The Big Three: Why Here?

The second critical question your application needs to answer is why this specific law school makes sense for you.

You Do Have a Reason For Applying, Don’t You?

Let’s be realistic – most people are simply applying to the most highly ranked schools they think they can get into, with little regard for the attributes of individual programs.

This is generally a non-ideal strategy for picking a school, so I’m sure you have a very clear idea why you’re applying to each school. Right? Naturally. You’d be well advised to discuss your rationale in detail.

Every School Wants to Feel Special

Even if you don’t really know why you’re applying to a particular school, however, you’re going to have to fake it. Every school wants to think that they’re unique, and uniquely desirable. You can use this vanity to your advantage by discussing why specific aspects of the school appeal to you as an applicant.

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The Big Three: Why This?

To be convincing, your personal statement must explain why it makes sense for you to go to law school. Duh, right? I mean, of course. But you might find it’s not that easy to really articulate why you want to go to law school. Read on for various approaches.

Why does it make sense for you to go to law school?

This is the most critical question you need to answer – why does it make sense for you to go to law school? Is it the next logical step in a clear progression? Is it a shift onto an entirely new career path?

To figure out the most convincing story, you’ve got to look at your background objectively, and come up with some logical pathway to explain how you arrived where you are, and why law school is a reasonable next step. In some cases, this is pretty easy. If you’ve always been interested in criminal justice, you majored in sociology, you wrote an honors thesis on rehabilitation in the prison system, and you interned with the DA’s office, it’s not much of a stretch to imagine that you’d want to be a lawyer. Your essay is pretty much written.

In other cases, however, the path is a bit more meandering.

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The Big Three: Why Now?

Last but not least, your application needs to explain why it makes sense for you to go to law school right now. Is there something else you’d be better off doing instead?

This question may require less overt discussion than the first two, but it’s still worth thinking about.

Applying Straight from College

If you’re applying straight from college, there’s an argument that you’d be a better applicant if you had some work, or life, experience. Maybe this is true for you, maybe not.

Either way, it’s going to be in the back of the admission committee member’s mind when she reads your application. Are you mature enough to go to law school? Do you have the intellectual chops required to succeed? Are you going to be happy starting a professional career at such a young age?

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The Big Picture

Your law school application must answer three questions:

• Why this?
• Why here?
• Why now?

The personal statement is your best chance to convince the admissions committee that you’re a solid applicant with a clear plan for your legal career. If it fails to do this, you’ve missed an opportunity, in a big way.

The Mechanics

For now, let’s assume you’ve answered the big three satisfactorily. What else is there to think about?

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