Top Law Schools

Ehhh... may have phrased that weird. What I want to know is... would declaring what type of law you want to go into affect your chances at admission.

For example, if I'm applying to the University of Houston, whose top specialty is healthcare law... would it hurt or help me to mention in my personal statement that I am planning on going into healthcare law? I am actually interested in several specialties right now, healthcare law being one of them.

I imagine there would be a lot of people applying there with the intention of going into healthcare law and I figure the university does not simply want to admit a bunch of students interested in healthcare law. If I mentioned my interest in another field that is not as strong/competitive there, would I have a better chance in the application process?

You should express what you are interested in based on what you are interested in, not what you think the admissions committee will want to hear.

Or would law schools be more willingly to accept a candidate who demonstrates that they would go on to be successful in the school's strongest field?

I really am open to several fields of law at this point. Should I just mention all 3-4 specialties I'm interested in and the relevant experiences that have drawn me to these fields?

I think it's important that the application sort of be like "The story of thatdude222" or whoever you are. So I think if you're really interested in a certain type of law then the things you've done up to that point will fit in with it as a story like...

I've done all of these things and it's led me to feel strongly about going into law - especially healthcare law blah blah blah


Basically if you have a strong story for wanting to go into law and the specialty is involved in that then I think that helps your application. Otherwise admissions people probably won't look too closely - especially because a lot of people change their minds once they start studying law anyway.