Top Law Schools

GPA & Academic Probation Addendum
After I returned from my two year LDS mission I found myself with difficulties in paying for school any savings that I had had were eaten up in paying for my mission and neither of my parents provided material support for my schooling. I was also only twenty one and so under FAFSA rules I was unable to obtain any sort of financial aid even loans which further complicated the problem. During my first semester back I knew I needed to find work and decided the best way to make money to pay for school would be by starting my own wood flooring business. I started it two months into the spring semester and it quickly grew so much so that I was hardly able to keep up with both school and keeping up with my newly established clients requests. Eventually I got so busy with work and was beginning to make decent money that I would miss class for weeks at a time while finishing a project this led to me unofficially withdrawing from the school semester.
I took the summer off to continue with my new business and the size and clientele of the business steadily grew. By fall things were rather steady and not nearly as unpredictable and although I was making really good money at the time I decided to re-enroll in fall semester I thought that I had a handle on running my business and going to school at the same time and would give it another shot. I didn’t foresee however, landing a new contract with a local medium sized home developer and unfortunately the lessons of the spring semester were repeated and I ended up having to choose between my business and school obligations once again. I was given unofficial withdraws for fall semester and I was placed on academic probation as a result of these two semesters. I then took some time off school to continue with my business having finally learned my lesson. Eventually, the housing market would collapse along with many of my clients, which forced me to re-evaluate my career and educational goals it was at this time that I re-dedicated myself to schooling and decided that I would like to attend law school I switched my major from business management to Spanish and later to double majoring in Spanish and political science since this time I have not had a semester under a 3.4 and I believe that my institutional G.P.A. of a 3.58 is more indicative of my academic capabilities as a student than the 2.9 reported by LSAC because of these two semesters of unofficial withdraws.

Arrest Addendum
When I was 17 I was cited for driving without insurance. I had insurance at the time but the insurance company had my vehicles VIN number wrong so it did not show up when the police officer looked it up in his system. In Utah if you are cited for driving without insurance it is a mandatory court appearance. The ticket was given in December and my court date was towards the end of January. My parents had divorced when I was 12 and my dad was living in Utah at the time I had come down to Utah for my the first semester of my senior year of high school I however, had decided to return to my hometown of Fairbanks, Alaska where my mother lived to graduate with my friends. My court date however, was issued for a date after I would have moved back to Alaska. I talked with my father and it was decided that he would go for me with proof from the insurance company and that it had been just been clerical error. I left the state, returned home, and like most 17 year olds getting ready to graduate figured the situation taken care of and honestly, and mistakenly, never really thought about it again.

When I moved back to Utah to attend college I was pulled over for a basic speeding ticket and informed that I had a warrant for my arrest for failure to appear and taken into custody. My dad had never attended that court session and the original ticket from over a year earlier had never been cleared up. Because the main issue was still the driving without insurance I still needed to go to court to clear it up. I then irresponsibly missed my second court date after I had been arrested then was pulled over at a later date and arrested for the second time as a result of my second failure to appear. This was a mistake on my part and one that I would not repeat again also, after that second arrest my license was suspended. I then took all the necessary steps to clear up the original ticket which was dismissed I was however, fined for not appearing in court and for the additional speeding tickets. What started as a misunderstanding with the original ticket turned into much more because I failed to properly and maturely handle the situation. I have since learned my lesson and have not had any more arrests or legal problems

Also these are rough first drafts that I have not done much editing too at all I understand that there are going to be some punctuation/grammar issues I am more concerned with content/length issues so please only comment on those

Anyone???

Way too long.

Both have too many excuses and virtually no ownership of your mistakes. Redraft.

Keep these two points in mind.

1. Addenda will serve as an auxiliary writing sample in you application, so mind you Ps and Qs.
2. Addenda need to be pithy and concise. Move past the incident and circumstances quickly and talk about how you have changed or matured.

tl;dr

Both of these are WAY too long. Cut them down to about 1/3 of their current length and you'll be good. Just give a brief description of what happened, you don't need to go into too much detail. For the arrest addendum you need to take more responsibility for what happened and just say that you have matured since then. Again, keep this very brief. Also, I know they're rough drafts, but proof read.

way too long

the gpa addendum would be better off as a personal statement. You need to own up to your decisions and actions and be specific.

cut out the fluff and the excuses and state just the facts

Besides cutting it down I think you need to work on the message of the arrest record one. I know stuff like that happen (somthing alond those lines actually happened to my SO) but the real issue is that you still didn't get it cleared up before the second time you were arrested. That is what you really need to explain.

also more specific dates and court locations for the arrest one