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I was four years old when I was first told that I would make a good lawyer. My friends and I would bring play swords to pre-school and fight with them, but one day the fighting got out of hand and our teacher banned swords from her room. When I walked into class the next day holding the plastic sheath of my favorite sword, my teacher stopped me and said, “I thought I told you no more swords.” “It’s not a sword,” I replied. “It’s a sheath.” Beaten on the technicality, my teacher allowed me to play with the sheath – as if it were a sword – for the rest of the day. When my mom came that afternoon to pick me up, my teacher told her the story, and as they were laughing my teacher looked at me and said, “You’re going to be a good lawyer some day.”

My mom liked to tell me that story when I was in high school. As with all teenagers, I was going through an identity crisis, but mine was especially acute due to a lack of male role models in my life. My dad passed away from brain cancer when I was five, and while I’ve been blessed with a very loving and supportive family, I’ve never had someone I could point to and say, “I want to be him.” This led me to struggle with my identity throughout my life, and it is something I am only now coming to understand. One of the manifestations of the struggle was an obsession with determining what career I would pursue – I always thought that if I could figure out what I wanted to be, I would be able to figure out “who I am.” In high school, I would become exasperated with myself and ask my mom what she thought I should be. She would tell me what my pre-school teacher had told me, and then she would say, “Just do what you love, and the rest will take care of itself.”

That answer was always frustrating, but after a while it started to make sense – I needed to figure out who I was before I figured out what I wanted to be. So I began to search for what I loved, and I finally found it when I took an introductory philosophy course during my first semester of college. I didn’t like philosophy per se – it was too impractical for me – but I liked reading dense texts, I liked the challenge of clearly articulating my ideas in a persuasive essay, and, above all else, I loved arguing. I have always loved competition, and once I had engaged in the intellectual combat of debate in that philosophy class, I knew I had discovered my passion. So in college I took as many classes emphasizing argument as I could, and I placed sixth out of over 800 students in a persuasive speech contest. Indeed, I became a philosophy major because I loved the debates that philosophy classes fostered.

Once I had discovered that I loved arguing, deciding to become a lawyer was easy. I wasn’t satisfied yet, however – I wanted to figure out what kind of lawyer I would be. My initial impression of the legal profession was that all lawyers were trial lawyers, but after working for two law firms and devouring every book about the legal profession I could find, I realized that my initial impression was mistaken. I still thought that I would enjoy practicing law even if I wasn’t a trial lawyer, but I knew that my attraction to the legal profession was based on my desire to argue in court. So I started asking around and doing more research, and it quickly became apparent that the area of law in which trials were most common was criminal law.

I was soon researching criminal law in every available way. I read books, scoured the internet, and talked to criminal lawyers. Indeed, the entire motivation behind interning with the U.S. Attorney’s Office was to find out more about criminal law. But I was surprised by my experience at the U.S. Attorney’s Office. While I have a deep respect for the prosecutors with whom I worked, I was quickly captivated by the defense attorneys, especially the public defenders, with whom the prosecutors dealt every day. The public defenders were passionate about what they were doing – they loved fighting for the underdog – and it showed in their creativity, tenacity, and ingenuity. I would sit through hearings in awe as the public defenders attempted to outwit and outmaneuver their adversaries, and after talking to them about their career choice, I found their fervor to be contagious. By the end of my internship that summer, I had seen enough to finally put to rest the question that had followed me throughout my life – I want to be a public defender.

I'm not sure where to start. While I think that focusing on what insights you have gained while working for the US Attorney's Office, and pointing out your ability as a public speaker are good points, I don't think that you have developed them enough to make a connection with your ability and desire to study law. And even still, the more practical points of your argument are overriden by this Ferris Bueller image that I can't shake from my head because of the importance that you give to your Mom and preschool teacher who told you that "You're going to be a good lawyer some day."

I think that you need to tone it down on any descriptions that make it seem as though you are still connected by the umbilical cord in favor of descriptions that DO convey experience and maturity. Additionally, I think that the academics who will read your PS are looking for students who have real world experience. So spend more time on what you have gained from your internship and debate experiences, and less time on how many books you've read about lawyers, or your mother telling you to "do what you love," as your main points. These experiences resonate as common, sheltered, and even, at times, unstable. I hope that you don't mind if I'm frank, and this is just my view, but most people that you are competing against for addmissions have moved far past the types of experiences that you have talked about.

Great personal statement. This writing shows clarity of thought. Your second paragraph will strike home with many readers. The last paragraph continues in a vein akin to your second paragraph sugggesting that you are open to learning & growing. This essay portrays maturity of thought, inquisitiveness & respect for others.
A minor suggestion is that you may want to reconsider your statement "Once I discovered that I loved arguing...", since lawyers engage in analytical discourse, debate, zealous representation, impassioned discourse in a mutually respectful setting, etc. Essentially attorneys argue for a purpose and not just to be contentiously competitive.
This essay portrays a likable, honest, intelligent, down-to-earth person with a lot of lawyer like qualities & skills. It is genuine, not pretentious. In my opinion, this personal statement should help your law school applications to stand out from the others.

CanadianWolf wrote:Your second paragraph will strike home with many readers.

LOL @ CanadianWolf. I think that your critiques are becoming my favorite form of comedic entertainment on this site.

Referring to your second paragraph 'dawrp', I think it's a common experience for a law applicant to have a mother who tells them that they would be a great lawyer, but this shouldn't be a motivating factor in your PS. Hell, my mother is the same way. If I drew a finger painting, I was Picasso. When I learned to play guitar, to her I was Hendrix. Visiting her recently, she is certain that every law school in America will accept me - even with a 162. It's nice to have a supporter like this, but most adults have learned to respectfully ignore this sort of doting from their mothers because adulation is poison my friend. Focus on something else in your PS.

To point out something positive, if you were to show how lacking a role model growing up has helped you to see the importance of having a mentor, you could then connect this to a school that has a good clinical program, or a small class size. By doing this, you might be able to point out to such a law school just how much their institution fits your needs by providing ample opportunity to work with a faculty mentor. Just an idea.

dawrp wrote: I say nothing about her telling me that I would be a good lawyer:

She would tell me what my pre-school teacher had told me, and then she would say, “Just do what you love, and the rest will take care of itself.”

I don’t really see how anything in the PS implies that I’m “still connected to the umbilical cord.” I talk about how my mother influenced me in high school; I say nothing about her telling me that I would be a good lawyer (so its no where close to being “a motivating factor in the PS”); and her advice isn’t really the “focus” of the essay; hell, it’s not even the focus of the paragraph. I wrote about my mother because it seemed like the smoothest way to transition from the first paragraph to the second and from the second paragraph to the rest of the PS. That’s it. I understand the risk of coming off as immature or sheltered by writing anything about my mother, but a lot of other people write a lot more about how their parents influenced them, and I feel like I did enough to sidestep the risk.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the advice – I just don’t see where it’s coming from. I can try to remove any mention of my mother from the second paragraph if it’s really that big of a deal.

I’d like to hear more advice before I do anything, though. Does anyone else have any thoughts?

Umm... have you read the Yale Admissions blog? Asha specifically mentions that "I love arguing" PSs (the ones that start off with an early childhood experience of arguing well, etc) are not looked favorably upon. She also says something along the lines of "Your mother is not qualified to judge your potential as a future lawyer"

here's the link: http://blogs.law.yale.edu/blogs/admissi ... argue.aspx


edit: here's the quote I was looking for:

"Let's first start with your mom. I'm sure she is a very nice person, but when it comes to law school admissions, please note that she has zero credibility. Don't mention any assessment she makes about your potential lawyerly ability in your P.S. Ever."

Also

"So, to sum up: avoid writing about how you love to argue, quoting your mom, or mentioning anything from preschool, and you'll be ahead of 10% of your peers from the get-go."

Even if you're not aiming for Yale, I'd think it would be safe to assume that other adcomms feel the same way.

Wow, point taken. Thanks for the link.

dawrp wrote:Wow, point taken. Thanks for the link.

No problem. It seems like you still have enough non-mom non-preschool content to work out a pretty damn good personal statement. Good luck!

Great info kazu. I think that Yale explains the issues with dawrp's PS particularly well. I also agree that dawrp's statement has a lot of potential, and that there is much to work with. By being frank about my thoughts, I did not mean to offend you either dawrp. That said, I think that this thread will be very helpful to future TLS users - especially since, as kazu's link to Yale explains, this thread gives a perfect illustration of the "I Love to Argue" PS. Just so that the information doesn't get lost for future applicants searching this site, here is the definition of the "I Love to Argue" PS, as defined by Yale, to accompany this thread:

In case you're one of the fortunate applicants who isn't familiar with this theme, the "I Love to Argue" personal statement goes something like this: first, the applicant starts off with some anecdote, usually from preschool, which amounts to having a temper tantrum over something really dumb. The adult in said anecdote (usually, but not always, the mother), instead of giving the applicant a good spank, is totally impressed by the temper tantrum and says, "You are going to be a great lawyer!" This forms the basis for the applicant's desire to apply to law school sixteen years later.

Sometimes, the applicant manages to redeem him- or herself by immediately leaping from this very bad opening into substantive reasons why s/he is interested in law school. More often, however, the applicant proceeds to follow up with more anecdotes illustrating how s/he loved to argue with various other people in different stages and ages of life apparently in the hope that, two pages later, I am going to proclaim, "This applicant is going to be a great lawyer!" That never happens.