law school admission essay

law school admission essay

The Importance of Law School Admission Essays

1. Introduction

The goal of the chapter is to provide an explanation of the purposes of conduct, competence, and legal advertising relevant to lawyers interested in applying to the Washington State Bar. Conduct that is relevant to the application process can be divided into two main sorts, conduct that has an adverse effect on the consumer or the administration of justice, and conduct that involves dishonesty. The former can have serious consequences on an applicant’s admission to the Bar. It is important to realize that activities that on their face do not appear to have an adverse effect on the administration of justice, or have occurred outside the time frame provided on the character and fitness questionnaire can still be used as a basis for denial of admission. An example of this can be found in In re Hiss, where the court upheld a denial of admission to the Bar for an individual who had been convicted of aiding and abetting a military officer in time of war, even though the conviction had since been reversed. In order to avoid these sorts of problems, it is important to fill out the character and fitness questionnaire to the best of one’s ability, and to take responsibility and be prepared to explain past conduct during the interview process. Based on rule 8.1(b) of the Washington State Admission to Practice Rules, the bar is not only concerned with past conduct, but with conduct which shows an applicant’s unfitness to practice law. An example of this can be found in In re Dixon, where the denial of admission was based on an applicant’s substance abuse which had occurred over a long period of time. This led to a finding that the applicant would pose a risk to the administration of justice and to the public if allowed to practice law. It is also advisable to avoid any conduct during law school which would have an adverse effect on bar admission, as bar organizations have been known to bring character and fitness actions against law students who have not yet applied for admission.

2. Highlighting Academic Achievements

2) Don’t sell yourself short. Some students feel it’s being boastful to admit that they are good at something and then to tell people they are good at it. There is a big difference between being good at something and being arrogant about being good at something. You should feel comfortable in admitting your strengths and versatile in expressing them. Talk about the various settings in which your skills were utilized and continue to showcase the versatility of your abilities.

1) Emphasize the positive. In this section, you should provide evidence of a positive impact on schools, communities, and/or organizations. Your achievements will speak for themselves, so don’t feel the need to exaggerate. Play up your strengths and talk about what you did or are doing with them.

There are many ways to go about sharing your academic achievements. Here are some easy guidelines to follow in order to get the best results:

3. Demonstrating Leadership and Extracurricular Involvement

What you’ve done and where you are going; the personal statement provides a means to accomplish this. (See the personal statement handout for further information). The following advice is intended to help you understand the importance of demonstrating the ability to be a leader and how the admissions officers are looking for something more than a great GPA and an LSAT score. These are also qualities that are likely to be highly marketable in the legal profession. Leadership is a well recognized quality about which most people have strong feelings. This is the student who is always getting classmates involved in some new venture. A really good personal statement will discuss a specific incident and how it has affected the applicant. One way to interpret leadership is to take a significant experience or event from your past and using it to display systematic and coordinated effort towards a goal. This quality is also commonly tested in the crucible of team sports—an applicant who has played a sport at a relatively high level is likely to have numerous examples of leadership even if he or she was not the captain of the team. High levels of leadership can also be displayed through involvement in student government.

4. Conveying Personal Motivation and Passion for Law

It is certainly easier to tell a law school admission committee about your work than to tell them about you. Your academic record and list of accomplishments usually speak for themselves. It’s only in the essay that you get to describe your motivation and commitment. View the personal statement as an opportunity to convince the admissions committee that you have the passion to fully take advantage of what a law degree offers and that you have a clear vision of how to use the degree to make a significant contribution in the world. Although there is no formula for a good personal statement, there are some questions to think about. First, let’s talk about why the law school personal statement is so important. Your personal statement is the part of your application that gives the rest of the application color. You are sharing something of yourself, something that cannot be found in any other part of your application. So go ahead, give the law schools some good reasons to admit you. Explain what you want them to know. Remember, the admissions committee already knows about your academic and extracurricular accomplishments. They have your transcript and list of activities. What they need is a sense of the person behind all these statistics. In your personal statement, you want to make a connection between yourself and the school. You are the “product” that the school will be “buying” if they admit you. And your “job” is to explain why you are a good “buy.” What can you offer the school? How will you be able to contribute to our community? What do you have that is special and unique? An effective personal statement conveys a sense of your special qualities and how you might make a distinctive contribution to the law school and the legal profession. Remember that the committee is looking for evidence that you can do well in law school, that you really want to attend their school, and that you have some concrete career goals that a law degree will enable you to reach. An effective personal statement helps clarify these questions.

5. Conclusion

Good preparation sets the stage for success. While pondering a college future, you may have encountered a severe apathy regarding the pursuit of a college education. After all, isn’t college just an over expensive endeavor that guarantees unemployment anyways? The truth is that while a college diploma doesn’t guarantee a job, some fields absolutely require a degree in order to even be considered for a position. One of the most notable fields is law. A Juris Doctorate is a necessary step for many aspiring attorneys and a required credential for advancement in various sectors of the law. This is not surprising given that the degree holder has much knowledge about law literary term and the law itself. If you’ve got your mind set on law school, the first and most difficult step is getting in. Law school admissions are quite a different breed from college admissions. The criteria vary greatly from school to school, but most have a similar agenda, to find the candidates that are most suitable and will make their mark. The first thing to understand is that law schools are looking for higher level students. By this, I mean they are looking for individuals who are intellectually sound and will one day make great contributions to society. This should be kept in mind throughout the entire admissions process. Some of the common things law schools look for in potential candidates.