"Why I want to be a lawyer" Forum

[RedTop]

I am helping my girlfriend research law school.

She has a good "personal story" (growing up in a communist country) but no particular reason to want to be a lawyer, other than that her current profession doesn't pay much and she's lousy at math so business school is out.

Can a personal statement finesse - or even not mention - why you want to be a lawyer? And if it can't, are admissions committees used to hearing endless bullshit about "I want to be the next Ted Olson/Thurgood Marshall/etc." (Bill Lerach? lol) and do they just kind of tune it out unless the case for wanting to be an attorney is really persuasive? In other words, even if you say it, they don't believe it, but they don't believe anybody else's case for being a lawyer either?

[bk1]

You don't need to mention the law or law school at all in your PS.

[McNulty]

It might be good to write something that doesn't suggest she's applying to law school because she's not good at math . tell her to write about something she's passionate about or just something that won't bore the shit out of adcoms, yeah?

[tipler4213]

You don't need to mention the law or law school at all in your PS.

But certain schools (BU and BC for example) do request that the PS be about what motivated you to become a lawyer. Seems like it wouldn't be a great idea to send one in that didn't address the subject.