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So I want to write my statement around the fact that as I was growing up my mother's legal status (Mexican immigrant) a few times caused her to not receive pay checks due to employers taking advantage of her situation. The times in which my mom was able to pursue an avenue for grievance were never able to find any legal counsel that seemed remotely interested.The experience of growing up with such scenarios in many ways has been the onus and has shaped my desire to pursue a legal career.


Please let me know if this is a decent basis for a personal statement. My fear is that the subject matter might end up coming off as more of a "I had a hard time growing up, accept me" than establishing a clear link to as why I want to pursue law school. Thank You!

The format in which you couched your PS idea does kind of sound as your main point is "I faced hard times, accept me". That doesn't mean that you should abandon this concept, but perhaps a little refining might do you some good.

Do you have an actual PS drafed? Or at least an outline of structure that we could see? I would certainly think that discussing ones frame of reference and interaction with our judicial system is relevant and compelling for a PS. You just want to be clear with the salient points, making sure that you don't write a sad story that doesn't really answer that important question of "why do you want to become a lawyer".

Just remember, you are taking an interpersonal situation and explaining how it made you view the legal dimensions of your life. This experience roused interest in you, drawing your attention to law in a personalized way. If you could expand a little further on how you would address this it would be helpful. I think its a decent topic, and one that can fleshed out more so don't shy away from writing a first draft.

At this point its merely an idea, but I think I will work on it tonight and see what sort of response I get from a more fleshed out concept. Thank you so much for the advice.

Rawlberto wrote:The times in which my mom was able to pursue an avenue for grievance were never able to find any legal counsel that seemed remotely interested.The experience of growing up with such scenarios in many ways has been the onus and has shaped my desire to pursue a legal career.

I think this makes a great personal statement. Discuss how your experiences have shaped your desire to go to law school but also how you've changed from it. Adcomms want to see that you're mature enough to handle law school and discussing in your PS that, not only do you have mature reasons for wanting to go, you also have matured on your own considerably is one way to accomplish that.

This is also a great DS topic; if you write the essay and find that it isn't about you so much as it is about culture and hardship and family, maybe make it a DS. If you can bring this topic around to your ability to analyze and contextualize the experience as an adult, or work it into your current career trajectory, it could work as a PS. Whatever you end up submitting as a PS should have a clear story that focuses on your character/purpose/actions.

Best, Dani