Updated Revision.. Please Critique! Forum

[rosenbiems]

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[kublaikahn]

Interesting. You enter two extremely controversial legal topics, ADR and internet regulation, and post an affirmative position on both. Not to mention your blind and wanton love for the Eagles (no judgements.) I think this could be powerful. But if it were me, I would be sure to measure (read: hedge) my support for either. Truth is, your understanding of these issues will grow in LS. (this could be bad advice.)

My one criticism is that this is a very topical essay and the topics are not you, although it does explain your interest in law school. I would like to know a bit more about you as a pathway to that interest other than that these two issues hit your hot button.

[imjustjoking22]

Any thoughts greatly appreciated! This is my 4th near complete overhaul of my PS. Thanks!

With a powdered wig on his head and three-hundred fifty pounds protruding from his black robe, supported by some surprisingly fit legs, Oliver barreled out of the Dublin High Court. A modern day Danton, Oliver’s joyous demeanor coupled with an incredibly active mind immediately exuded magnanimity.

This was my first impression of my new boss, an Irish barrister, who took me under his wing as an intern. At the fresh age of nineteen, I threw myself into a country where I did not know a soul and into a profession of which I had no tangible experience, though a dream born out of John Grisham novels - awkward grammatically. An American born and raised, soon Oliver would introduce me as “An American with a European perspective”—watching Oliver in action and listening to his engaging rhetoric, exposed me to new ways of observing the world; his discussion of Irish and American law (he has argued before the United States Supreme Court), which I compared to my own understanding of the American legal system, demanded I take new ideas and approaches to questions of law I once regarded as fact. More, integrating the theoretical aspect of law with real-work experience in the field inspired and refined my then nascent interest in the law.

Oliver was then in the process of establishing Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) in Irish government. A very new legal possibility in Ireland, its implementation demanded innovative and creative ideas. Though I acted primarily as a researcher, I watched Oliver masterfully integrate the findings and analyses I produced into an incredibly imaginative, yet realistic, approach to implementing wide-scale ADR. ADR’s cheaper cost, greater efficiency, and greater happiness quotient rendered it more capable of enacting justice than traditional legal forums. Oliver thus demonstrated the power of law, and the lesson was burnt into my heart.

A year later, I screamed “Hallelujah!” as my roommate pulled open the Eagles’ game on the Internet. My beloved team, often blocked from me by television networks, was finally made accessible through the wondrous Internet. The following week my roommate and I returned to the site, and instead of finding the Eagles’ game, I saw the seal of New York’s District Attorney: the DA’s office had shut the website down.

The Internet today is much like the wild west of the 18th and 19th centuries: it is characterized by a massive territory with enormous potential, yet defined by sparse regulation at best. The Internet has the potential to promote incredible boons to humanity, yet it also facilitates considerable criminal activities. A lack of precedent coupled with the Internet’s inherently intangible nature demands unconventional and abstract approaches to regulatory solutions. As a philosophy and history double major, dealing with abstract thought is my area of expertise. Now, I am integrating my two majors into a “philosophy of history” senior thesis where I will analyze the thought of Friedrich Nietzsche and Michel Foucault in their respective historical moments: a task that demands a synthetic approach to difficult abstract thought. I have finally begun to understand the joy on Oliver’s face when I first met him: it is a joy born from the knowledge of success in an area of intellectual challenge. It is a feeling of which I have already had a small taste in my senior project and a feeling I will taste again. this paragraph feels disjointed- you make three completely separate points in here. Unify it.

The Internet has represented innovation, imagination, and unforeseen possibilities. Its regulation is even younger and fresher, yet its presence is necessary to ensure its healthy growth and prevent its potential abuses. The legal imprecision surrounding the Internet tempted my philosophical nature, and represents the culmination of my academic passion and professional aspirations par excellence. My philosophical and legal mind will render me capable of examining the abstract aspects of this emerging field of law; my time in Dublin and Strasbourg, France will afford me the cosmopolitan perspective necessary to appeal to international bodies, for regulation demands international approaches; and my work building websites (http://www.____.com- no, they will see this in your resume, leave it out) along with time spent aiding in the construction and maintenance of servers has lent me a practical knowledge of the technical aspects behind the Internet itself. To safeguard its wondrous potential, regulating the Internet demands a delicacy bred from abstract ideas synthesized into realizable and successful solutions. My philosophy and internationalism will afford me the most important tools in achieving this goal, and studying the law will fuse these three foundations and culminate in successful, realizable, justice-driven approaches to abstract questions of law.

I like it overall, and I think you do a decent job selling yourself as a potential attorney (although I felt that your references to your double major/academic work were excessive- your majors are not all that unique/impressive so I would play up the other stuff that is). Overall, going in the right direction, IMO.

[rosenbiems]

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[rosenbiems]

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