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Is it bad for personal statements to read like a novel/creative writing piece as long as the necessary substance is present? A friend of mine who just graduated from Georgetown Law told me that that flowery prose will get me dinged because legal it is so different than what is required for good legal writing. My PS and DS include personal anecdotes with vivid illustrations...do I need to rewrite?

No one will expect you to be able to write like a lawyer before being accepted to law school (and they probably won't after you graduate for that matter).

Prose is fine, but just make sure you don't fill your personsal statement with "flowery" prose just for the sake of including flowery prose. I think the general consensus on this site is that your personal statement really won't help you but that doing something that is too "creative" (e.g. a personal statement that reads like a brief) could hurt you.

Oo, I thought the personal statement could make a big difference in borderline cases...can only hurt you, huh? That's depressing.

It is not supposed to be legal writing because it is not. But what does that have to do with flowery prose? Write in a clear and commanding way that shows you have the ability to get your point across to a very busy reader. Show that you acknowledge your audience and your purpose.

Much like a risky topic, flowery prose is fine if you really have the writing chops to pull it off. The problem is that most people who think they do...actually don't. All too often, that flowery prose actually just ends up being word vomit.

It's less risky to just write in a straightforward manner. You can effectively describe details and impart emotions to the reader without forcing every metaphor and adjective you can think of onto the paper.