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Applying for Fall of 2012. Just getting started. Have a couple of potential topics in mind but I wanted to run this idea by TLS before getting started.


The day after the June LSAT I had the opportunity to sit in/clerk/fetch coffee for 2 partners working on a federal jury trial. I sat in on court for the entire duration of the trial (2+ weeks) as well as the day and night prep work associated with trial. It was an absolute blast and a GREAT experience. I was already dead set on law school, but this experience strongly reaffirmed my decision about pursuing a law career. My question is, would this be such a good topic for a PS or more of something to just slap on the resume? From what I understand, writing about law isn't always the best topic choice. I know this is a very general question, but I just wanted to get some feedback before I start writing a PS on a topic that shouldn't even be written about.

Questions/comments/insults let me hear em.

Much appreciated.

the real question is if you can write about that specific experience in a compelling way that is interesting for your readers and shows that you are a great candidate for their school.

it's easy to say something is an absolute blast and reaffirmed your decision, but can you really make a full PS based on that?

i'd say if you want to, go for it. not a bad idea but try it first and then see how it turns out.

Writing about a trial you sat in on and helped prepare is not the same thing as talking about the law itself. You could tell the story without a word about the substantive law involves. Its substantive law that they don't want to hear about. No legal jargon or thinking that you know the law beforehand. But a compelling anecdote that happens to take at and behind the scenes of a trial? Sure, why not. It's all a matter of how compelling you can make it.

Thanks for the responses.

Another question I've thought about regarding this topic is how recent this experience was. Probably most if not all PS's that I've seen are written about experiences that have happened way back in that candidate's life (given a traditional straight out of college candidate). Seeing as I still have full semester of college left, and I've been interested in law school since before I even went to college (ie: it's not like I had some recent, life changing event later in life that's led me to pursuing law), how do you think adcomms will look at a PS centered around an event that happened less than six months prior to my app being sent it?

Thanks for all yall's help.

Your PS should be about something that affected you in a strong way, changing you or making you grow as a person. They don't care when it happened, but it needs to have that "so what" factor that I believe would be missing from the original post subject. Write about something important to you, but I don't think the adcomms will see into who you are as a person in this subject.

The trial is context or setting for a story. What is the story?