First Draft Forum

[travis21lawyer]

Below is my first draft of my personal statement. I do not have a good story to tell, i just wanted to emphasie my professional experience. Any suggestions would be helpful.

30 tired and frustrated coworkers sitting in the conference room starting at me waiting for my presentation, it is 9:00 o clock in the morning and I see a lot of sleepy eyes, which gives me the impression there are some tired individuals. These are some of the same people I laughed with in the lunch room; exchange emails and discuss client issues and complaints. But this morning was different, I had to give a presentation on a major department at ADP and explain how it relates to our department mission and goals. There I stood, in the front row shaky needs and voice, inability to make eye contact. I remember that I felt like dying when my supervisor asked me to give the presentation in front of my coworkers and the leadership team. I was Oblivious; the choice of this presentation would be one of two important experiences that would hit me right in the face. They came to me like a freight train, and I didn’t move one inch to get out of the way, and I’m glad I didn’t.
During my time with ADP I have been in positions on numerous occasions. Often I had to sell our services to skeptical clients who had one ear listening on the phone and another ready to drop the called. I had to clearly state my position that I obtain trough research and extenious preparation. In this situation, I had to overcome my fears of public speaking and articulate my massage clearly to my associates. With frustrated clients on the phone asking probing questions I had to learned to thorough. I worked long hours, all-nighters, and “all-weekenders” in order to finish the projects on time.
However, I found greater happiness in helping others, whether it was using ADP resources to aid a community during times of crisis, or participating in local food or blood drives. My volunteer experience has strengthened my interpersonal skills, as well as my integrity and determination. With the increase responsibilities, came opportunities to apply them of special projects, For instance I was a team leader on ADP annual American Heart Association fund raiser. On one occasion I co chaired the company spring picnic. When the committee chairman asked for volunteers, to be honest I was sliding deeper into my chair. The co chair job was a tedious one, that requires communication with outside vendors and pulling off the event under budget. She told me it was time for me to step up and be noticed. I stepped up and took on the challenge and succeeded. Before I experience success with ADP, I was all too willing to accept the status quo. I learned that virtually any challenge can be overcome by defining clear objectives, understanding the qualities needed to
I think Richmond Law Program would be an excellent fit for my personal interests and skills. When researching schools I was looking for certain factors; location, students, professors and career opportunists. I had a wonderful conversation with Dontae Bugo about what Richmond school of law had to offer. We spoke about the location with it being located close to federal and state offices, there will be numerous chances for internships and employment in the governmental sector. I found the Richmond to be a place where brilliant, motivated students pushed themselves to succeed and wanted to see their classmates thrive as well. This is the type of law school environment I hope to experience. I really attracted to the Public interest course of study, because I want to continue on the path of government law. The individual attention a law student gets at Richmond is impressive, because I value building relationships with my professors. I came away with the impression that Richmond school is where I want to be. I want to get the call from Dean Michelle Rahman saying I have been admitted to Richmond School of law.
For the past 7 years I have taken advantage of every opportunity to develop my talents and expand my horizons. My route to law school was not taken the traditional way. I take the route that was most beneficial to me. I learned that virtually any challenge can be overcome by defining clear objectives, understanding the qualities needed to achieve them. As a man of 30 years old. I believe I would bring a maturity and seriousness of purpose to my legal studies. My work experience and master degree provide a perfect foundation to tackle the issues faced by general counsel in government agencies. I know with certainty what I want to do with the rest of my life. I believe that certain qualities distinguish a superior law school graduate: dedication to the pursuit of knowledge; the ability to effectively argue and defend an opinion; and the skills to plan, research, and execute a watertight case. These qualities are vital to law, and can also reap extensive rewards in many other areas of life. I am ready, willing, and prepared to accept the challenges I will face during law school, and look forward to forging a successful career, both as a student and as an attorney. At that moment, I forgot all about the long hours and all-nighters, the monotonous and tedious tasks, the paper jams in the copiers and the paper cuts, the high expectations, and the pressure for perfection. I remembered, instead, the lessons I had learned along the way: communication is key; organization and precision are necessary; patience under pressure is invaluable; and above all, a flexible perspective is vital. Law School will be a welcome challenge, one which I plan to face with my arsenal of experience, passion, dedication, leadership and discipline. I believe that these characteristics make me a confident, accomplished and promising candidate who would be an asset to the incoming class, and ultimately to the legal profession. I am convinced that I have the necessary skills to go "All the Way" at your institution.

[anmar213]

I don't even know where to start. I'm not knocking the subject matter, but your grammar is just awful. Don't get me wrong, I'm not fond of the people who post a bunch of hateful crap on these boards, but you have a lot of hard work ahead of you.

Let me start with a big fat glaring error that probably nobody else will notice, Michelle Rahman is no longer the dean at University of Richmond.

[No13baby]

Take the last sentence out.

If your local library or community college has a drop-in writing center, have them look at your grammar; there are a lot of mistakes/incorrect commas/inconsistent verb tenses in here.

[masterthearts]

Take the last sentence out.

If your local library or community college has a drop-in writing center, have them look at your grammar; there are a lot of mistakes/incorrect commas/inconsistent verb tenses in here.

Maybe the author is not a native English speaker

[gloriacollins]

yeah its really good...

[travis21lawyer]

gloriacollins if you wont to make jokes do it on someone else page...

[travis21lawyer]

I know the grammer is bad, that's why i said its just a first draft... I wanted to see if i have a good subject matter or should i go another route.

[CanadianWolf]

Too conversational & too repetitive. Your essay is not well constructed primarily because it lacks a clearly defined theme. The first three paragraphs are not well integrated with the final two paragraphs thus creating a disjointed writing that is more suitable as two essays rather than one. This can be corrected by rethinking & developing a well-defined theme that links all of your paragraphs in a logical manner.

[kublaikahn]

I only read the first paragraph, and that was enough to know you banged this out as fast as you could.

30 tired and frustrated coworkers sitting in the conference room starting at me waiting for my presentation, it is 9:00 o clock in the morning and I see a lot of sleepy eyes, which gives me the impression there are some tired individuals.[this is not a sentence, 30 should be Thirty, the opening clause is a misplaced modifier, and sleepy eyes gave you the impression that people were sleepy?]

These are some of the same people I laughed with in the lunch room; exchange emails and discuss client issues and complaints.[your verb conjugation is incongruent, punctuation is incorrect, and should be "with whom" or at least write "with" in each predicate phrase (although I would never do that)

But this morning was different, I had to give a presentation on a major department at ADP and explain how it relates to our department mission and goals. [Run on sentence, you had to give a presentation "about" a department, not "on" one]

There I stood, in the front row shaky needs and voice, inability to make eye contact.[needs is knees, There I stood is cliched-Take 'there' out, and "inability to make eye contact" is a misplaced modifier (it does not modify voice)]

I remember that I felt like dying when my supervisor asked me to give the presentation in front of my coworkers and the leadership team.["in front of" should be "to" (your boss to did ask you in front of all your peers did he?), ]

I was Oblivious; the choice of this presentation would be one of two important experiences that would hit me right in the face.[I concur about the oblivious part, but you would use a period here, not a semicolon, although you should remove the punct. all together and use a word like "that", it was not the choice but the experience that hit you]

They came to me like a freight train, and I didn’t move one inch to get out of the way, and I’m glad I didn’t. [run on sentence, Who came at you like a freight train? Oh, you mean the experiences. This is a poor metaphor to use here. You just said the experience hit you in the face. Freight trains don't hit you in the face, they run you over.]

Based on this opening paragraph, start over.

[writetrack]

Hi Travis21lawyer,

I read over your statement and yes while the grammar and word choice may need to be overhauled I want to address your main point, which is whether the subject matter is good. I firmly believe it needs to be far more personal, needs to flow better, and needs to implicitly express why the law is the right path for you. Rather then giving an overview of the ADP, pick one strong overall theme and run with it.

Once you have picked the theme then you should consider following this general the structure for the Personal Statement; 1) Introduction: Strong eye-catching start, such as an action and then provide context to that action, culminating in why the law, 2) Section II: Talk about your background and the build up to what you are doing now, 3) Section III: Describe what you are doing now and why you think the law, in general, is the best next move for you, 4) Section IV: Why a specific school you are applying to (i.e. Univ. of Richmond), 5) Conclusion: bring the essay back full circle and conclude the action in a way that has a good resolution, so that you leave AdComm wanting to review the rest of your application. So at this point pick a theme and structure it to fit that general outline.

Please feel free to contact me if you need help brainstorming or have questions regarding this general structure. You seem to have a wealth of experiences so I am sure a strong theme is not going to be hard to find.

______________________________________________
Hamada | Write Track Admissions Law
hamada@writetrackadmissions.com
http://www.writetrackadmissions.com/programs/law

[dani_burhop]

Hamada's essay structure advice will help you. Also, I strongly recommend reading this aloud; Ears are better editors than eyes, and will catch come of the stranger constructions here.

Best, Dani