advocate and communicating with influential members of the local government, that I could do more with a law degree helping people attain basic needs like disability benefits, which are often denied outright.

This desire to help people get the help they need from local programs and government resources brought me to Scarborough, a small town outside of Toronto. I was aware of some of the issues afflicting this community, since I’d handled a few clients from there as a children’s disability social worker. Addiction and homelessness were the two main ones. I worked with children with ADHD or other physical/mental disabilities impairing their ability to attend school and function normally. I helped many of them get an IEP with the details of the special services they require, long overdue. I made sure each child got the care they needed, including special attention in school. Also noticing that so many of these families lacked proper nutrition, I organized a report detailing this finding. In it, I argued that the community needed more funds targeting lowest income families. I spoke directly with a legislator, which eventually got the city on board with developing a program more specifically for the lowest income families with residents under 18.

My goal has always been to be a voice for the inaudible, the ignored, who’ve been victimized by inadequate oversight from the ground up. Many of these groups, as I’ve witnessed firsthand, don’t have the luxury of being their own advocates. They are too busy trying to support their families, to put food on the table for their children. I’ve realized that it isn’t quite enough to work directly with these families to connect them with resources and ensure they get the support they need. Sometimes the support simply doesn’t exist, or it isn’t good enough. This is why I’m motivated to add a law degree to my credentials so I can better serve these people and communities. As a future social-security disability lawyer, I want to work with local governments to assist clients in navigating an assistance system and improving it as much as possible. This program will give me the access to a learning environment in which I can thrive and develop as an advocate.

Law School Personal Statement #18

“You’re worthy and loved”, I said to a twelve-year-old boy, Connor, whom I was supervising and spending time with during the Big Brother program at which we met. A few tears touched my shoulder as I pulled him into me, comforting him. He was a foster child. He didn’t know his parents and never stayed in one place longer than a few months; a year if he was lucky. I joined the program not expecting much. I was doing it for extra credit, because I wanted to give back to the community somehow and I thought it would be interesting to meet people. He confided in me; he told me that his foster parents often yelled at each other, and him. He told me he needed to escape. I called Child Protective Services and after a thorough investigation, they determined that Connor’s foster parents weren’t fit for fostering. He was moved, yet again, to a different home.

I wrote an op-ed detailing my experience as a Big Brother. I kept names anonymous. I wanted people to know how hard it was for children in the welfare system. Many of them, like Connor, were trapped in a perpetual cycle of re-homing, neglect, and even abuse. He and other children deserve stability and unconditional love. That should go without saying. I sent the op-ed to a local magazine and had it published. In it, I described not only the experience of one unfortunate kid, but many others as well who saw their own stories being told through Connor. I joined a non-profit organization dedicated to improving access to quality education for young people. I started learning about disparities in access; students excluded by racial or financial barriers. I was learning, one step at a time, how powerful words can be.

With the non-profit organization, I reached out to a few public schools in the area to represent some of our main concerns with quality of education disparities. Our goal was to bring resources together and promote the rights of children in education. We emphasized that collaboration between welfare agencies and schools was critical for education stability. Together, we created a report of recommendations to facilitate this collaboration. We outlined a variety of provisions, including more mechanisms for child participation, better recruitment of social service workers in schools, risk management and identification strategies, and better support for students with child protection concerns.

The highlight of that experience was talking to an assembly of parents and school faculty to present our findings and recommendations. The title of the presentation was “The Power of Words”. I opened with the story I wrote about in the op-ed. I wanted to emphasize that children are individuals; those trapped in the welfare system are not a monolith. They each have unique experiences, needs, and desires they want to fulfill in life. But our tools to help them can be improved, more individualized. I spoke about improving the quality of residential care for children and the need to promote their long-term development into further education and employment. Finally, I presented a list of tools we created to help support a more financially sustainable and effective child welfare system. The talk was received with applause and a tenuous commitment from a few influential members of the crowd. It was a start.

Although I lost contact with Connor, I think about him almost every day. I can only hope that the programs we worked on to improve were helping him, wherever he was. I want to continue to work on the ground level of child welfare amelioration, but I realize I will need an education in law to become a more effective advocate for this cause. There are still many problems in the child welfare system that will need to be addressed: limited privacy/anonymity for children, service frameworks that don’t address racism adequately, limited transportation in remote communities, and many more. I’ve gained valuable experience working with the community and learning about what the welfare system lacks and does well. I’m ready to take the next step for myself, my community, and those beyond it.

Assuredly, but this length varies from school to school. As with all important details of your law school application, thoroughly research your specific schools’ requirements and guidelines before both writing and editing your personal statement to ensure it fits their specifics. The average length is about 2 pages, but don’t bother drafting your statement until you have specific numbers from your schools of choice. It’s also a good idea to avoid hitting the maximum length unless absolutely necessary. Be concise, keep economy of language in mind, and remain direct, without rambling or exhaustive over-explanation of your ideas or experiences.

You should keep any words that aren’t your own to a minimum. Admissions committees don’t want to read a citation-heavy academic paper, nor do they respond well to overused famous quotes as themes in personal statements. If you absolutely must include a quote from elsewhere, be sure to clearly indicate your quote’s source. But in general, it’s best to keep the personal statement restricted to your own words and thoughts. They’re evaluating you, not Plato! It’s a personal statement. Give them an engaging narrative in your own voice. 

Admissions committees will already have a strong sense of your academic performance through your transcripts and test scores, so discussing these in your personal statement is generally best avoided. You can contextualize these things, though—if you have an illuminating or meaningful story about how you came to receive an award, or how you enjoyed or learned from the work that won you the award, then consider discussing it. Overall though, it’s best to let admissions committees evaluate your academic qualifications and accomplishments from your transcripts and official documents, and give them something new in the personal statement. 

When you first sit down to begin, cast a wide net. Consider all the many influences and experiences that have led you to where you are. You’ll eventually (through editing and rewriting) explain how these shape your relationship to a career in law, but one of the best things you can give yourself during the initial drafting phase is a vast collection of observations and potential points for development. As the New England School of Law points out in their, “just write!” Let the initial draft be as messy as it needs to be, and refine it from there. It’s a lot easier to condense and sharpen a big draft than it is to try to tensely craft a perfect personal statement from nothing.  

Incredibly important, as should be clear by now! Unlike other specialties, law schools don’t usually conduct interviews with applicants, so your personal statement is in effect your one opportunity to speak with the admissions committee directly. Don’t let that gravity overwhelm you when you write, but keep it in mind as you edit and dedicate time to improving your initial drafts. Be mindful of your audience as you speak with them, and treat writing your personal statement as a kind of initial address in what, hopefully, will eventually turn into an ongoing dialogue.  

There are a variety of factors that can make or break a law school personal statement. You should aim to achieve at least a few of the following: a strong opening hook; a compelling personal narrative; your skills and competencies related to law; meaningful experiences; why you’re the right fit for the school and program.

Often, they do. It’s best for you to go to the schools you’re interesting in applying to so you can find out if they have any specific formatting or content requirements. For example, if you wanted to look at NYU law or Osgoode Hall Law School , you would find their admissions requirements pages and look for information on the personal statement.

There are lots of reasons why a personal statement might not work. Usually, applicants who don’t get accepted didn’t come up with a good strategy for this essay. Remember, you need to target the specific school and program. Other reasons are that the applicant doesn’t plan or proofread their essay. Both are essential for submitting materials that convince the admissions committee that you’re a strong candidate. You can always use law school admissions consulting application review to help you develop your strategy and make your essay stand out.

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Hello V! Thanks for your question. Some schools will gave very specific word limits, while some will not. If you do not have a limit indicated, try to stick to no more than a page, 600-800 words. 

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Law School Personal Statement Tips

In your personal statement for law school you want to present yourself as intelligent, professional, mature and persuasive. These are the qualities that make a good lawyer, so they're the qualities that law schools seek in applicants. Your grades and LSAT score are the most important part of your application to law school. But you shouldn't neglect the law school personal statement. Your application essay is a valuable opportunity to distinguish yourself from other applicants, especially those with similar LSAT scores and GPA.

How To Write a Personal Statement for Law School

1. be specific to each law school ..

You'll probably need to write only one basic personal statement, but you should tweak it for each law school to which you apply. There are usually some subtle differences in what each school asks for in a personal statement.

2. Good writing is writing that is easily understood.

Good law students—and good lawyers—use clear, direct prose. Remove extraneous words and make sure that your points are clear. Don't make admissions officers struggle to figure out what you are trying to say.

Read More: Find Your Law School

3. Get plenty of feedback on your law school personal statement.

The more time you've spent writing your personal statement, the less likely you are to spot any errors. You should ask for feedback from professors, friends, parents, and anyone else whose judgment and writing skills you trust. This will help ensure that your statement is clear, concise, candid, structurally sound and grammatically accurate.

4. Find your unique angle.

Who are you? What makes you unique? Sometimes, law school applicants answer this question in a superficial way. It's not enough to tell the admissions committee that you're a straight-A student from Missouri. You need to give them a deeper sense of yourself. And there's usually no need to mention awards or honors you've won. That's what the law school application  or your resume is for.

Use your essay to explain how your upbringing, your education, and your personal and professional experiences have influenced you and led you to apply to law school. Give the admissions officers genuine insight into who you are. Don't use cliches or platitudes. The more personal and specific your personal statement is, the better received it will be.

Applying to law school? Use our  law school search to find the right program for you or browse our  law school ranking lists .

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Information for First-Year Applicants

We invite you to apply to the youngest top law school in the nation – UCLA School of Law. The Office of Admissions is available to help you experience a smooth and successful application process. Applications for Fall 2025 will be available through the LSAC online application service on September 3, 2024. Applications will be due by January 31, 202​5 .

Steps to Applying to the First Year Class

Please note that by the time of enrollment, applicants must have a bachelor’s degree that has been awarded by an institution that is accredited by an accrediting agency recognized by the United States Department of Education. For students educated outside of the United States, the undergraduate degree must be from an institution that is equivalent in quality to that of institutions accredited by an accrediting agency recognized by the United States Department of Education. If you have any questions about educational prerequisites, please email  [email protected] .

All applicants for Fall 2025 should follow these application procedures:

Take the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) or the Graduate Records Exam (GRE) no later than January 31, 2025, if applying regular decision. Note the cut off dates for the LSAT and GRE are different for students applying Early Decision, for the Distinguished Scholars Award and for the Achievement Fellowship (see below). Complete information regarding the Standardized Test Requirement is below.

• Register with LSAC's Credential Assembly Service (CAS).
• Completed application.
• Separate essay not to exceed two double-spaced typed pages.
• No less than 11-point font.
• Discuss any matters relevant to your ability to succeed in law school and the practice of law, and any attributes, experiences, or interests that would enable you to make a distinctive contribution to UCLA Law or the legal profession.
• Current résumé (use an electronic attachment).
• Two letters of recommendation (no more than two) submitted through the LSAC Letter of Recommendation Service are required. 
• Official transcripts sent directly to LSAC. Applicants should not wait for fall grades before sending transcripts to LSAC. However, applicants must submit work completed after the initial registration to LSAC, as updated reports will be forwarded to the Law School Admissions Office. Accepted applicants will be required to have their undergraduate institution submit directly to UCLA School of Law a final transcript showing the award of a baccalaureate degree before classes begin in the fall semester.
• Nonrefundable application fee of $75. You may submit your application and pay the fee electronically via LSAC. You may also pay by check, money order, or international money order payable to the Regents of the University of California and include it with your signed Certification Letter. 
• David J. Epstein Program in Public Interest Law and Policy Application , if applying to that program.
• Early Decision Program Agreement, if applying to the Binding Early Decision Program . The priority Early Decision deadline is November 15, 2024. Students applying priority Early Decision must take the LSAT or GRE by October 31, 2024. Applicants will be informed of their admissions decisions by the end of December 2024. Students applying Early Decision after November 15 must take the LSAT or GRE by January 31, 2025 and will receive decisions on a rolling basis.
• Distinguished Scholars Award Agreement, if applying for the Distinguished Scholars Award . The deadline is November 15, 2024 and applicants must take the LSAT or GRE no later than October 31, 2024.
• If applying to the Achievement Fellowship Program , applicants are required to include an additional one page essay describing in detail the obstacles they have overcome in life and why they are a strong candidate for the program. The deadline to apply to the Achievement Fellowship is December 16, 2024 and applicants must take the LSAT or the GRE no later than November 30, 2024. However, applicants taking the LSAT or GRE after these dates may still apply and be considered for any remaining Achievement Fellowships that are available.
• We do not require a dean's certification.
• The use of any artificial intelligence tools to assist in the completion of this application is prohibited.  
• Applications must be submitted on or before January 31, 2025.

UCLA requires that students take a standardized test for admission—either the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) or the Graduate Records Exam (GRE) . The LSAT or GRE must be taken no later than January 31, 2025 for students applying to the regular JD program.

Those applying Early Decision or for the Distinguished Scholars Award must take the LSAT or GRE no later than October 31, 2024. Applicants to the Achievement Fellowship must take the LSAT or GRE no later than November 30, 2024.

Though we anticipate that most applicants will continue to apply with an LSAT score, UCLA Law does not have a preference in the admissions process for one test over another and will evaluate all applications holistically regardless of the test taken.

Students may choose which test to take; however please note the following guidelines:

• An applicant who takes both the LSAT and the GRE is required to submit all LSAT test scores from the last five years but may choose whether or not to submit their GRE score(s). However if the applicant elects to submit a GRE score in addition to the LSAT, the applicant must submit all GRE scores from the last five years.
• An applicant who only takes the GRE and not the LSAT must also submit all GRE scores from the last five years.
• GRE scores should be submitted directly to UCLA Law by the Educational Testing Service ("ETS"—the organization that administers the GRE) using UCLA Law's ETS school code 4837 and the department and major field code 5201.
• Applicants applying only with a GRE score are still required to subscribe to and utilize the LSAC Credential Assembly Service for the submission of transcripts and letters of recommendation.

Note: The LSAT writing sample is not conducted at the same time as the LSAT exam—it is an on-demand writing exam administered online. (For full details please visit: https://www.lsac.org/lsat/taking-lsat/lsat-writing-faqs .) Applicants taking the LSAT should be aware that their application cannot be transmitted to UCLA Law for evaluation without an LSAC writing sample. Note that we will review applications as soon as they are complete and at least one LSAT writing sample has been submitted. Unfortunately, we are not able to wait to review your application if you decide to take additional writing sample tests.

Applicants apply by completing UCLA School of Law's electronic application  available through the LSAC. For more information, visit the LSAC website ; call 215.968.1001; or e-mail: [email protected] .

Please view our fee waiver policy .

The Credential Assembly Service (CAS) was developed to help participating schools collect and analyze data pertaining to the academic records of applicants. The law school report includes a year-by-year summary of units and grade-point averages (GPA), a cumulative GPA, LSAT score(s) (if applicable), and a copy of each transcript. All applicants, including those reapplying, those taking the GRE, and applicants from institutions that do not issue grades, are required to register with the Credential Assembly Service. A transcript from each college or university attended and listed on the registration form should be sent directly to LSAC's Credential Assembly Service in accordance with their instructions. The Credential Assembly Service will analyze and summarize the transcript(s). UCLA School of Law will request the LSAC Law School Report once the application is received.

Applicants should not wait for fall grades before sending transcripts to LSAC. However, applicants must submit work completed after the initial registration to LSAC, as updated reports will be forwarded to the Law School Admissions Office. Accepted applicants will be required to have their undergraduate institution submit directly to UCLA School of Law a final transcript showing the award of a baccalaureate degree before classes begin in the fall semester.

LSAT/Credential Assembly Service registration forms and other information may be obtained from the Law School Admission Council website or (215) 968-1001. 

UCLA School of Law requires that applicants submit two letters of recommendation. At least one letter should be from someone familiar with the applicant's academic work, if at all possible. The Law School strongly prefers that letters be submitted through the LSAC Letter of Recommendation Service. This service is included with the Credential Assembly Service registration. Letters will be copied and sent to UCLA School of Law along with the LSAC Law School Report. To use this service, follow the directions for submitting letters outlined at LSAC.org .

The UCLA School of Law requires that your transcripts be submitted through LSAC's Credential Assembly Service. This service is included in the Credential Assembly Service subscription fee. If you completed any post-secondary work outside the U.S. (including its territories) or Canada, you must use this service for the evaluation of your transcripts. The one exception to this requirement is if you completed the work through a study abroad, consortium, or exchange program sponsored by a U.S. or Canadian institution, and the work is clearly indicated as such on the home campus transcripts.

To use the Credential Assembly Service, log into your LSAC.org account and follow the instructions for registering for the service. Be sure to print out a Transcript Request Form for each institution and send it promptly to them. More time is usually required to receive international transcripts.

Questions about the Credential Assembly Service can be directed to LSAC at 215.968.1001 or [email protected] .

UCLA School of Law will request the applicant's law school report, including any LSAT score(s), from LSAC. All internationally-educated applicants must take the LSAT or the GRE but are not required to take the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL).

If there is a change in the applicant's contact information after filing the application, the UCLA School of Law Office of Admissions must be notified by sending an e-mail with the applicant's name and LSAC Account Number to  [email protected] or by writing to:

UCLA School of Law Law Admissions Office 71 Dodd Hall Box 951445 Los Angeles, CA 90095-1445

Applicants will be notified by e-mail when:

• the application has been received;
• the application has been marked complete; and
• when an admission decision has been made.

The Office of Admission should be advised of any change to the applicant's e-mail address. The majority of applicants will receive notification by the end of April 2025.

The School of Law considers requests to defer enrollment on a case-by-case basis. To apply, applicants should contact the Office of Admissions.

Applicants to approved joint-degree programs must contact the appropriate graduate school or department to obtain its application and must meet that department's deadline. All J.D./Ph.D. in Philosophy applicants are advised to take the LSAT or GRE no later than November 30, 2024 and apply by January 4, 2025.

More Information on Joint Degree Programs

Applicants who reapply for admission must comply with the following procedures:

• Complete a current application
• Pay the nonrefundable application fee in the amount of $75. You may submit your application and pay the fee electronically via LSAC. You may also pay by check, money order, or international money order payable to the Regents of the University of California and include it with your signed Certification Letter.
• Have a valid LSAT or GRE score.
• Re-register with LSAC's Credential Assembly Service.

Note that the original application materials, including letters of recommendation, will remain on file. It is strongly suggested that a re-applicant submit an updated personal statement and résumé.

For reapplicants applying with a valid GRE score, official score reports from the original application will also remain on file.  A reapplicant will only need to request a new score report if there is a new reportable GRE score since submission of the original application from the prior year.  Please see the Standardized Test Requirement section above for further details on submitting test scores.

• UCLA School of Law requires that both the student’s and parents’ information be provided on the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) and the law school Financial Need Application, with few exceptions. Please review detailed guidelines here before submitting your applications.
• The FAFSA priority filing date is March 2, 2025. Once available, starting October 1, 2024, the application can be accessed here . Please use UCLA’s school code: 001315 .
• All admitted students are considered for a Dean’s scholarship upon completion of the Dean's Scholarship Consideration Form (provided after admission). In determining the scholarship amount, both merit and financial need can be considered. Eligible admitted students who wish to be considered for need must first complete the law school Financial Need Application (provided after admission) and the FAFSA.  

Ann Carlson talks to the Washington Post about NHTSA's regulation of Tesla

Hiroshi motomura is quoted in an la times column about putting the immigration and border situation in perspective, gary blasi is quoted in the la times about a brief that he co-authored on basic income grants to reduce homelessness.

A conversation with Laura Black Dawson, Head of Business Affairs and General Counsel at Echoverse and Andrea Hartman, Lecturer in Law at UCLA School of Law

Hear exclusive application tips from Assistant Dean Jason Fiske before the final application deadline on June 3, 2024

Law School Personal Statement Examples

The personal statement is a critical part of a law school application. Although it may not be as important as your LSAT score and GPA, remember that law school admissions committees are trying to build a diverse and interesting community of students. Your personal statement is the primary way you can show law schools who you are beyond your numbers and resume, and is also an opportunity to show the quality of your writing. If you’re not sure where to start, read on for law school personal statement examples and what makes each one successful.

Best Law School Personal Statement Examples

Below, you’ll find examples of successful personal statements that have been published by law schools themselves, followed by some tips and takeaways on what makes these law school personal statements work well. We also encourage you to check out this guide to formatting your personal statement .

Law School Personal Statement Example 1

First, take a look at the last sample personal statement about recovering from an injury: In Their Own Words: Admissions Essays That Worked | University of Chicago Law School . This was published by UChicago as an exemplary essay that worked well for admissions. Keep reading to get our analysis of what makes this a great personal statement!

• Law school personal statements don’t always need to be about why the applicant wants to go to law school. You can see how this statement touches on an interest in law only very briefly and lightly; the focus of the statement is instead on revealing personal qualities of the applicant.

Law School Personal Statement Example 2

Next, take a look at the last sample law school personal statement about an applicant’s experience in Teach for America: BU Law Student Personal Statements | School of Law . This was published by Boston University. Now, here’s why we think this is a winning personal statement.

• Clear and direct writing. The statement uses plain language and contractions – don’t think you have to use an overly “professional” tone.

Law School Personal Statement Tips

• Have you experienced any major changes in your career, intellectual interests, or life motivations? What caused the change?

How long should your personal statement be for law school?

Each law school may have its own rules regarding page length and font size for a personal statement. So make sure to check the personal statement format requirements for each school you’re applying to (among other specific law school requirements ). However, for the vast majority of schools, a statement should be about 2 pages long, double-spaced, in a readable font size (12 pt or 11 pt).

Even if a law school doesn’t specify any page limits for the personal statement, remember that admissions committees will be reading thousands of applications and will appreciate brevity. So you don’t necessarily want to write 4 pages or more simply because you can. For those schools that allow you to write more than 2 pages, having a 3-page version of your statement can make sense, but only if the extra page makes it better.

Final Advice

The personal statement is one of your only chances to let law schools know who you are beyond your numbers and resume. So, make the most of it. If you follow the tips above, you’ll have a compelling statement that will make law schools eager to have you join their entering classes. Meanwhile, if you’re writing a transfer statement, check out our advice on law school transfer personal statements!

Kevin Lin earned a B.A. from UC Berkeley and a J.D. from Columbia Law School. After working as a lawyer for several years, both at the U.S. Attorney’s Office and at a large New York law firm, he succumbed to his love of the LSAT and teaching and has been a full-time LSAT instructor since 2015. Beginning first at a major test prep company and rising to become one of its most experienced and highly rated instructors, he began tutoring independently in 2019. Kevin has worked with LSAT students at all stages of their preparation, from complete beginners to LSAT veterans shooting for the 99th percentile. Connect and learn more about Kevin on YouTube , LinkedIn , and his website .

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Law School Admissions Consulting and Editing Maximize your odds. Minimize your stress.

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Admissions Officers & Award-Winning Writers

We combine years of experience in law school admissions with the editorial talent of professional, published authors.

We know what it takes to get into top programs—our former admissions officers have reviewed applications at Columbia Law School , University of Michigan Law School , University of Virginia School of Law , Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law , and University of California Berkeley School of Law .

You truly brought out the best writer in me, and your guidance helped me get into a school that was a far-fetched dream. For that, I’m eternally grateful.

Our writing experts have graduated from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop , written for The New Yorker , The Los Angeles Review of Books , Slate , Vogue , and The Atlantic , received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Fulbright Program , and published critically acclaimed novels with imprints like Penguin Books . But we don’t impose our vision on your essays: we help your work become the best version of itself.

Sign up with 7Sage to make your story sing .

We Help Applicants Beat the Odds

During the 2021–2022 cycle, 7Sage consulting clients were four times more successful than the overall applicant pool to T14 schools.

Of our clients who got into T14 schools, 2 in 3 had a below-median LSAT score or GPA.

Over a third of 7Sage consulting clients who were admitted to Yale Law School got in with a below-median LSAT score or GPA.

Sign up with 7Sage to boost your chances .

What Package is Right for You?

For most students, Admissions Consulting Pro is the best value. You’ll be paired with both a professional writer and a former admissions officer, and they’ll work together to help you develop and articulate an individualized application strategy. They will help you develop a school list, decide whether to apply early decision, and contextualize character and fitness issues, unusual academic or personal circumstances, and gaps in employment. They’ll also give you start-to-finish help (yes, that includes brainstorming!) with every piece of writing you need to produce for up to five schools. That means:

• Personal statements
• Diversity statements
• Why “X” essays
• Optional essays
• Character and fitness addenda
• LSAT and low-GPA addenda
• Employment-gap addenda
• Scholarship essays that are included on law school applications
• Short-answer application questions
• Correspondence with admissions officers before submission

If you purchase Admissions Consulting Plus, they’ll help you with scholarship reconsideration, interview prep, and waitlist strategy as well.

Students who feel comfortable with their overall strategy should consider Admissions Consulting Lite, which includes strategic guidance but will emphasize editorial support. The custom window also enables you to mix and match smaller services to create a more personalized package. You might choose Unlimited Edits in order to work on your personal statement with a writer and then purchase an hour with an admissions officer in order to refine your school list.

Schedule a Free Consultation

Want to learn more about our program? Have questions? Schedule a free 30-minute consultation with one of our admissions consultants.

Frequently Asked Questions

What’s the difference between admissions consulting pro and admissions consulting lite.

If you purchase Admissions Consulting Pro, you’re paired with both a writer and an admissions officer. If you purchase Admissions Consulting Lite, you work with a writer.

Can I purchase Admissions Consulting Lite and work with an admissions officer instead of a writer?

Yes! Just write to us at [email protected] or note your request in your response to the welcome email. A writer will concentrate more on your written materials; an admissions officer will concentrate on your overall strategy.

How does the “custom” window work?

The custom window enables you to purchase multiple services at the same time so that you can build your own personalized admissions package. You can choose any combination or number of the services listed. If you purchase a mix of writer- and admissions-officer packages, we’ll pair you with the same writer for each writer package and the same admissions officer for each admissions-officer package.

What’s the difference between Admissions Consulting Pro and Admissions Consulting Plus?

Admissions Consulting Pro covers you until you submit your applications to five schools. Admissions Consulting Plus offers after-the-application support that covers you after you submit to each school. Students commonly use it for interview prep, waitlist help, and scholarship negotiations.

Can I purchase a Consulting package and work on Transfer or LLM applications?

Yep. Just note that in your response to the welcome email and we'll pair you with consultants who are experienced with those application types.

Do I need After-the-Application Support?

Most students find themselves waitlisted at some schools and accepted at others, in which case After-the-Application Support may help. Law school interviews are also becoming more common, though many schools do not interview.

Can I purchase After-the-Application Support later?

Yes. After-the-Application Support costs $1499 if you purchase it with Admissions Consulting. It costs $1999 if you purchase it later.

How long do I get to work with you?

Admissions Consulting covers you until you finish submitting five applications. We require that you submit those applications in the same application cycle.

If you add After-the-Application Support, we’ll work with you until the last day of August that follows your applications.

Do you offer payment plans?

7Sage is pleased to offer affordable payment plans for our Admissions Consulting packages.

Here's how it works: we split the purchase price into six monthly payments. You pay the first today, and then we will reach out once a month to remind you to make your next monthly payment until you're paid up.

That's it! No interest, no shady terms, and no third-party companies you have to deal with.

Note: once you buy, you are obligated to complete all the payments.

What if I start working with you on my applications but decide to delay until next cycle?

If you’ve started working with us on two documents or fewer, we’ll finish what we started before you take a break and pick up later where we left off. Our philosophy is that once you purchase our services, you’re entitled to use them. The flip side is that we won’t repeat work. For example, if you finish your personal statement before you delay, we won’t be able to revise or replace it when you resume.

If you’ve started working on more than two different documents, though, we won’t be able to extend your package, and we’ll ask that you finish working on your applications now.

Is there a refund policy?

We have a qualified 6-day refund policy. If you change your mind, let us know within 6 days of payment to get a full refund less $250 per hour of our consultants’ work time and a 6% processing fee.

How will I get paired with a consultant?

Our pairing process isn’t random, but we don’t have a formula, either. After your purchase, we’ll send you an initial survey. When we see your responses, we’ll match you with consultants whom we think you’ll work well with.

You can see our team here:  https://7sage.com/admissions/about-us/ .

Is there a contract?

There sure is. You can see our consulting contract here .

For more answers, email [email protected] or schedule a free consultation with one of our consultants.

Check out a sample edit!

Three, Two, One, Gong! However, I almost did not hear any applause at the trade opening ceremony. It was all because of the huge 18.38 green figure, a 25% drop of XMan’s offering price, shown at the screen of the Bolsa de Montevideo, Uruguay’s stock exchange. As drafting counsel of the company, I have never imagined it would have such a deep down opening price followed by another 40% drop. That day was May 9th, 2015, another crash came into the casino-like Uruguayan stock markets.

The crash reminded me of my own investing experience five years ago, in a cold October, my first stock plunged likely from USD31 to USD23 in three trading days, which made all my former profits suddenly gone away and I was instantaneously suffering from huge loss.

Now I understand it’s mainly the markets lacking a buffering system, but then I naively thought my loss was all because I did not have a good investment portfolio, cannot figure out the technical sign before a crash and ignored the fact that no stock could go one-way growth. From then on, I decided to analyze the K curves, check on famous investors’ opinions and collected predictions from financial media every day. In the following months, I did short term trades and altered my holdings frequently – I did make some correct decision, which made me feel I was a genius, but for most of the other times, I was terribly wrong. Two months past and it turned out my effort did not work out – I was actually losing more. Tired, vexed and depressed, upon the coming Christmas, I cleared all my holdings to prevent further losses.

But I knew I was not a guy resigned to lose. After Christmas I started to read investment books. I read Buffett, Peter Lynch as well as Graham, hoping to find a universal truth in investments from their works. Many of their theories and techniques are very impressive, but it is the book The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham that gave me the core inspiration, and the most inspiring word to me was probability.

The word dawned on me – there is no perfect operation on stock market – no one can always buy at the low and sell at the high. Investment was all about the likelihood. The motive of go perfect is out of my greed and fear. I suddenly understood investment was not only dealing with the market but also myself. I have to control my emotions to think rationally and make timely response. In the long run, I can gain profits from the circumstances that I am probably sure about where the market is going. For other times, run, wait and most importantly, use the time to learn something new. Learning more can help me to upgrade my strategies and grasp next opportunity, which will ultimately benefit me in deciphering the market.

The Intelligent Investor taught me to grow out of my comfort zone, keep learning new knowledge and wait for the opportunity to strike, which mirrors my wish to apply for a prestigious US law school. Today, I want to go out of Uruguay to learn from the world’s most developed market system, I wish to learn how the US designed and improved its rules and I dream of helping my country in its way towards a more stable and mature market. I hope ___ will give me the opportunity.

After a 7Sage Edit

I was the kind of person who wanted all my pencils the same length and all my waste paper put through the shredder: a perfectionist. A newly hired paralegal at Baker Mckenzie, I was also a novice in financial markets. By buying at cyclical lows and selling at cyclical highs, I expected perfect results. My first quarter only exacerbated my naivety: I managed an eighteen percent gain, which I attributed wholly to my skill.

Then the market tanked. In October of 2011, in a span of just three days, my portfolio lost twenty-five percent of its value. The bitter loss left me sleepless and without appetite. I staggered around in a haze, purple bags under my eyes. It was hard not to take it personally.

I decided to reeducate myself. I read Buffett, Peter Lynch, and many other big names, hoping to find a universal answer, a foolproof trading strategy. Towers of books rose up on my floor, and still I couldn’t find what I was looking for.

Eventually, I came across The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham, where I read a simple truth that changed my life: stock trading is a game of probabilities. There is no perfect method.

I realized that I couldn’t control the stock market, but I could control my own expectations. To be a competent investor, I had to regulate my emotions and bet on the percentages instead of chasing huge gains. The optimal strategy was to let go of my perfectionism.

I started investing not only in the market but in myself. I continued to read extensively, do internships, and take classes related to the market. Above all, I practiced being calm. I tried to take every gain and loss in stride.

But even as I became more comfortable with risk, I became more aware of how volatile the Uruguayan markets were. Outdated regulations meant that the markets lacked a modern buffering system. Working on a technology company’s $500 million merger in my capacity as Baker Mckenzie’s paralegal showed me how the American securities system values fiduciary duty and shareholders’ rights. Although America’s system is far from perfect, it could teach the Uruguayans a lot.

I, for one, am ready to learn more. At Universidad Católica del Uruguay, I studied Uruguayan financial regulation and economics, but I’ll need to study in the US before I can fully understand American financial regulations. My career goal is to become a leader of Uruguay’s central bank. I plan to use what I learn in America to make my country’s markets more stable and fair. I know it won’t be easy, but my investing experience has taught me to temper big dreams with modest expectations. I don’t have to make the Uruguayan system perfect. I just have to make it better.

Start-to-finish help.

Choose Admissions Consulting for expert guidance through every step of the admissions process.

We’ll begin by identifying your strengths and weaknesses. You’ll get a better sense of where you stand and how you might contribute to the incoming class.

We’ll talk about where, when, and how to apply. You’ll get a comprehensive checklist ordered by priority.

Write and Edit

We’ll help you brainstorm, revise, and proofread every document that you need for your applications. You’ll get essays that maximize your strengths, mitigate your liabilities, and represent your motivation.

We’ll review your documents to make sure that they’re not raising any questions or missing any opportunities.

Grammar Check

We’ll make sure all documents are free of errors.

💡 Every document gets proofread by two different professionals.

Application Review

Before you submit, we’ll do a series of final checks on your entire application.

Continuing Guidance

We’re always looking for opportunities to improve your odds, and we’re always available to answer your questions.

They Really Like Us 😊

Take a look at these unsolicited responses from our clients:

My stats >3.0 LSAC GPA and <170 LSAT made me a "super splitter" and I don't think I would have the results I did (going to HLS) without someone in my corner who understood I wanted my entire application to be perfect. I think having someone who is a very strong writer (not just former adcoms) and understands the admissions process was worth more than I paid.

u/LuckyLeftySC

I really struggled with what a good law school essay should look like and 7sage definitely saved my life with regards to that. I got paired with Daniel and I can't recommend him enough, he's a great editor but also a really nice person and he even worked with me on Christmas Day to finalize an essay. If you want editing help, I really recommend 7sage. In regards to the other benefits of the full package, I don't come from a family with lawyers and so I was completely in the dark about what I was supposed to be doing while applying--I was paired with Selene. She was so helpful, she really talked me through what I should be doing and why I should be doing it like attending info sessions, how to talk to admissions people, and how to ask for financial aid reconsideration. 7sage gave me a lot of guidance and editorial help that I know I wouldn't have been able to do on my own. I'm happy with where I ended up.

u/corpus_bride

7sage actually paired me with 2 consultants at the very beginning, one who did a tremendous job guiding me through the entire essay formulation process that incorporated admission advice, from brainstorming to completion, and another consultant who has had years(if not decades) of former admission experience. So you actually get the best of both worlds! Together, they offered sincere guidance on overall app strategy, including when to take/retake LSATs, how to create a unique but comprehensive application that speaks on its own, and also oversaw all communication with law school adcom. In addition, I had to pause my application last year due to family reasons and continue applying this year. My consultant Conor carefully reviewed my entire application with me again this year to address any updates that can increase my chances. (If you see this, thank you 7sage!)

u/sunch4ser

I worked with Sarah Cohen from 7Sage, and it was 100% worth the money. My LSAT score was 156, and my GPA was 3.65, and I received big scholarship offers from reputable schools. Sarah knew what admissions would be looking for and helped me make my application unique, so I would stand out amongst the other applicants. If I had to do it on my own, I’m not sure I would have received the same offers. Spending a few thousand dollars now can potentially save you over 100,000 in student loans. That's a pretty good deal!

u/appalachian8351

7Sage Admissions Reviews

About 7sage consultants.

Aaron Thier

Director of admissions services.

Aaron received a BA in Literature from Yale University and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Florida, where he taught both creative and expository writing. He is the author of three novels: The Ghost Apple (a semi-finalist for the Thurber Prize), Mr. Eternity (a finalist for the same award), and The World is a Narrow Bridge . His essays and criticism have appeared in The Nation, The New Republic , The Los Angeles Review of Books, Lucky Peach , and other magazines, and in 2016 he received a Literature Fellowship from the National Endowment from the Arts.

Dan Grossman

Admissions sales manager.

Dan Grossman holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Florida and a BA from Williams College, where he graduated summa cum laude and won the Arthur Kaufmann Prize in English. He has published short stories, book reviews, travel pieces, and cultural essays in a variety of publications such as Jewish Currents , Marginalia, and The Millions . His hobbies include baseball, chess, and old films.

Susan Cersovsky

Admissions officer.

Susan has worked in admissions at Columbia Law School for the last five years, where she served on the Admissions Committee, conducted candidate interviews, reviewed and rendered decisions on thousands of applications each year, oversaw merit-based scholarships, and designed recruiting strategies. She began her law career in New York at Weil, Gotshal & Manges in the reorganization and restructuring department, and worked in-house at New York Life Insurance Company. She also has litigated on a pro bono basis for Sanctuary for Families in Bronx Family Court.

Susan holds a JD from Columbia Law School, where she edited the  Human Rights Law Review  and the  Jailhouse Lawyer’s Manual , and participated in the Harlem Tutorial Program. She received a BA with distinction and MA in English from Emory University. Currently, Susan resides with her family in Harlem and New York’s Hudson Valley. When she is not helping law school applicants gain acceptance to their dream schools, she can be found developing her mediation skills, serving on the New York City Bar Association’s Sex & Law Committee, co-chairing the Columbia Law School Reunion Committee, painting and doing ceramics, or spending time with her family’s dogs.

Tajira McCoy

Tajira worked in law school admissions for ten years, most recently as the Director of Admissions and Scholarship Programs at Berkeley Law. At Berkeley Law, her primary responsibilities included recruiting and advising prospective law school applicants about the application process, evaluating applicants for admission and for incoming scholarship opportunities, managing the scholarship reconsideration process, and supporting diversity recruitment efforts.

During her tenure in law admissions, her recruitment efforts spanned JD and LLM programs at four law schools, including public and private institutions, a Jesuit institution, and an HBCU. Tajira built and cultivated relationships within the law school and pre-law communities, often speaking on panels about the admissions process, diversity in law schools, personal and diversity statement workshops, and financial aid talks. For the Law School Admissions Council, she served on the Misconduct and Irregularities in the Admissions Process Subcommittee, the Subcommittee on DiscoverLaw Plus Programs, the International Outreach and Recruitment Work Group, the Annual Meeting Planning Work Group, and the Diversity Committee. She also evaluated submissions to the LSAC Diversity Writing Competition, and she presented at several Annual Meeting Conferences and numerous LSAC Forum events.

Tajira received her bachelor’s degree from California State University, Northridge and her JD from Southwestern Law School. She currently serves as the Director of Career Services at the University of San Francisco School of Law, where she cultivates employer relationships and advises students and alumni on career planning and job search strategy. Tajira is also the debut author of a rom-com forthcoming from MIRA Books of HarperCollins in early 2022. When she’s not advising students or writing, you might find her testing out new recipes and hosting Supper Club meals for close friends.

Josh Brooks

Josh served on the admissions committee for Cornell Law School, where he read applications, conducted interviews, and advised the committee on candidates. Josh holds a JD from Cornell Law School, as well as bachelor’s and master’s degrees from other institutions. In law school, Josh served as general editor of the  Cornell Law Review  and was one of the few students to be published in an elite law journal. Josh started his legal career at a Vault number-one labor and employment law firm, but quickly transitioned to an academic focus when he was awarded the e-Government Fellowship of Cornell Law School. As the e-Government Fellow, Josh taught law students, managed research projects, published multiple articles, and represented Cornell University’s interests in legislative initiatives in New York City. Josh has been featured on NBC New York and in  Ezra Magazine  and  Politico  for his work in NYC. Josh then accepted a position as head of the Office of Distinguished Graduate Fellowships at Arizona State University, where he built what started as a small unit into one of the largest and most successful graduate student advising programs in academia, significantly increasing prestigious fellowship grants university-wide. Josh also served as the development chair for the Chicano/Latino Faculty & Staff Association and advised undergraduates in the honors college on law school admissions. Today, Josh owns two successful businesses and is presently writing a book about the wonderful, surreal, and disturbing history of the southwest United States.

Brigitte Suhr

Brigitte holds a BA from the University of Texas at Austin and a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. For two years, she worked in admissions at the University of Virginia School of Law. As she assessed prospective JD files, she often thought about how the applicants could have done a better job of conveying their strengths and contextualizing their weaknesses.

Prior to her work as a consultant, Brigitte traversed the globe as an international human rights lawyer, advocating for truth, justice, and reparations in post-conflict societies. Working for organizations such as Human Rights Watch and the Coalition for the International Criminal Court, she carried out fact-finding, training, and advocacy missions to more than two dozen countries, meeting with stakeholders from presidents to survivor collectives. She feels honored to have had a hand in the legal reforms of over fifty countries ranging from Costa Rica to South Africa. Brigitte also spent several years working in Guatemala, first as counsel to a human rights NGO and then as an investigator of the atrocities committed during the country’s thirty-six-year armed conflict.

Brigitte continues to consult with foundations and non-profits on human rights programs and research covering issues such as justice reform, LGBTQ advocacy, and anti-slavery initiatives. When she’s not working, you can find Brigitte hiking the trails of the Santa Monica Mountains with her ball-crazy Labrador named Milo.

Gail has worked in admissions for seven years, most recently at the University of Michigan Law School, where she was the sole first reader of applications. Before coming to Ann Arbor, Gail advised investment banks on broker-dealer regulatory issues at the New York law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz and conducted enforcement actions as a senior attorney for the Securities and Exchange Commission in Boston. She earned her BA in Psychology from Brandeis University, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and her JD from the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, where she served as an editor of the law review.

When she is not helping applicants gain acceptance to their dream schools, Gail can be found painting portraits, walking her cavachon Benji, and savoring local Tex-Mex delicacies.

RL Goldberg

RL Goldberg is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Society of Fellows at Dartmouth College. They earned an AB from Harvard College, an MFA in fiction from the University of Florida, and a PhD from Princeton. RL's first book,  I Changed My Sex! Pedagogy and Trans Narrative , is forthcoming from Columbia University Press. RL has taught in prisons in Massachusetts and New Jersey for the last decade.

Lei has at various times been a science journalist in Hong Kong, a happiness researcher in Florida, a private investigator in San Francisco, and a life coach and translator in Shanghai, where she was born (though she grew up in a tiny immigrant town in New Jersey). She holds a BA in Environmental Studies from Yale and an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the University of Iowa, where she designed and taught classes to undergraduates that combined creative writing, literature, philosophy, and life lessons.

Her work has been recognized by the Vermont Studio Center, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Iowa Arts Fellowship, and the Marcus Bach Graduate Fellowship for writing that “fosters intercultural communication and the understanding of diverse philosophies and religious perspectives.” She is currently writing a book about consciousness hacking, a work of creative nonfiction/literary self-help that explores the possibility of a reality in which everything is perfectly okay, right now.

Selene Steelman

Selene holds a BA with Distinction in English from Swarthmore College and a Juris Doctor from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law where she was Senior Managing Editor of the Cardozo Women’s Law Journal.

For the last 14 years, she evaluated LL.M. and JD applications as a member of the Admissions Committee for Cardozo School of Law. As Director of LL.M. Admissions, she admitted and welcomed 27 new classes of LL.M. students from over 25 countries. Prior to joining Cardozo, she was a structured finance associate at a top-tier Manhattan law firm. Before she decided to pursue a legal education, she worked at a New York City literary agency, editing book proposals, negotiating subsidiary rights in the pre-digital era, and searching for the Great American Novel in the slush pile.

She resides in northern New Jersey. When she is not helping law school candidates achieve their dreams, she spends her time playing the violin and ballroom dancing.

Jacob Baska

Jacob has worked in undergraduate and law admissions for over a decade and has reviewed tens of thousands of applications. He most recently served as the Director of Admissions and Financial Aid at Notre Dame Law School. In that role, he was responsible for all matters related to recruitment strategy, file reading and decision making, yield programming, scholarship modeling, and connecting admitted students with faculty, alumni, and current students. Additionally, Jacob has been active in the law admissions community, serving on panels and subcommittees for the Law School Admissions Council. Despite a great deal of experience working on macro strategy for law schools, his most rewarding moments have always been connecting directly with students to help them achieve their goals, especially those from non-traditional backgrounds and marginalized communities.

When not working, Jacob spends a great deal of time with his family, coaching one daughter's Girls on the Run team and serving as the cookie manager of another's Girl Scout troop. He is an avid BBQ aficionado and never shies from sharing his strong opinions about the St. Louis Cardinals.

Elizabeth Cavallari

Elizabeth Cavallari spent nearly six years as a senior and assistant dean of admissions at William & Mary Law School and three years in undergraduate admissions at Bucknell University. She has evaluated thousands of law school admissions files, interviewed hundreds of applicants, coordinated the waitlist, and advised both domestic and international candidates on the law school admissions process. She has also presented at the LSAC annual conference and at multiple prelaw advisor conferences on subjects ranging from waitlist strategies to resources for LGBTQIA students. Elizabeth is passionate about building relationships with her students as she guides them through the application process. When she’s not thinking about law school admissions, she advises a sorority at William & Mary, supporting collegiate leaders, and coordinates a 40+ Career Club to assist older job seekers. You can often find Elizabeth running through Colonial Williamsburg, pushing a double jogging stroller.

Patrick Liu

Patrick (he/him) is a recent JD graduate of Yale Law School and received his BA in Economics from the University of Chicago (Phi Beta Kappa). He was accepted to the top law schools in the country and was offered several full-ride awards, including the Root-Tilden-Kern and Hamilton scholarships. While at Yale Law, Patrick worked in the Admissions Office as an Admissions Representative, where he counseled prospective and admitted applicants, served on admissions panels, and worked extensively with the team to welcome incoming classes. He also served as Political Action Chair for the Asian Pacific American Law Students Association and as a coordinator with the National Lawyers Guild. Patrick was designated a 2020–21 Connecticut Bar Foundation Fellow for his commitment to public interest work. 

Patrick started his legal career as a trial attorney at the Public Defender Services for the District of Columbia, representing juvenile clients facing felony charges. Before law school, Patrick worked with expert scholars at the Brookings Institution, researching issues related to employment, poverty, and education. His interests center around harm reduction, restorative justice, and abolition.

Jennifer Kott

During a law admissions career that has spanned over twenty-five years, Jennifer Kott has worked at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, Tulane University School of Law, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law, where she served as Director of Admissions.

Jennifer enjoyed counseling, coaching, and advising alumni and students about law schools, the admissions and application process, scholarships, and the overall strategic approach to getting into the law school of their choice. She holds a BA in Sociology from Elon University and is a founding sister of the Theta Nu Chapter, Alpha Xi Delta Fraternity. She has been active in national admissions organizations, including the Law School Admission Council (LSAC), serving as a panelist at multiple annual meetings and conferences and as a member of the LSAC’s Misconduct and Irregularities in the Admissions Process Subcommittee and the National Recruitment Calendar Workgroup.

Kott is an advocate of animal-assisted therapy and participated at law school student service functions with her service dog, Sara. When not enthusiastically helping others to reach their goals, Kott is wickedly cheering on all Boston (pronounced “Bahstin”) sports teams and fruitfully enjoys spending time with her family in North Carolina and floating on the James River.

Samuel Riley

Dr. Riley worked in law school admissions for seventeen years at the University of Texas School of Law. For most of that time, he served as the Senior Director of Admissions Programs. In that position, his duties included recruiting, advising prospective JD applicants about the application process, organizing prospective and admitted student programs, and reviewing and making decisions on JD and transfer applications.

In his last few years at Texas Law, he helped create the Pipeline Program and its Cohort Program, which is for prospective law school applicants. As the Director of Pipeline Programs, he assisted Cohort Program students with every aspect of the admissions process, including school selection, interviews, and scholarships, and he reviewed their résumés and personal and optional statements. He also continued to review an average of 2,500 JD applications per year.

Dr. Riley served in several different positions within the law school community including, in 2015 and 2018, as the Interim Assistant Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid at Texas Law. Outside the law school, Dr. Riley served on the following committees for the Law School Admissions Council: the National Recruitment Work Group (two terms); the New Admission Personnel and Faculty Members Workshop (faculty member); the DiscoverLaw.org PLUS Subcommittee; and the Finance and Legal Affairs Committee.

Dr. Riley is considered a triple Longhorn. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin College of Natural Sciences, and his master’s and doctoral degrees from the School of Education. In his spare time, he loves following Longhorn sports and trying to improve his golf game whenever he can.

Christie Belknap

Christie holds a BA in history from the University of Pennsylvania and a JD from Emory Law School, where she served as an editor on the Emory Law Review . She worked at two top-tier law firms in New York City, but after getting her fill of late nights, fancy lunches, and (perhaps most importantly) paying off her student loans, she shifted gears and landed a job in the admissions office at Cardozo Law School. There, she reviewed applications, met and counseled prospective students, spoke on admissions panels, and travelled to such exotic locales as Pittsburgh and Columbus. She returned to practicing law as the real estate counsel for the New York City Economic Development Corporation, where she helped move the Fulton Fish Market from South Street Seaport to a refrigerated, state of the art facility, and got to use the term “fishmonger” on a regular basis. In her latest role as an admissions consultant at 7Sage, she’s happy to draw upon her past experiences as an admissions officer and lawyer to help advise prospective students in the law school application process.

Jenifer Godfrey

Jenifer worked in law school admissions for nearly ten years, most recently as Assistant Dean for Admissions & Scholarships at the William H. Bowen School of Law, University of Arkansas | Little Rock, where she served as first reader and had sole discretion on recruitment scholarship awards. Prior to that, she worked at the University of Idaho College of Law and the Paul M. Hebert Law Center at Louisiana State University.

Jenifer has demonstrated expertise in diversity pipeline programs and has served on LSAC’s Diversity Committee. She is skilled at helping future law students of all backgrounds understand how to best frame their values, experiences, and other attributes to showcase their unique contributions to diversity and the celebration of differences. She also served on LSAC’s Services & Programs Division Working Group, LSAC’s Information Services Division Working Group, and various LSAC Forum panels in addition to presenting twice at the LSAC Annual Meeting and Educational Conference.

Jenifer earned both her bachelor’s and JD from West Virginia University and her PhD in Educational Research & Leadership at Louisiana State University. Jenifer is published in The Review of Higher Education and the Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership , and she teaches graduate- and professional-level courses at a large research university. When she is not working, you can find her enjoying her family’s zoo membership and sharing her love of animals with her children.

Amy Bonnaffons

Amy holds a BA in literature ( magna cum laude ) from Yale University and an MFA in fiction writing from New York University, where she won the Goldwater Teaching Fellowship and an Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award. She taught in the Expository Writing Program at New York University for four years before deciding to pursue a PhD in English at the University of Georgia. Her story collection THE WRONG HEAVEN was published in 2018 by Lee Boudreaux Books at Little, Brown, and will be followed by THE REGRETS, a novel about the afterlife. Her writing has appeared in publications ranging from The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal to Kenyon Review and The Sun , and has won awards and fellowships from Yale University, Open City magazine, Bread Loaf, and The MacDowell Colony, among others.

Amy is a founding editor of 7x7 , a literary journal promoting collaboration between writers and visual artists, and has served as international editor of Washington Square Review. She has also helped many students hone their personal statements to gain admission to college, law school and business school.

Brian Booker

Brian received a PhD in English and American Literature from NYU, and an MFA in Fiction from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he was an Iowa Arts Fellow and, in his third year, a Schulze Fellow. He has been the Grace Paley Fiction Fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and the James C. McCreight Fiction Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing.

Brian’s fiction has been published in Conjunctions, One Story, New England Review, Tin House, Vice , and other magazines; his stories have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and the National Magazine Award. His debut short story collection, ARE YOU HERE FOR WHAT I’M HERE FOR?, was published in 2016 by Bellevue Literary Press.

Brian has ten years of experience teaching expository writing and literature courses at NYU; he has also taught creative writing workshops at the University of Iowa and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Most recently, he has been a Lecturer in the Program in Creative Writing at the University of Chicago, designing and teaching workshops for both undergraduate and graduate students on topics such as Literary Horror.

Daniel Castro

Daniel has worked as a writing consultant for over a decade. He holds a BA in English from Indiana University-Bloomington, where he worked as a tutor at the campus writing center, and is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he received a Dean’s Graduate Fellowship and taught undergraduate writing. He is a former Fulbright scholar in Spain, and his work has appeared in Tampa Review , Miami Herald , Gambit Weekly , and Salon . He was awarded the Cintas Fellowship in Literature in 2014 and the Faulkner Society’s novel prize in 2015. He was a resident at the MacDowell Colony in 2016. He teaches classes and does manuscript consulting for Sackett Street Writers’ Workshop in Brooklyn, and is a co-founder of the Berlin Writers’ Workshop.

Kristen Gleason

Kristen holds a BA in English with Honors from the University of California, Berkeley, where she was a Regents’ and Chancellor’s scholar, and an MFA in Creative Writing (Fiction) from the University of Montana. She studied linguistics in Tromsø, Norway on a High North Fellowship. She is currently a doctoral student in English at the University of Georgia.

Her fiction has appeared in Boston Review , Fence , Prairie Schooner , and elsewhere. She was selected as an A Public Space Emerging Writers Fellow and was the winner of BOMB ’s Biannual Fiction Contest and the North American White Review Short Story Prize in 2017. Recently, she was awarded a Fulbright grant to Norway for the 2018-2019 academic year.

She has taught creative writing and composition at the University of Montana, Montana Tech, and the University of Georgia, where she received an Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award. She was the managing editor of the University of Montana’s literary journal, CutBank. She has also worked in the Oakland, California public school system, edited for an academic publisher, instructed students in GRE and SAT test prep, and tutored in the University of Georgia’s Writing Center.

Conor Ahern

Based out of Washington, D.C., Conor is a graduate of Harvard Law School and the University of Virginia. Conor has been a law school admissions consultant for six years and has worked with dozens of prospective law students to achieve and exceed their admissions goals. In addition to his law school consulting work, Conor tutors the LSAT and works as a civil rights litigator in the employment space, with a focus on race, gender, and disability discrimination. He enjoys reading fiction, cooking, and making bad puns.

Jocelyn Glantz

Jocelyn Glantz is a graduate of George Washington University and Brooklyn Law School. After practicing law, she returned to BLS to serve as the Assistant Director of Admissions. 

To give herself more flexibility while raising her three girls, Jocelyn began consulting for a test prep company. She provided guidance to prospective undergraduate and law students, conducted essay and admissions workshops, and moderated law forums with panels of career and admissions professionals. Twenty years and hundreds of clients later, her individualized approach ensures that her clients present an application that highlights their achievements along with their personal and professional goals.

To balance her life, Jocelyn works as the Associate Director and Staffing Director of an all-girls sleepaway camp, which enables her to enjoy the outdoors during the summer while mentoring campers and staff. As the fall application season begins and she switches from an iced tea to a chai latte, you can find her immersed in law school admissions, working diligently for her clients.

Meghann Banacki

Meghann spent nearly a decade as an admissions officer at Cardozo School of Law. As the Associate Director of Admissions, she was involved in every aspect of the admissions process, including oversight of transfer admission. She has reviewed thousands of JD applications, interviewed hundreds of applicants, and counseled countless prospective students on the law school application process and the law school experience. Meghann also served two terms on the Law School Admission Council’s Misconduct and Irregularities in the Admission Process Subcommittee.

Before transitioning to a career in admissions, Meghann was a litigation associate at Weil, Gotshal & Manges in New York City.

She received a BA, with honors, from Lehigh University, and a JD from Boston University. At BU, Meghann wrote on to the  Law Review  and later served on the editorial board as a Note Development Editor, guiding 2L students through the lengthy note-writing process.

Meghann is a life-long reader and a mother of three young children. She loves exploring the beautiful parks and beaches of Monmouth County, New Jersey with them.

Jeremy Klemin

Jeremy Klemin is a writer and editor based in New York. Born and raised in Long Beach, California, he has also lived in Portugal, Scotland, and Brazil, where he taught at the Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná as a Fulbright Fellow. He received grants from Phi Beta Kappa, Santander Bank, and the University of Edinburgh itself to pursue an MSc in Comparative Literature, and also received a scholarship from the Disquiet International Literary Program to support his creative nonfiction writing. He is a Contributing Editor at Help4Refugees, a Jordan-based humanitarian nonprofit.

His nonfiction is published or forthcoming in publications like The New York Times Book Review , Literary Hub , Redivider , Highsnobiety , Joyland , Post Road , and The Common about countries as diverse as Palestine, Ukraine, Serbia, and Brazil. He speaks Spanish and Portuguese, occasionally writing in the latter, and is currently working on an essay collection about skateboarding and cerebral palsy.

Lulu holds a BS in Society and Environment from the University of California, Berkeley and an MFA in writing from the University of Iowa, where she received fellowships in Rhetoric and Nonfiction as well as the Karl Claus Teaching Award.

She has designed and taught creative writing and composition courses at the Buckley School and the University of Iowa on subjects ranging from the rhetoric of food to humor writing, environmental writing, and writing about fashion. She has also worked as a technical writer in Silicon Valley and was an archivist at the Berkeley Folklore Archive.

Her essays, stories, and journalism have appeared in or are forthcoming from The Los Angeles Review of Books , DIAGRAM, Iowa Public Radio, and others. Her essay “Dams in Distress” was a 2020 finalist for the Pinch Page Prize. She is currently at work on a collection of humorous essays.

Ethan Madore

Ethan Madore received a BA in History from Vassar College and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Iowa’s Nonfiction Writing Program, where he was the 2017–2018 Provost’s Visiting Writer in Nonfiction. He has taught literature and personal writing courses for over five years, including classes on environmental, political, and travel writing, as well as graduate classes in journalism and cultural studies at the University of Dortmund in Germany. At Iowa, he designed a new series of courses for the Iowa Publishing Track and won an Outstanding Teaching Award. In Germany, he was a guest of honor at the national celebration of Walt Whitman’s 200th birthday.

A former editor of The Essay Review , his writing appears online in The Iowa Review and Guesthouse . He is at work on his first two books of nonfiction, a collection of essays about prehistory and a love song to the year 2011.

Susannah Davies

Susannah attended Barnard College, where she studied English and visual arts, and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she received a teaching fellowship to study fiction. At Iowa, she taught literature and creative writing courses. In 2016, Susannah was a finalist for the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing Fellowship. She is currently based in New Orleans and is at work on a collection of short stories.

Lee Cole holds an MFA from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a BA in English and Philosophy from the University of Louisville. He’s a 2020 Aspen Words Emerging Writer Fellow. His work has appeared in the  Cimarron Review , where it was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and he’s earned an honorable mention in Oxford American’s debut fiction contest. For the last two years, he’s taught creative writing at the University of Iowa.

Ariel Katz holds a BA in English from Yale and an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she won the Richard Yates short story contest. As a student there, she taught undergraduate English and creative writing courses, and upon graduation was awarded a Meta & George Rosenberg screenwriting fellowship. She’s published essays and interviews on the Ploughshares blog and at Bookforum , and is at work on a novel.

Catherine Meeks

Catherine holds an MFA in fiction from Warren Wilson College—where she was the Rona Jaffe Fellow—an MS in environmental studies from the University of Montana, and a BA in English ( summa cum laude, Phi Kappa Phi, Presidential Scholar) from Berry College. She has taught expository writing, creative writing, environmental writing, scientific writing, and literature at the college level for fifteen years, as well as for Duke University’s Talent Identification Program field study at Ghost Ranch, New Mexico. She is currently a lecturer at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, and has twice been recognized as the lecturer of the year.

Catherine has received an Artist’s Grant from the Vermont Studio Center and the Emerging Writers Award from the Southern Women Writers Conference, and was invited in 2016 to be writer-in-residence at Randolph College in Lynchburg, Virginia. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Ecotone , Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, and other publications. In addition, Catherine is the co-founder of the Fall Line South Field Institute—an outdoor education school based in the Southeastern US—and a certified yoga instructor, most recently teaching at state and federal women’s prisons.

Dawn Corrigan

Dawn holds a BA in Liberal Arts from Sarah Lawrence College and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Florida, where she served as President of the English Graduate Organization and as a writing tutor for the Athletic Department. She taught academic and creative writing at UF and at the University of Utah, where she was on the masthead at Western Humanities Review . She’s done copy editing for an array of clients including the University of Utah’s Tanner Trust and Free World Associates, a human rights organization. She was a researcher and strategist at IMS Consulting, a legal services provider for Am Law 100 firms. Currently she works in the affordable housing industry, with expertise in Fair Housing, VAWA, and the HUD-VASH program for homeless veterans. Her debut novel, Mitigating Circumstances , an environmental mystery about Florida wetlands, was published by Five Star/Cengage, and her shorter prose and poetry have appeared widely in print and online journals including The Good Men Project , Hobart , New England Review , New World Writing , The Paris Review , Poetry , and storySouth.

Jonathan Gharraie

Jonathan Gharraie holds degrees in English Literature from the University of Leeds and St. Catherine’s College, University of Oxford. In 2014, he graduated from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and stayed on as a Post-Graduate Teaching Fellow. He has written for The Atlantic , n+1 , The Paris Review Daily , The New Statesman , Review 31 , and Vogue , and is currently at work on his first novel. He lives in South Derbyshire, England.

Django Ellenhorn

Django Ellenhorn holds an MFA in Fiction from the University of Florida and a BA in English from the Commonwealth Honors College at the University of Massachusetts. At UF, he taught a course on the intersection of politics and literature in the twentieth century as well as multiple workshops in fiction. He also worked as an assistant editor at the literary magazine Subtropics . He is currently at work on his first novel.

Nica Franklin

Nica Franklin received an MFA in Poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he taught literature and creative writing, and a BA in Philosophy from Harvard University, where he was awarded the Edward Eager Memorial Prize in English and an Artist Development Fellowship. His writing and poetry have appeared in places like Colorado Review , Religious Studies Review , and Leavings .

Gina Cecchetti

Gina worked in law school admissions for eight years, most recently as the Director of Admissions at Duquesne University School of Law. At Duquesne, her responsibilities included evaluating applicants for admission and managing the scholarship process—including the reconsideration process.

During her time in law school admissions, Gina served on admission panels with the Law School Admissions Council when they hosted law school forums. Gina also built relationships with pre-law advisors by hosting workshops, speaking on panels, and planning pre-law advisor conferences at both Case Western Reserve University School of Law and Duquesne Law.

Currently, Gina is an Associate Director of Admissions at a nationally ranked top MBA program. Gina holds a bachelor of arts degree in political science from Westminster College and a master of arts degree in higher education management from the University of Pittsburgh. Gina was a competitive figure skater at the Senior Ladies level, the highest competitive level, and you can find her at the ice rink coaching her figure skaters and hockey players.

Will Smiley

Will developed his editorial skills as a university writing center tutor. He has worked one-on-one with hundreds of faculty and student clients to improve their writing. He received his BA with Honors from the University of Chicago, studied medieval English literature at University College London, and completed an MFA in poetry at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he was a postgraduate Provost Writing Fellow, and a Ph.D. in English at the University of Utah, where he was a Vice Presidential Fellow. Along the way, he has been a supervisor at Boston University’s Pappas Law Library and a cultural resource intern with the National Park Service in Anchorage, Alaska. He enjoys helping people become better writers. (His cat, Cathy, occasionally makes a cameo on Zoom calls.)

Tracy Simmons

Tracy Simmons is the Assistant Dean, Admissions, Diversity Initiatives and Financial Aid at University of San Diego School of Law. She received her JD from Golden Gate University School of Law and her MA in Education with an emphasis in Multi-Cultural Counseling from San Diego State University.

Tracy has worked in law school admissions, financial aid, and diversity initiatives for more than 22 years. She has reviewed thousands of applications, counseled hundreds of prospective law students, awarded millions of dollars in scholarships, and served on panels with admissions professionals from a significant number of ABA law schools. Prior to attending law school and working in law school administration, Tracy worked as a social worker for FamiliesFirst, Inc. in Northern California.

Tracy has been active with the Law School Admission Council on a variety of committees. She is currently the Chair for the Annual Meeting of Law School Professionals. She has served on the Board of Trustees. Past committee work includes serving on the Services and Programs Committee twice, the Forum Review Work Group, the Chief Diversity Officer Search Committee, the Diversity Initiatives Committee, the Finance and Legal Affairs Committee twice, and the Annual Planning Work Group, and serving as Chair of the New Admission Personnel and Faculty Members Workshop Planning Group.

Previously, she served as the Law Chair for the Access Group Advisory Board and the Access Group Advisory Committee. She recently served on the ACCESS LEX LexCon ’21 Planning Committee.

Additionally, Tracy has served as a consultant for the Council on Legal Education Opportunity (CLEO) Achieving Success in the Application Process program for over 12 years. She is a member of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS), serving as the Chair of the Pre-Legal Education and Admissions to Law School Section twice, and as the Chair for the Part-Time Section. Tracy has also served on the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA) Consumer Information and Law Student Information Task Force. Tracy has served on an ABA site inspection team and will serve on another site team next spring.

Tracy has served on the Board of Directors for the Sacramento Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) since March 2014, is immediate past Board President, and is current Chair of the Program Committee. Most recently, Tracy has joined the Sacramento State University Division of Criminal Justice Community Advisory Committee and the California System Involved Bar Association Advisory Board.

Jenny Davis

Jenny holds a BA in English from Wesleyan and is an MFA candidate in nonfiction writing at the University of Iowa, where she was an Iowa Arts Fellow. Her essays have been published in  Los Angeles Review of Books, Washington Square Review,  and  Speculative Nonfiction.  She is the author of the novel  Everything Must Go  and has two more novels forthcoming from Henry Holt. 

Tony Andrews

Tony holds a BA in Philosophy and Film Studies from Amherst College, where he graduated with honors and won the Film Studies Award, and an MFA in Nonfiction Writing from the University of Iowa, where he designed and taught courses in literature and creative writing and won the Carl Klaus Teaching Award. His approach to admissions consulting is student-centered, focused on helping each student package and articulate their unique perspective across their essays. He has worked with clients from a broad range of demographic backgrounds, from Zen Buddhists to first-gen graduates to trauma survivors, listening carefully to their stories and helping them craft the most sincere and authentic version possible. He has served as an editorial assistant for  The Iowa Review  and an assistant editor for the  London Review of Books , and has consulted for both law and business school applicants, with past law school clients accepted to T-14 programs with significant aid, including Harvard Law, Yale Law, UChicago Law, Penn Carey Law, Columbia Law, and UC Berkeley, among others. His business school clients have been admitted to MIT Sloan, Chicago Booth, Berkeley Haas, and the London Business School, among others. Tony is a contributor to  The Surfer's Journal , a literary magazine about the art and culture of surfing.

Will Carpenter

Will holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Florida (Alpha Epsilon Lambda), as well as BAs in Philosophy and Political Science from Penn State (Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude), where he received awards in philosophy, poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. At UF, Will taught classes in expository and argumentative writing, rhetoric and academic research, creative writing, and other areas, and designed a “Special Topics” course in American literature. Will won an English Department Teaching Award for the 2021–2022 academic year, during which time he also served as an Editorial Assistant for  Subtropics , a Style Editor for  ImageTexT , and a panelist at several conferences. He currently serves as a Staff Contributor for  New Square , the literary magazine of the Sancho Panza Literary Society. Will has received a scholarship from the New York State Summer Writers Institute, and his criticism has appeared in the  Denver Quarterly Review . You can find his poetry if you look hard enough, or gain access to the “Notes” app on his phone.

Ren Arcamone

Ren Arcamone holds a BA in English Literature from the University of Sydney and an MFA in Fiction from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she was awarded the College of the Liberal Arts and Sciences Fellowship and a postgraduate teaching fellowship. She's taught introductory courses in fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry, and upper-level undergraduate courses on sci-fi and fantasy, as well as online and in-person writing courses for the Iowa Young Writers' Studio. She's served as an admissions reader for the Iowa Writers' Workshop and the Iowa Young Writers' Studio, and she's currently an editorial assistant for the Iowa Review. Before moving to the US, Ren lived in Sydney, Australia, where she worked at Writing NSW, an educational arts organization for emerging and established writers. Her fiction is published or forthcoming in Gulf Coast, Heat, and Electric Lit. She lives in Iowa City, where she's at work on a short story collection and a novel.

Sarina Redzinski

Sarina Redzinski holds a BA in English and Writing Seminars from Johns Hopkins University and an MFA from the University of Florida. In undergrad, she was on the inaugural board of the Johns Hopkins Undergraduate Law Review , led a number of writing workshops, and received the Jacob H. Hollander prize upon graduation. She also interned with the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and the Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) of New Jersey program. While in Florida, she taught classes in expository writing, argumentative writing, fiction, and poetry. This past summer, she received a scholarship to the New York State Summer Writers Institute. Her writing credits include criticism for Full Stop magazine and poems forthcoming in Salmagundi magazine.

Drew Dickerson

Drew Dickerson holds an MFA in Fiction from the University of Florida as well as a BA from Brown University, where he graduated magna cum laude . He is a former Writing Fellow and current Features Writer for The Onion . He was the recipient of a 2017-2018 Fulbright fellowship to Germany, and his work has appeared or is forthcoming at n+1 , ClickHole , and The Point .

Janice Whang

Janice earned her AB from Harvard College and her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Florida, where she won a teaching award and served as an associate editor for  Subtropics . She enjoys running, cooking, and translating Korean literature. Her translation of a Korean short story, published in  The Denver Quarterly,  was nominated for the  Best Literary Translations Anthology.  Her own short stories can be found in  The /tƐmz/ Review, Oxford Magazine , and the forthcoming  Reunion: The Dallas Review .

Alicia C. Miles

Alicia has been working in law school admissions since 2016, most recently as Assistant Dean of Admissions at the University of Oregon School of Law. She has had leadership and responsibility for all aspects of the process including annual enrollment forecasting, implementing scholarship and pricing strategies, creating and implementing enrollment marketing material and strategies, national and international recruiting, and the evaluation of all applications to the J.D. program. During her time in law admissions, she served as the Minority Network Facilitator for the Law School Admissions Council.

Prior to law school admissions work, Alicia received her Bachelor of Science degree in Criminal Justice from Guilford College, and then her Juris Doctor from Valparaiso University Law School. She also served for six years in the United States Navy Reserve as an Electronics Technician. She received the AALS 2023 Section on Pre-Law Education and Admission to Law School Up-and-Comer Award. 

Alicia is currently living in Louisiana where she can typically be found zydeco dancing, spending time with her family and dog Beauxmont, listening to true crime podcasts, or reading a book from her ever-increasing TBR pile.

Ara Hagopian

Ara Hagopian is a writer. He holds a BA from Cornell University as well as an MFA from the University of Florida. As a grad student he taught Beginning Fiction Writing, Intermediate Fiction Writing, Expository and Argumentative Writing, Rhetoric and Academic Research, and Writing for Engineers. He’s done editing work for several journals including  Subtropics ,  New Square , and  Let’s Stab Caesar . He enjoys meditation and Irish folk music. He’s working on a novel.   

Savannah Horton

Savannah Horton is a fiction writer with an MFA from the University of Florida and a BA in English from Bowdoin College. She has five years of teaching experience at the undergraduate, high school, and elementary school levels. She was the 2021-2022 Writer in Residence at St. Albans School and a graduate of the University of Florida’s fiction MFA program, where she received the Porter Fellowship. She has published in The Drift, Subtopics, Raleigh Review , and The Cincinnati Review , where her story was selected as a Distinguished Story for the Best American Short Stories 2020 collection, and she was longlisted for both the 2021 CRAFT First Chapters Contest and the First Pages Prize.

Chris Schlegel

Chris Schlegel is the author of two books of poetry:  ryman  (2022) and  Honest James  (2015). He holds a PhD in English from Harvard, where he wrote on 20th-century American poetry; an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop; and a BA from Princeton. He studied in Berlin on a Fulbright grant, taught a summer ESL course in rural China, and served as a dorm counselor for young writers in Iowa City. He now teaches English and Creative Writing at Pierrepont School, a K-12 institution in Westport, CT, and lives in New Haven.

Liz K Emerson

Adria Kimbrough

Adria Kimbrough has advised law school applicants for more than 10 years. In 2013, she pioneered the Dillard University Pre-Law Program, which received the 2018 American Bar Association Diversity Leadership Award for its success in helping diverse law school applicants develop winning strategies. In 2018, she founded LEAD, a diversity pipeline program that helps students from three of Louisiana’s historically Black universities gain admission to law school. She is also committed to helping students pursue careers as civil rights attorneys through her work at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s Marshall-Motley Scholars Program, where she has reviewed almost 1,000 applications.

Adria began her professional career at Cornell University as an Assistant Dean of Students. She later practiced employment law throughout the South for 15 years, having successfully passed the bar examinations in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, and Louisiana     .

When she’s not working, you might find Adria walking her two French bulldogs, cooking a HelloFresh meal, on the AAU basketball circuit with her son, or debating world events and pop culture with her daughter and husband.

Allison Nash

Ali has worked in law school admissions since 2009, where, as Director of Admissions and Financial Aid at the University of Arizona College of Law, she evaluated applications, assisted in making merit-based scholarship decisions, and counseled prospective law students. She’s spent the past several years working as a law school admissions consultant, using everything she learned in the admissions office to help students discover then strategically articulate their strengths in law school applications. Prior to her admissions work, Ali obtained her JD, with distinction , from the University of Iowa College of Law, where she was selected as a Journal of Corporation Law writer and a Van Oosterhout-Baskerville Appellate Advocacy competitor. She practiced real estate law at Warner Norcross & Judd LLP(Am Law 200) for several years, where she also helped make hiring decisions and mentored new attorneys. She writes every chance she gets and has authored numerous legal and law school admissions publications. In Ali’s spare time, she volunteers as a CASA, runs a little cookie shop, teaches the occasional yoga class, and tinkers around on her ukulele.

Micky Hill graduated with honors from Wesleyan University and holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. While in Iowa, Micky taught several undergraduate creative writing courses and facilitated independent adult poetry workshops. They were awarded the Truman Capote Fellowship in 2018 and served as the postgraduate Provost Writing Fellow during the 2019–2020 school year. Their work has been published by  The Rumpus  and the Academy of American Poets.

Currently, Micky teaches African American and Latinx Literature, as well as other courses, at an honors high school in Springfield, MA. 

Writing Consultant

Joy Wang is a graduate of Harvard Law School (JD). She also holds an MFA from Hunter College in Fiction, and a DPhil in Postcolonial Literature from Oxford University where she was a Rhodes Scholar. She is currently a senior attorney at the Legal Aid Society in New York City, where she represents defendants from arraignments to jury trials. Prior to becoming a practicing lawyer, Joy published in a wide range of academic journals including  Race & Class ,  South Asian Review , and  Journal of Postcolonial Writing . She taught English Literature as an Assistant Professor at Brooklyn College, NYU in London, and the University of Stellenbosch. Most recently, she helped to train Indonesian lawyers in criminal and civil matters as a Fellow for the International Legal Foundation. Joy has a decade of experience helping students write essays for applications to law school and other graduate programs. She especially enjoys pondering the connections between literature, humanities, and public interest law. In her spare time, she plays tennis and cooks. 

Ziva has been the Associate Director of Admissions and Director of Admissions Communications at Cardozo School of Law for almost two decades. She was an Assistant Adjunct Professor of Legal Writing at the law school, holding grammar workshops and providing individual academic support, among other roles. In her Admissions role, Ziva read thousands of JD and transfer applications, conducted almost as many interviews with prospective students, and counseled and recruited prospective applicants across the country. Ziva is regularly invited to participate on admissions panels in local universities and national forums. She also served two terms on the Law School Admission Council’s Subcommittee on Misconduct and Irregularities in the Admission Process.  

Prior to entering law school admissions, Ziva practiced commercial litigation in a midtown Manhattan law firm for three years. Before pursuing law, she enjoyed a career in journalism for ten years, holding positions in print, television, and radio, as a news writer, field producer, and reporter. She worked for major news organizations including CNN, ABC, and NBC, while based in Jerusalem, Moscow, and New York City.

Ziva received a JD from Cardozo School of Law and a BA from New York University in English Literature and Creative Writing. She enjoys exploring New York City cultural sites with her daughter, and they both love to attend theatre and dance performances.  

Daniel Hwa-Sung Ryu

Daniel was admitted to the law schools of Yale, Harvard, Stanford, UChicago, and more. He has direct experience with every step of the process, including interviewing and writing personal/diversity statements, school-specific prompts, and addenda. 

He is a first-generation immigrant from Korea and a first-generation professional. Daniel holds a BA in Philosophy from Richmond College where he received a music scholarship and an MSt in Ancient Philosophy from Oxford. He then worked in national public service as an AmeriCorps member and cohort leader. In his spare time, he is fascinated by journalism, fiction, and nature documentaries. Daniel is finishing a novel provisionally titled  Shell Game  (thankfully, unrelated to the LSAT). He is also trying to pick up the violin again to awaken dormant brain parts, and at any given time, he and his family care for over a dozen cats. 

Lauren Pena

Lauren earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration and Political Science from Indiana Wesleyan in 2010 and completed her J.D. at Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law in 2013. She spent over 7 years in law school admissions as the Associate Director of Student Recruitment for Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law. In her position, she recruited and advised prospective law candidates on how to create the best application and made admissions and scholarship decisions as a member of the review committee. Lauren has a strong passion for helping law students achieve their goals and spent her spare time advising current law students as well. Her passion for advising and mentoring students led her to present at recruitment conferences and serve on panels.

She has returned to practice and is now serving as an estate planning attorney for Stevens and Associates, PC. Still motivated by her love for law students, Lauren is excited to share her knowledge, insight, and encouragement. In her free time, Lauren enjoys spending time with family and friends, and getting involved in her continued work with disability advocacy.

Sam Allingham

Sam Allingham's writing has appeared in  The New Yorker  and  n+1,  along with many other magazines, and he is the author of the short story collection  The Great American Songbook.  He has professional experience as a speechwriter for C-suite clients and as a copywriter for educational and non-profit institutions. He has more than ten years' experience teaching writing at both the undergraduate and graduate level.

A Sample Structure for Your Law School Personal Statement

Over the past 12 weeks, I’ve written  a series of LSAT lessons  that should be enough to get novices up and running. These lessons will also disabuse refugees from other LSAT programs of any bogus notions—race the clock, read the question stem first—they picked up elsewhere.

Today I’m going to shift gears a bit. Applications open in early September at most law schools, and forward-looking students have started asking questions about their personal statements. “Where the hell do I get started?” is by far the most common of these.

Last Wednesday, I guest-taught the Admissions Hour with LSAT Demon tutor (and soon-to-be Yale 1L) Carl Lasker. In that session, we brought back our “Personal Statement Woodchipper,” wherein we read one brave applicant’s draft personal statement. And, well, we shredded it. Like always.

The biggest problem with this one, like so many others, was that it left us with no real picture of who the person is or what they do. There was too much cinematic scene-setting, too much industry jargon, and too much Tarantino-style timeline-skipping.

There was not enough of the actual applicant we were supposed to be learning about. In short, the personal statement wasn’t personal.

We each have a dozen different stories, any of which could make the foundation of a strong personal statement. So it’s less important that we pick the perfect topic, and far more important that we get our bad first draft out of the way ASAP. Until we have a draft, we can’t start cutting the worst parts and teasing out more of the good stuff. The purpose of this lesson is to help you get started.

This isn’t the only way to get started—it’s just one way. If you’re stuck, this might be a good way to get the words flowing.

The basic formula: I am. I did. I do. I will.

Ben and I talk endlessly about showing, rather than telling, any time a personal statement comes up on the  Thinking LSAT Podcast.  The point is to demonstrate your strengths and achievements via facts, rather than forcing conclusions down the reader’s throat. Fact-driven writing is far more powerful than conclusion-driven writing. So the bulk of your statement needs to consist of sentences that follow the basic formula of “I did X.” We want your statement to be stuffed with sentences that feature you as the star of the show—don’t be shy about using the word “I” as the subject of your sentences—with active verbs. Here are some examples:

I wrote. I managed. I researched. I reorganized. I developed. I created. In short, I killed it.

Generally, you should avoid passive construction using forms of the verb “to be.” Steer clear of be, am, is, are, was, were, being, and been. When you see these verbs, replace them with something active.

Why, then, do I suggest starting with “I am”?

As Carl and I discovered in the Admissions Hour last Wednesday, the emphasis on active verbs can sometimes fail to give readers the necessary footing. We dive right into an action scene, without any background. So in this formulation of “how to write a personal statement,” it’s okay to start with a very brief statement of who you are, to help us understand the action to follow. Then skip back in time, just once, to discuss some background. Then progress into the modern day. Finally, if necessary, talk about the future. We’ll start in the present.

Ben Olson doesn’t let me use italics any more, but if I were allowed to use them I would italicize the “very” in “keep this section very brief.” I’m talking one or two sentences. See how it looks as a short, standalone paragraph. Using myself as an example:

I am the co-founder of LSATDemon.com, an LSAT preparation program with students and teachers from around the world. I’m also the co-host of the Thinking LSAT Podcast, which published its 296th episode last week.

This tells the reader who I am today, priming them for the story arc I’m planning to take them on. Don’t do more than a sentence or two of this, because it’s telling rather than showing. But the reader now has a picture of who I am in the world, which will help them comprehend the following sections.

Immediately, we transition back in time to provide some background. We’ll only do one such shift in the timeline—generally, chronological stories are much easier to digest. Readability is key, so we’ll only go forward, never backward, from here.

After graduating from Babson College in 2006, I began moonlighting as a GMAT teacher. My employer at the time needed an LSAT teacher, so I started teaching that as well. In 2008, in the summer between my 1L and 2L years of law school, I started Fox LSAT. I rented the back room of a Mission District cafe for my first class, which struggled to enroll a dozen students. But strong Yelp reviews and word of mouth filled subsequent classes.

From here, I’d continue to progress through my career. I’d talk about books I wrote, my in-person classes, the podcast, and founding LSAT Demon. This section can be anywhere from one paragraph to a page, depending on how much history is relevant.

Law schools are keenly interested in the person you are today. If they admit you, that’s the you who’s actually coming to class—not the you from five years ago. So we’ll shift to the present tense here to show the reader the strong, positive, winning applicant they’re looking for.

I now teach LSAT classes three days a week, and I love teaching now more than ever. I am especially proud of our free resources, including the Thinking LSAT Podcast, which have reached tens of thousands of students. I hire and manage a staff of two dozen freelance teachers, writers, and editors. Together, we offer multiple live classes seven days a week.

Here I could write about favorite students, or interactions I have with the teachers I mentor, or the laughs I have recording each week with Ben. You don’t have to choose the one perfect story, and each anecdote doesn’t have to be wildly impressive. Just demonstrate that you are capable, reliable, creative, thoughtful, resourceful—in other words, someone with their shit together.

Many excellent personal statements—especially for anyone who already works in anything even tangentially related to business or law—can end right here. You’ve shown who you are, what you’ve done, and what you currently do. Your reader is in the business of selling law school. They can put the pieces together between what you’re doing now and the opportunities they believe their law school can offer you. They already know you’re applying to law school, so don’t waste time with “I am applying for matriculation at your fine law school blah blah blah.”

But if you’ve been a musician for 15 years, or you studied chemistry in college, or your history-to-present doesn’t exactly scream law school, you may want to add a fourth, extremely brief section:

If it’s obvious that you’re changing career paths completely by applying to law school, try closing with a very brief statement about what you plan to do. One or two sentences is plenty, as you haven’t actually done any of this stuff yet—and it’s all just kind of BS until you actually do it. But you want your story to make sense (and hopefully it does, in fact, make sense), so go ahead and tell them what you’re trying to do.

I hope to gain experience in trade secret and copyright law. Eventually, I might explore a legal practice in the licensing of digital educational materials.

Boom, that’s it. Shitty first draft of personal statement complete.

I am. I did. I do. (And optionally, I will.)

That’s one or two sentences to introduce yourself. Then a paragraph to three-quarters of a page of what you did, leading up to three-quarters of a page of what you do now. End it there, or, if necessary, add one or two sentences of what you hope to do.

This isn’t by any means the only way to write a personal statement. But it’s at least a framework for getting something on the page that isn’t a complete mess. From here, if you find the glimmer of something you like, it’s all about the rewrites and editing.

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Everything You Need to Know About the Law School Personal Statement

Padya Paramita

February 10, 2021

Law school admissions committees can see your numbers and extracurricular activities on paper, but have absolutely no idea about who you are as a person and what makes you unique. This is where your personal statement comes in. Your law school personal statement is the place to reflect on your interests and background to help set you apart from the rest of the candidates in a tough law school application pool.

While you may have similar grades, extracurriculars, and LSAT score as the other applicants, your law school personal statement should stand out as your chance to show JD programs your unique story. Take this opportunity to discuss your interests, your travels, or how your cultural identity made you the person who should be admitted. A strong personal statement combines a carefully chosen topic with well-crafted prose. 

You might have guessed by now that writing your law school personal statement isn’t something you should take for granted. This essay can make a difference even if your GPA and LSAT score aren’t quite up to the mark. To help you understand the process more clearly, we will take a closer look at the law school personal statement prompts from the T-14 schools, talk more in detail about the importance of your personal statement, go over how to pick the right topic, discuss common mistakes people make when writing, as well as review tips for editing your personal statement before submitting your law school application.

Requirements from School to School 

It wouldn’t be the wisest decision to submit the same personal statement to all law schools because they’re not identical at all! When you apply to law schools via the Law School Admission Council (LSAC), each school has its own personal statement requirements and prompt. The word or page limit varies from school to school as well - it’s usually somewhere between two and three pages. So, writing one essay to send to every school won’t suffice. 

While you can write a barebones essay on one topic to serve as a skeleton, make sure to tweak and expand on it to suit each school’s specific question. Some of the prompts are more open-ended than others. All of them want to know you better, understand your personality, and see context and color within your law school application. Outlined below are the law school personal statement prompts for each of the T-14 schools.

Most of these prompts are open-ended, except the one for Duke. Duke’s personal statement has two requirements. First, that you reflect on opportunities you’ve pursued that aren’t mentioned in your resumé, and second, that you discuss your personal career ambitions. 

While the others may be broad, some prompts encourage you to choose specific routes when considering your topic. For example, UChicago emphasizes that you should not reiterate your resumé, and your essay should be about something not already covered. On the other hand, Columbia wants to know by the end of the essay why you’re interested in going to law school - specifically to Columbia. Similarly, the UPenn admissions committee also wants to know why you’ve decided to pursue a JD, and how UPenn will help you. For the UC Berkeley essay, you are encouraged to discuss any diversity factors - whether in your interests or your background. Northwestern recommends that you reflect on your personal and professional goals. 

As you can see, while one draft reflecting on a particular interest or story could respond to most of these law school personal statement prompts, you cannot - and should not - submit the same essay for all law schools. Make sure your essay is geared toward answering the question each institution asks. Mention the school specifically as well, if applicable. 

The Importance of the Personal Statement in Your Application

You’re going to have to write - all the time - while you’re in law school. Your personal statement gives law school admissions committees an idea of your writing style and how you would fare in a writing-intensive curriculum. Like we’ve mentioned, the law school  personal statement presents an opportunity for the program to get to know you better, and learn something about you that is not apparent from your transcript or resumé. It’s crucial that you highlight a story that is your own - not your parents’ or your friends’ - and one which helps admissions committees understand you beyond your LSAT score and your professional experience. 

If your GPA or your LSAT score aren’t up to par with the school’s median, a strong personal statement can combat the weaknesses in your application. Remember: your personal statement is not the place for you to explain why you have shortcomings in your application. Rather, if your topic and writing are stellar enough, admissions committees might overlook the lower numbers. 

There is no typical law student. Law schools don’t want their classes to be full of the same type of applicants. The personal statement helps law schools determine how diverse, in terms of race, gender, sexuality, class, and professional and extracurricular background an incoming class will be. So your personal statement is crucial in helping admissions committee members understand who you are, what you value personally and professionally, and where you come from. 

Picking Your Topic

It might feel like a lot of pressure to find the perfect topic. How do you know what will set you apart? Which part of your identity do you talk about? Or, should you talk about your extracurriculars instead? The perfect topic won’t come to you immediately. Look at the prompts for the schools that interest you, and then try asking yourself a few questions. This can get you a handful of ideas that might be worth expanding upon.

Some questions you could ask yourself are:

• How has your upbringing shaped you? Has your geographical or cultural background made an integral contribution to the way you think or the career path you’ve chosen?
• What is the most unique or unusual thing about your family?
• Do you have any hobbies that most people don’t? What have they taught you?
• What has been your proudest non-academic achievement?
• Where do you excel?
• What is your dream career?
• What kind of law do you wish to pursue?
• What current issues are you most passionate about?
• If you weren’t going to law school, what would you be doing?
• When did you first know you wanted to become a lawyer?
• How did your extracurriculars shape your decision to apply to law school?
• What kind of jobs have you worked? Which has been the most memorable or meaningful?
• Did a significant event impact your decision to become a lawyer?
• What has been the greatest challenge you’ve faced?

When brainstorming topics, take a trip down memory lane. Think about your childhood, your interests, your goals, and your background. Jot down events and parts of your life that stand out - topics don’t always have to be about your culture or background. Something that might feel minute like your coin collection or your backpacking trip during a gap year can spark some inspiration. Once you’ve picked a few topics that bring out your best storytelling and writing skills, go ahead and write a first draft. Remember to show not tell!

Mistakes to Avoid

Rewriting your resumé: We cannot emphasize this enough: do not repeat the information on your transcript and resumé. They exist as separate components for a reason. 

Writing about someone else: Never fall into the trap of writing about someone else. Sure, you could dedicate a sentence or two to someone who inspired you, but your own personal story should be at the core of the essay. 

Straying away from the prompt : The schools have a set of questions for a reason. If Duke asks you to talk about your career ambitions , don’t go off on a tangent about what you’ve done in the past. You have limited space. Don’t waste it.

Using pretentious language: Don’t sound like a robot ! It’s your personal statement, and you undoubtedly want your personality to shine through in your writing. Don’t use too many long words that may not fit with the rest of your essay, or might not reflect your usual writing style. Taking a dictionary and throwing every other long word you find won’t help show who you are - you’re not a poet or an SAT tutor, you’re trying to get into law school! Flowery language can make you sound ingenuine. 

Trying to finish too fast: Don’t rush through and then skip the time to revise. The last thing you want is to turn in your first draft! There’s always room for editing. Errors can be easily avoided through some careful proofreading. Of course, make sure your spelling and grammar are all correct. 

Exaggerating adversity: The applicant pool contains people who have experienced abuse, homelessness, natural disasters, and serious losses. If your adversity is not as grave in comparison to these powerful stories, don’t write about adversity. If you suffered from chicken pox, there’s no need to write lines and lines about the pain you experienced. Or if your friend was bullied in high school and you were simply a witness, you should not be writing about all the torment you suffered and how you grew from the experience!

Discussing academic inconsistencies: Your law school personal statement is NOT the place where you talk about why your junior spring grades fell drastically due to an emergency. Law schools usually have an addendum section for cases such as this. Don’t waste your page limit focusing on bad grades when you can be writing a glowing, positive essay instead!

Living in the past: You’re an adult now. There’s no way your biggest accomplishment to date is an award you won in high school. You’ve been through at least four years of college since, seen more places, met more people, and gained much greater knowledge and experiences. Your character has grown a lot, and law school admissions officers want to see that. Don’t write about your love for your high school debate club or how you led your high school Model UN team to multiple championships. 

Mixing up schools: Don’t send the wrong letter to the wrong school. Your Harvard Law essay cannot have the word “Yale” all over, or in fact anywhere. Make sure you’ve checked and double checked that you’re sending the essays to the right school, and maintained each of their word or page limits. 

Editing Your Personal Statement

Once you’ve got that first draft out of your system, it’s time to edit and polish your work. It wouldn’t hurt to take a couple days away from your essay, and then come back and review it again. Read it out loud. That way, you can spot errors or sentences that don’t flow as well as you might have thought they did the first time around. Have a parent, friend, or coworker read it. Another set of eyes and opinions is a great way to improve and catch silly errors. 

When checking for typos, don’t rely on spell checkers. They don’t always catch similar-sounding words, such as where vs. were. Make sure your sentences aren’t too long. Transitions between paragraphs should also be smooth. Remember, the quality of your writing will be evaluated alongside the content of your personal statement. Check back with the prompt to ensure that you’ve answered what they’ve asked, and not gone off on a completely separate tangent. The editing process is just as important as the writing, and taking the time to sit down and go through multiple drafts goes a long way toward helping your personal statement stand out.

Your law school personal statement is your chance to showcase your individuality and provide more information on how your upbringing, activities, and interests can not only contribute to an esteemed law school, but also make a difference in the world after you graduate. No matter what you decide to write about, use your personal statement as a chance to go beyond your grades and work experience. Let the admissions committee get to know what makes you tick, and help them realize why you would be a wonderful asset to their institution. 

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Law application process.

While not particularly complicated, the process of applying to law school can be very time-consuming. The following sections will help guide you through the process.

Timeline for Applying to Law School

Generally, preparation for the law school application process should begin about a year and a half prior to your intended start date in law school. However, as early as possible, you should visit LSAC.org to familiarize yourself with the LSAT (Law School Admission Test) and CAS (Credential Assembly Service).

Once you are ready to prepare for the application process, you will need to follow a timeline similar to the one described below. Keep in mind that the following is a general timeline, and that the LSAT is administered various times throughout the year.

If you need assistance in developing a timeline, or if you have any special circumstances that may impact your application process, please go to our appointment site to schedule a phone appointment with one of your pre-law advisors, Yessica Vazquez Arroyo or Miguel Moran-Lanier.

Winter quarter 

Begin drafting your personal statement. The process of writing a personal statement for law school tends to be more difficult than people expect. It is important to start writing early and have your drafts reviewed by our pre-law advisors. 

See the personal statement information below

• This is not too early, considering many professors may be away during summer.
• If you intend to prepare on your own, avail yourself of any books and other materials you will need. If you intend to enroll in an LSAT preparation course, begin researching companies, cost, deadlines, and summer scheduling.
• It is wise to begin this process early. Many students find that writing the personal statement is more difficult and time-intensive than they expected.
• While taking courses during the winter and spring quarters prior to taking the test in the summer, very light review is recommended to become familiar with the concepts; your time and energy should be devoted to your coursework during the academic year to earn the highest possible GPA
• Intensive summer prep: We recommend 8-10 weeks (early summer through the end of august), 25-30 hours per week.
• The ideal time to prepare and take the test is in a summer, the year before applying or the summer the year you are applying.
• We do not recommend taking courses at UCSB while preparing intensely in the summer.
• During your preparation period, try to completely eliminate, or reduce, your other commitments as well.
• Follow up with your professors regarding your letters of recommendation.
• Finalize your resume and personal statement.

Late August / Early September

• Your score will be posted two to three weeks after your test date.

By the end of October

• Keep in mind that the CAS mostly applies to ABA-accredited law schools.
• Contact each school directly for any additional application instructions.

Late Fall through Early Spring

• The timing of admissions decisions varies. While some students receive quick decisions, others may be waitlisted and learn of their final admissions decisions in the spring. Occasionally, a student will not receive a decision until the summer.

Applying Through the LSAC

The Law School Admissions Council (LSAC) manages the online application process for law schools. This means that, when applying to most law schools , you will submit your applications and other required documents through LSAC’s Credential Assembly Service (CAS) rather than submitting directly to each school. In addition to CAS, LSAC offers a wealth of information about law school in general, including the dates of upcoming recruitment events and tips for finding the ‘right’ law school.

The CAS Process

Generally, as part of the application process through the LSAC, students will:

• Create a CAS account
• Make a reservation to take the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT)
• Submit a personal statement
• Submit letters of recommendation
• Submit a resume
• Submit other optional documentation as needed

The LSAC resources below provide detailed information regarding the application process, deadlines, fees, and other important considerations:

LSAC (Law School Admissions Council) main page

CAS (Credential Assembly Service)

LSAT (Law School Admissions Test)

Personal Statements

Most law schools require the submission of a personal statement along with your application materials. While writing a personal statement may seem like a straightforward task, many students find that this exercise is more difficult than they previously estimated. Before you begin writing your personal statement, review the tips and considerations listed in the panels below—and, most importantly, begin the writing process as early as possible.

“Personal Statement” vs. “Statement of Purpose”

Some general references providing advice for admission to graduate or professional programs may use the terms personal statement and statement of purpose interchangeably, but these are very different statements. A true personal statement is just that: an essay that is personal and explores any aspect of the writer’s life or experiences. A statement of purpose, however, usually conveys the writer’s specific purposes for pursuing a particular field, program, school, etc.

Generally, law schools will ask you to submit a personal statement . An added complexity is that some law schools also will include specific prompts to guide your writing. Depending on a school’s prompts, you may end up writing a hybrid statement—part personal statement, part statement of purpose. The key is to read each school’s instructions carefully to make sure that your statement is tailored to its specifications. If you are unsure about what to write, do not guess or attempt to weave each school’s prompt into a single document. Short of an in-person interview—which is rare to non-existent—this is your only way for an admissions officer to get to know you.

Following the tips below can help to ensure that your personal statement is clear, substantive, and engaging:

• Depth over Breadth – Your personal statement should not exceed the specified page limit, so you will be unable to condense your entire biography. Instead, highlight and develop the most important ideas.
• Specific Examples over General Statements – Specific examples will make your personal statement more interesting, memorable, and clear.
• Clear Points over General Points – Ask questions about what you are writing—who, what, why, where, etc.—and try to answer them as you craft sentences.
• Substance over Style – Avoid using the “hooks” or devices recommended in how-to books. Law school admissions committees are likely to have seen them before. Instead, aim for a clear and well-written statement that focuses on you rather than gimmicks.
• Personal Significance over “Marketing” – Instead of guessing about what you think law schools most want to know, discuss the ideas and experiences that are most significant to you.

Letters of Recommendation

Most ABA-accredited law schools and many non-ABA accredited law schools require a letter of recommendation (LOR) as part of the law school application process. Many also will accept an evaluation , with some schools even requiring both. Unfortunately, there is no quick reference that will tell you each school’s requirements. For this reason, it is strongly recommended that you contact individual law schools directly to find out if both a LOR and an evaluation are required.

If you have any specific questions about LORs or evaluations, please consult your UCSB pre-law advisor.

What is an evaluation?

An evaluation is a form that allows a person to rate your fitness for law school. Using a scale, your chosen evaluator will indicate his/her opinion about the degree to which you possess the skills and personal attributes needed for the law profession. Evaluation forms are available through LSAC’s CAS (Credential Assembly Service).

Important questions to ask each law school:

The most important question to ask each law school is, “Does your school require both LORs and evaluations?”

If the answer to the above question is, “yes,” then you should also ask the questions listed below:

• “Can the same individual complete both an LOR and an evaluation (or, is this considered redundant)?”
• “In the eyes of your school’s admissions committee, is it the LOR or the evaluation that carries more weight?” (The answer to this question will help you to choose your recommenders/evaluations wisely.)

Choosing a recommender or evaluator:

Ideally, a recommender or evaluator is someone with whom you have spent a considerable amount of time in an academic or professional setting. This person should be able to provide meaningful information about you, specifically regarding your:

• Analytic abilities
• Level of professionalism
• Unique personal attributes
• Skills and strengths

Dean's Certifications

Some law schools, as well as many other graduate schools, will ask for some form of academic and disciplinary clearance. Depending on the school, this statement could have several possible titles, which may include: “Dean’s Certification,” “Disciplinary Clearance,” “Statement of Undergraduate Dean,” or something similar.

The information requested in these forms varies slightly, but most have the two basic elements to address: your undergraduate disciplinary record and any history of academic probation.  

Check each law school’s website to find out what type of statement is needed, when it is due, and how it should be submitted—whether by form or written letter. Please note: these forms or letters are not part of your law school application process through the LSAC and are filed with law schools directly.

Submiting a standard Dean's Certification/Disciplinary Clearance request (never on academic probation):

The Office of Student Contact (located in the 2nd floor of SRB) maintains all disciplinary records. To submit a standard Dean's Certification request for graduate schools, including law school, please email your form for a given school with your portion completed to [email protected] .

For students that have been on academic probation at any point at UCSB:

A very small number of law schools may request a letter from UCSB addressing your academic probation status at any point during your studies at UCSB. These law schools include Cardozo, Columbia, Duke, NYU, Stanford and USC, among very few others. If you have been specifically asked by one of these law school to submit a letter addressing your academic probation while at UCSB, please email your request to [email protected] and one of our pre-law advisors will check in with you to let you know we are processing your request.

The law schools that request a statement addressing your probation status while at UCSB do not provide a form for this process. When you email your request to us, please make sure to include the name and address of the law school/s and include your LSAC ID number.

• College of Arts & Sciences
• Graduate School of Education & Counseling

JD Admission Requirements

The following items are requirements for citizens or permanent residents of the U.S., who are applying for the JD program. Please see Admission Timeline for deadlines.

1. Online Application Form (We do not have a paper application. If you are unable to apply online, please contact us).

Please note as of November 2023, there is no longer an application fee for students applying to Lewis & Clark Law School. 

2. Transcripts

Candidates must have completed a baccalaureate degree from an accredited university at the time of enrollment (i.e. Fall). In other words, you may apply while you are still in school, as long as you will have obtained your baccalaureate degree by the time you start law school.

Transcripts from all university-level schooling, including community college and graduate programs, are required and must be submitted through the Law School Admissions Council’s Credential Assembly Service (CAS) . Applicants who received evaluations rather than grades need to submit their evaluations to the CAS for review.

Applicants with transcripts from foreign universities (except Canadian universities) have separate procedures regarding transcripts (see requirements  for International and Foreign-educated applicants).

3. LSAT Score and LSAT Writing

The LSAT (Law School Admissions Test) is required of all applicants. There is no minimum score requirement for the LSAT, but reviewing our incoming class profile  will indicate to you how competitive your score might be at Lewis & Clark. To register for the test and to check administration sites, please visit www.lsac.org . LSAT scores older than five years will not be accepted.

Every candidate must have at least one LSAT Writing completed and reported by LSAC in order to for an application to be complete. This requirement may also be met if you have a LSAT writing sample from a test administration prior to June 2019.  For more information about LSAT Writing and how to complete it, click here .  

4. Personal Statement

There is no page limit, though a typical essay is 2-3 pages. Essays are read for writing ability as well as content. Specific topics may vary, however, the essay provides an opportunity for the Admissions Committee to learn more about you and should include information that is not otherwise apparent in your application. You may write about your background, experiences, interest in law, aspirations, special abilities, or any topic that you feel will help readers of your application get a sense of you as a person and prospective law student. Explaining why you are applying to Lewis & Clark is also helpful. 

Include a resume describing all work experience, student activities, community service, and honors and awards. Please include dates and titles where appropriate.

6. Letters of Recommendation / Evaluations

Two letters of recommendation are required, but three will be accepted. Letters should be written by people who are well acquainted with you (family and friends excluded) and who can evaluate your academic competence, your professional promise as a lawyer, your ability to relate to people and society, and your ethical character. Professors and employers often are the best sources. Letters from prominent individuals and attorneys who have little knowledge of you are not impressive to the admissions committee.

The Law School Admissions Council (LSAC) provides an Evaluation Service where your recommenders can rate you on your skills and abilities.  Lewis & Clark will accept up to two of these evaluations, but we do not require them.

7. Supplemental Statements (optional)

You may submit an addendum to address anything in your file you wish the committee to consider when reviewing your file. Such a statement might describe your family, social, ethnic or economic background, or specific challenges you have faced. We do not accept videos, CDs, DVDs, or lengthy writing samples.

8. Character & Fitness

You will need to answer some questions on the application about character and fitness. Answers to these questions are required, as are explanations for circumstances and outcomes regarding such things as criminal charges, academic sanctions, and military discharges.

In addition to a bar examination, there are character, fitness, and other qualifications for admission to the bar in every U.S. jurisdiction. Applicants are encouraged to determine the requirements for any jurisdiction in which they intend to seek admission by contacting the jurisdiction. Addresses for all relevant agencies are available through the National Conference of Bar Examiners.

Re-applicants

Application files are kept for one year. If reapplying for the following year, you will need to submit a new application form and the $50 application fee. We will also request a new CAS report from LSAC. If you would like us to use the personal statement and/or resume that was submitted with your old application please notify us of this in writing. If you wish to submit a new personal statement or resume, submit these with your application. If you are reapplying more than a year from your previous application, you will need to resubmit all required materials.

Additional Questions? Please contact:

Office of Admissions Lewis & Clark Law School 10101 South Terwilliger Blvd. Portland, Oregon 97219-7799 Phone: 503-768-6613 Fax: 503-768-6793 Email: [email protected]

Law School Admissions is located in Gantenbein on the Law Campus. MSC: 51

email   [email protected]

voice   503-768-6613   fax   503-768-6793   toll-free   800-303-4860  

Law School Admissions Lewis & Clark Law School 10101 S. Terwilliger Boulevard  MSC 51 Portland   OR   97219

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Application Process

Below you will find information guiding you through the application process at the University of Mississippi School of Law.

Please be aware there is specifically designated information for  International Students  and  Transfer Students .

If you have any questions about the application process, please do not hesitate to  contact the Office of Admissions .

Steps in the Application Process

Step 1 – take the lsat & register with lsac’s credential assembly service..

Instructions for registering with LSAT/CAS can be obtained from Law School Admissions Council (LSAC) at  www.lsac.org . Although LSAC provides six opportunities each year for law applicants to take the LSAT, you are advised to take the LSAT no later than December prior to the term in which you wish to enter law school (summer or fall). The highest test score will be used for multiple tests.

Step 2 – Submit application through the LSAC website.

All applications must be made through LSAC. You will need to  login or create an account  to apply.

LSAC has created an  application guide  to aid in the application process.

You may check your application status through LSAC’s  status checker .

Step 3 – Submit personal statement.

Your personal statement gives us an opportunity to get a sense of your voice, perspective, and experiences. You may elaborate on your significant life experiences; meaningful intellectual interests and extracurricular activities; your inspiration for pursuing a legal education or your particular career goals; significant hardships you have encountered and how you responded to them; your special talents or skills; or your educational path or employment history.

As you consider potential directions for your Personal Statement, please know that you do not have to tell us everything. You may develop a single theme with authentic and genuine information about yourself that will aid us in reaching a thoughtful decision. For example, you might explain your interest in the University of Mississippi School of Law and why we are a good fit for you culturally, academically, or professionally.

Alternately, you could describe a challenge, failure, or setback you have faced, explaining how you confronted that challenge and what you might have done differently. Importantly, this may include the manner in which you have overcome obstacles such as racial, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability or other discrimination, socio-economic status, loss of a family member, and disability or illness.

Or you could write about how the place you come from has shaped who you are today. You may explain what has motivated you or inspired you to assume a leadership position or attain a particular goal. You may have been inspired or motivated by your identity, heritage or culture, a particular area of interest or past experience, including any struggles, successes, mistreatment or discrimination. You may describe how a mentor, role model, or former professor inspired or motivated you. Another possibility is for you to tell us how an acquaintance might describe you and whether their superficial description would be the truth.

If you feel your academic credentials do not reflect your potential for success, consider using the Personal Statement to explain your capabilities. Alternatively, you may submit an addendum addressing this issue as part of your application.

Each applicant will be considered based upon their unique qualities and experiences.

While we do not impose a page or word limit for the Personal Statement, we value clear and concise writing. Most Personal Statements range from two to four pages. For ease of reading, please double-space and use at least an 11-point font.

Step 4 – Community Essay

Please Select Either Topic A or B

While we do not impose a page or word limit for the Community Essay, we value clear and concise writing. For ease of reading, please double-space and use at least an 11-point font.

All students at the University of Mississippi have the responsibility to uphold the Creed:

• The Creed of The University of Mississippi
• The University of Mississippi is a community of learning dedicated to nurturing excellence in intellectual inquiry and personal character in an open and diverse environment. As a voluntary member of this community:
• I believe in respect for the dignity of each person.
• I believe in fairness and civility.
• I believe in personal and professional integrity.
• I believe in academic honesty.
• I believe in academic freedom.
• I believe in good stewardship of our resources.
• I pledge to uphold these values and encourage others to follow my example.

Why do you want to join a community bound together by these commitments?

The University of Mississippi School of Law is a community committed to creating an educational experience that values a multiplicity of viewpoints. Such a range of views is vital to the education of our students and to the role we play in shaping the legal profession. We embrace our obligation to promote a justice system that provides equal access to all people and eliminates bias, discrimination, and racism in the law. Our law school community is committed to creating and nurturing an academic environment where all people feel welcome, all voices are heard, and together we undertake the serious pursuit of knowledge and growth. Why do you want to join this community?

Step 5 – Submit Letters of Recommendation

A minimum of two academic letters of recommendation from professors who have taught you in class, or from professors who have direct experience with your academic ability and potential, are preferred, especially if you are still in your undergraduate program or have just graduated. We  strongly  discourage recommendation letters from friends and family, and such letters do not substitute for academic letters of recommendation. If you have been out of school for a period of time, you may substitute letters from employers or others who are well-acquainted with your  intellectual ability  and  academic potential . The Admissions Committee is looking for recommendations that explain how you will succeed academically in law school. Your letters of recommendation should be submitted through the LSAC Letter of Recommendation Service.

Step 6 – Submit application fee

The application fee is $40 and must be paid in the form of electronic transmission (Visa or MasterCard).

If you receive a fee waiver from LSAC to take the LSAT, we will also waive the application fee. You will need to provide our office with a copy of the approval letter that you receive from Law Services (LSAC).

Step 7 – For Establishing MS Residency: Submit Residency Form

If establishing Mississippi residency, submit the  Mississippi Residency Form  (pdf) with required documentation.

Regular Decision

Applications and supporting materials, including your CAS report, must be received by May 1. We will accept the April LSAT for regular decision, even if the scores are posted after May 1, as long as your application and all other supporting materials are received by May 1. We will inform you that your application has been accepted, denied, or placed on a waiting list by the end of May.

Late Decision

Late decision applications are considered on a space-available basis. Applications will be reviewed upon completion, and decisions will be made shortly thereafter.

Entrance Dates

Students are given the option to enter in the summer or fall of each admissions year. Because summer and fall enrollees are considered as one class, the same standards are applied in the decision-making process.

Waiting List

A waiting list may be established and held open until the registration date. Offers will be extended to applicants on the waiting list as vacancies occur. We will make every effort to give each admitted applicant as much time as possible to prepare for enrollment.

What are you looking for?

Application steps.

Applicants must complete the following:

• Create an account with the Law School Admission Council (LSAC) online at  LSAC.org .
• Register and take the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) by contacting LSAC online at  LSAC.org . Free LSAT prep is offered by  Khan Academy . Or, based on the conditions here , you may register and take the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) by contacting ETS at ets.org/gre .
• Complete and electronically submit an application for admission. Applications are available at  LSAC.org .
• Register with LSAC’s Credential Assembly Service (CAS). Registration is available online at  LSAC.org .
• Submit two letters of recommendation. Applicants must use the LSAC letter of recommendation (LOR) service. At least one letter should be written in the past year.
• Submit a personal statement, including reasons for wanting to attend law school. Personal statements should be submitted online at  LSAC.org .
• Submit a current resume with your application to LSAC at  LSAC.org .
• Request transcripts from all colleges or universities attended. Transcripts should be submitted by the school(s) directly to LSAC’s CAS. A final transcript denoting that a degree has been granted must be sent to LSAC prior to October 15, but preferably before law school matriculation. If a transcript is not received by this deadline, a student may complete the current semester but will not be permitted to enroll in a subsequent semester until all transcripts are on file.
• If you have previously enrolled in a J.D. program at a law school, you are also required to submit (a) a transcript from your prior law school to LSAC, (b) a letter of standing from your prior law school, and (c) a letter of recommendation from one of your law school professors to LSAC.
• Check application status.  Once your application is submitted, click  here  to check the status.

Request Information

Still have questions? We can help. Contact us and we will connect with you to answer any questions you might have.

How to Apply

Ready to apply? We can walk you through the process step-by-step online. Complete your application here.

Schedule A Visit

We’d love for you to come visit us on campus, take a tour, meet students, attend a class, and chat with our admissions team.

Did LSAC Mess Up April LSAT Scores‪?‬ Law School Admissions Unplugged Podcast: Personal Statements, Application Essays, Scholarships, LSAT Prep, and More…

Did LSAC Mess Up April LSAT Scores? Free Easy LSAT Cheat Sheet: https://bit.ly/easylsat Book A Call: https://form.typeform.com/to/Et1l5Dg6 LSAT Unplugged Courses: http://www.lsatunplugged.com Unplugged Prep: http://www.unpluggedprep.com/ Get my book for only $4.99: https://www.lsatmasterybook.com LSAT Unplugged Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lsat-unplugged/id1450308309?mt=2 LSAT Unplugged Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lsatunplugged/ LSAT Unplugged TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lsatunplugged LSAT Coaching YouTube Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgOHAiSs08EbD-kfDFqIEoMC_hzQrH-J5 Law School Admissions Coaching YouTube Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgOHAiSs08EbsqveKs_RZEy2sqqbz3HUL Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@unpluggedprep?sub_confirmation=1 ***

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