Law School Personal Statements: The Good, the Bad, and the Forgettable

Ah, the personal statement. The one part of your law school application where you’re finally allowed to write in English instead of multiple-choice bubbles. No conditional logic. No parallel flaw traps. Just… you, your keyboard, and 2ish pages of opportunity.

Sounds liberating, right? Until you sit down to write and suddenly think: “Wait, do I even have a personality?”

Don’t worry, you do. But pulling it out of your brain and onto the page? That’s where things get tricky.

The Good: Stories That Stick

Admissions officers read thousands of essays every year. The ones they remember don’t start with “Ever since I was a child…” They start with a moment.

Like the student who described translating for their grandmother at the doctor’s office, realizing how language shapes power. Or the one who opened with a traffic court scene, where they watched someone stumble through legal jargon without representation. Or even the applicant who turned their obsession with crossword puzzles into a metaphor for their brain’s love of rules, structure, and problem-solving.

Notice the pattern? These stories weren’t about saving the world at 19. They were about small, real-life experiences that revealed how the writer thinks. A strong personal statement doesn’t just list what you’ve done, it shows how those moments shaped who you are and why law school makes sense as the next chapter.

The Bad: Résumé in Paragraph Form

If your essay reads like your LinkedIn profile without bullet points, you’ve lost them. “I interned at X. I volunteered at Y. I took classes in Z.” Impressive? Sure. Memorable? Not even a little.

Your résumé already shows what you’ve done. The personal statement is your chance to show who you are.

Here’s the move: pick one or two experiences and tell the story behind them. Instead of writing, “I was president of the debate team,” write about the time you froze at a tournament and learned how to recover under pressure. That says infinitely more about your character than a laundry list of titles.

The Forgettable: Generic Law Love Letters

“I want to go to law school because I care about justice.”

Cool. So does every other applicant.

If your essay could be copy-pasted with someone else’s name and still make sense, it’s not doing its job. The fix? Specificity. Show the exact moment when “justice” became real to you, whether that was a neighbor’s eviction, a city council meeting, or an internship where you saw the stakes of policy decisions play out.

The more personal details you add, the less replaceable your essay becomes.

Final Thought

The best personal statements don’t make an admissions officer think, “Wow, flawless résumé.” They make them think, “I want this person in my class.”

Tell a story. Make it human. Avoid the clichés.

And if you find yourself halfway through typing “Ever since I was a child…”, stop, delete, and remember: nobody wants your essay to sound like the opening of a Hallmark movie.

LexPrep has a full course on law school personal statements including sample essays that worked, breakdowns of why they work, and step-by-step guidance to write your own. Be the first to access it when we launch by joining our waitlist at www.lexprep.ai. Spots are limited, so sign up today and lock in early access!