Think Outside the Box when Writing Your Law School Personal Statement

Gone are the days where writing your law school personal statement meant just having to highlight and display your credentials to the school’s admission panel. Every aspiring law student can now boast of talents that will make him or her extremely competitive in this field. Today, it is about something unique you can bring to the table, a skill that the school interview board will be hard pressed to ignore.

It all starts with outlining your law school personal statement in such a way that it will immediately grab the attention of your reader. Most people will already expect you to be fluent and expressive. What they won’t immediately grasp is if you start writing in a way that will be completely the opposite, style-wise, to how you will handle your oral interview.

Mixing casual and formal

Effective writers tend to stick to a given formula or writing style. This usually means their written work will either be a consistent display of waggery or a relentless expression of courtly writing. How about you try and mix both? The rules of writing your own personal statement have now been blurred to the point of being a mess, so much so that the only thing that’s important right now is that your reader must understand what you’re trying to say.

All of this means you may simply relax and use your personal statement as a vehicle for expressing your ambitions, regrets, dreams and motives. Be honest and tell the world how you feel about pursuing further studies. It is completely acceptable to evoke feelings of despair and surrender. You are simply telling the school you’re applying to that there are good reasons why you chose their institution, and good reasons why you want to pursue a future career in your chosen field.

Avoid the same old

A first impression will always be the first impression. Is it worth spending days or even weeks of your precious time to get your personal statement right? Your answer should be an emphatic yes. People have become too conscious and self-critical. You don’t have to sound like a famous poet to throw your point across the pond. It’s simply about accepting your inner thoughts and writing it down on paper.

Photo Credits: Magnus Franklin

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