Every year, we get asked over and over, “What do people usually write their law school personal statements about?” So we sat down and compiled a list of every type of law school personal statement we’d ever seen. We were surprised how easily we could fit about 99.9 percent of them into just ten basic formulas. We were even more surprised by what the formulas revealed.

First, we saw that formulas lead to formulaic writing. No kidding, right? But think of the implications! Think of those poor admissions committees who have to read variations on the same ten themes over and over, year after year. When you’ve read a few thousand of them, they start to become very predictable and tedious. No wonder admissions officers respond enthusiastically when they see something different.

Second, the effort that some applicants make to be “original” and to “stick out” drives them inexorably into the same worn-out formulas as everyone else. Strange but true. Take almost anyone’s law school statement and hold it up against the following list: you’ll be amazed how easily it matches one or more of these basic formulas. It’s as though candidates are picking and choosing from the same moldy smorgasbord of all things cliché.

If you’re like 99.9 percent of law school applicants, you may find yourself reading this list and thinking, “Oh crap, that’s the one I was going to write!” Don’t despair. At the end of the article we’ll tell you how you can avoid letting your statement be cliché.

So here they are, the ten tired formulas for law school statements:

The Resumessay

This is the undisputed, all-time heavy-weight champion of bad essays, accounting for at least half of all law school statements. It’s really the resume rehashed in narrative form. “Now that you’ve already read my resume, let me tell you about…my resume.” Tragic! Here you have a group of people about to make a decision that will affect the rest of your life and they’ve agreed to read two pages of whatever you want to tell them. Why would you squander it repeating what they already know?

The Death Essay

The second most common essay, a bit facetiously named, is what we call the “death essay.” It isn’t always about death, but it is always about overcoming some kind of tragedy and hardship. For some reason many writers gravitate to the worst thing that ever happened to them. What that has to do with their plans or reasons for law school is generally an afterthought (see Forced Analogy below).

The “Truth and Justice” Essay

This essay is an attempt to convince the committee of the depth of the candidate’s knowledge regarding some majestic topic like “Justice” or “the Law.” It’s a dangerous narrative position to take: consider the arrogance of trying to impress a law school committee with your knowledge of the law!  Besides that, T&J essays are, frankly, dull. Regardless of their topics, they all blend together into a sort of forgettable gush of law-is-the-very-scaffolding-nay-the-very-fabric-underpinning-our-neighborhoods-our-cities-our-nations-our-world-because-aren’t-we-all-just-passengers-on-this-spaceship-called-earth.

You get the idea.

The Pro Bono Essay

Look. Let’s just say it: attorneys have the potential to make pretty good money. This is no secret. Nor is it a secret that many people who want a decent paycheck see law school as a path to that goal. This fact gives rise to the Pro Bono essay which seeks to assure the committee that for you, it’s not about the money. Your motivations are entirely philanthropic, and the essay tries ad nauseum to establish that point.

Of course, there are undoubtedly some applicants who truly are driven by a desire to serve the world. Pity for them this type of essay has already been ruined by the thousands of others who have already written it.

The “Ever Since I Was a Small Child” Essay

This one almost always contains one of two paragraphs: the one about debate club or the one about how people used to tell you what a great attorney you would make because of how much you like to argue. Sometimes it contains both.

The Thesaurus Essay

This formula just tries to wow us with vocabulary. Reading it, you can almost feel the effort to change every simple word to something bigger simply because it’s, well, bigger. At its worst, the thesaurus essay comes across as the most pathetic of the formulas. It makes you squirm to read it, like a first date who is trying desperately to impress you. You find yourself wondering how long this can go on.

The Creative Writing Essay

Some clever applicants figure out that everyone else is writing formulas, so they try to do something different. They write about the day they went skydiving or spent a night in jail. They might use heavy foreshadowing or attempt humor. They throw in literary references or write the essay in rhyming couplets—anything to stand out. While we have to compliment these authors’ ingenuity and willingness to take a risk, we have to point out that they too are falling into one of the formulas. Their creativity serves no purpose other than to catch attention. It’s more of a performance than a conversation. While their essays tend to be a bit more interesting than others, they are no more helpful.

The Name Drop Essay

Maybe you know a judge. Maybe you worked for a senator. Maybe you once ate dinner at the same restaurant as a movie star. Just like every other kind of name drop, the whole point in this type of essay is to drop the name—to cash in on your association with a particular person. The essay itself, and the actual candidate writing it, take a back seat.

The “Why ____ is the School for Me” Essay

Pretty straightforward: these candidates do some research into a particular school and then try to make it sound like they’ve always known it, always wanted to go there, etc. They try to make it sound sincere…for all ten of their schools.

The Forced Analogy

This type of essay results from the writer choosing a favorite story or experience to write and then realizing near the end that the statement should relate to law school somehow. So they tack on an ending that forces the story to be (surprise!) about law school. “And much like the Egyptian tombs I visited in my youth, law school will….” You fill in the rest.

There you have it, the ten formulas that almost every law school applicant uses, whether they mean to or not. You probably recognized some of them as you read, perhaps because your mind was already leaning in those directions.

If so, we have some good news for you. You don’t need to fall into any of these formulas. Your essay can stand apart from the herd.  You can write a statement that’s original and unexpected and personal and memorable, an authentic personal essay.  We can show you how.

To find out how to make your statement as unique as you are, contact Admission Statements, LLC.  You can also learn more about the Basic Formulas and how to avoid them in our Clinic, available online.