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I am curious if any of you have knowledge about, or thoughts on, submitting a writing sample to law schools. I searched for this and only Cornell, Buffalo, and a couple of other schools explicitly allow this. I have a paper I have conferenced with about gender and the insanity principle that I think would really be relevant to my interests in writing for the law and gender journals at Iowa and Berkeley, but I don't want to submit so many supplemental writings that I am automatically rejected. Do any of you know if this sort of thing is frowned upon or welcomed at law schools?

I wasn't aware that law schools accepted such documents, but if you've found a few that do then perhaps the best course of action is for you to email the schools you want to apply to and directly ask them if they'd consider the document as a piece of your application.



On the other hand, I have never heard of anyone submitting such materials as part of their applications. A writing sample of that sort is generally reserved for graduate school applications. Are you applying to a dual-degree of some sort? If so, then just send that paper to whichever graduate school you're applying to.

Usually, law schools don't want/need to read conference-length papers. In fact, some schools (Berkeley) directly prohibit any additional pages over four.

I have actually seen that quite a few law schools specifically request that you don't send supplemental materials. Write that you wrote it in your resume, but don't send it because admissions already has a lot to read without having to read a paper. If they don't specifically ask for anything, DON'T send it. Save it for if you get waitlisted and they request extra materials. They ask for your personal statement for an example of your writing skills, so there is really no need to send it.

Just out of curiosity, why didn't you use it as the basis for your PS?

I haven't heard of this either. Let me know what you find out.