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7Sagers,
This Monday, at 9 pm EST, I’ll do a second round of live lightning consultations.
What’s a lightning consultation? Basically, I’ll try to be as helpful as I can in five minutes. We might brainstorm personal statement topics, strategize about addenda, or discuss LORs.
If you want a free five-minute consultation about your law school application, I’ll need you to post a few things in the comments section:
- Your three-sentence biography.Your biggest worry about your application.Two ideas for your personal statement.Did you attend last time? Did I get to you?
I’ll get through as many people as I can in one hour, working in a mostly random order. Please don’t post to this thread if you can’t show up for the consultation. If you do show up, test your microphone beforehand. Make sure you have a strong connection to the internet, and that you can speak and be heard on GoToMeeting. If your microphone isn’t working, I’ll have to skip you.
To join, just follow this link: https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/196286165
- Dial +1 (571) 317-3112Use the access code 196-286-165.Use the audio PIN shown after joining the meeting.
We’ll use Citrix GoToMeeting. The meeting ID is 196-286-165.
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47 comments
Seconding @87818. Even though my mic died during my big moment, the webinar was really helpful to just listen to. Got the wheels turning, thanks David!
Thank you David! Super informative, cannot wait for the next one... I've been re-tooling my personal statement during the entire meeting, so many good prompts to build off of !
Did you fix this? The link is working fine for me!
Your three-sentence biography.
I come from a developing country. I am a photographer for almost 10 years, the eldest of 5 sisters and a fisherman's daughter. I am currently running my own graphic design firm.
Your biggest worry about your application.
LSAT and a mature student (34 years old)
Two ideas for your personal statement.
My experience growing up in a fishing community when I sold fish in the market every dawn until college. I think it was a good discipline and made me appreciate where I came from. Just like studying law where it will take a lot of hard work, determination and never giving up on my dreams to succeed.
I'm not entirely sure about this but probably illustrate how raising a toddler and studying law could be similar.. (For example, I have patience, etc)
Did you attend last time? Did I get to you?
I was not able to attend last time.
Anyone else having trouble connecting. It keeps kicking me back to the main page for go-to meeting
1) My name is Kevin, I'm 23 years old and just graduated from college. I'm currently working full time as a paralegal and have been interested in law school since I started college. I have 2 years worth of undergrad internship experience woking in various different law firms; I know this is what I want to do.
2) I'm the definition of vanilla ice cream. From New England, as middle class as you could be. I want to avoid coming across as flat/preachy. I think I need to apply as early as possible to get in with my numbers.
3A) I was 19 years old when the Boston Marathon bombing happened, I was a sophomore in college and working at a small law firm downtown. My firm worked with a few different marathon victims, and one day I went to drop off some documents at a hospital and was met by one of the survivors. I expected to just hand some paperwork to a family member or lawyer, instead I met a survivor. It was a really powerful experience and has played a part in my passion to become an attorney. (Obviously more to this story)
3B) I really like public speaking and after graduating college started dabbling in standup comedy just for fun. I think this could be worked into an interesting topic, especially if I told the story behind my first time doing standup, conquering fears etc. I feel like this could be an unconventional/good "get to know me" PS if done right
4) Nope!
Your three-sentence biography.
Aerospace and Ocean engineer from Virginia Tech looking to get into patent law. Son of an immigrant parents. I currently work for the NAVY (civilian) on submarine concepts designs. Its a simillar appoach the the auto indsutry has with concept vehichles, applied to submarines. Plan to do LS part time while continuing to work.
Your biggest worry about your application.
GPA. I was diagnosed dsylexic late in life and as a result have a GPA that I am trying to balance with a good LSAT score (168 in JUNE and retaking in SEPT)
Two ideas for your personal statement.
Trying to manage my father's tax practice while he was hospitalized and considering taking it over/switching careers when the prospect of him not making was a reality. AND/OR going thru school as an undiagnosed dyslexic student and the problems associated with that.
Did you attend last time? Did I get to you?
NO
.
Your three-sentence biography: Having moved around the world three times, studied in the UK, US, and Taiwan, served in the financial industry as an Ops Analyst (in NYC) and teaching math for local high school students (in CA), I have a passion about living life to the fullest and to build meaningful life experiences. I believe strongly about becoming a lawyer in securities law where I want to use my skills to fight against white collar crimes.
Your biggest concern about your application: There is much room for improvement in LSAT.
Two ideas for your personal statement: Perhaps cultural and life experiences.
Did you attend last time? Did I get to you? I listened in over the phone. Didn't get to talk to you but look forward to it this time!
Thanks,
Joy Ling
Please see post below
My name is Carlos Garcia. I am originally from Mexico and have been living in the US for the past 6 years. I just graduated from Northeastern University (political science) and I would like to attend a top 25 law school. I decided to take a gap year, I am currently working as a paralegal and I will be traveling for six months before law school.
My biggest worry is my GPA. I started in the wrong major and decided to keep it as a minor, it killed my GPA to a sad 3.2. This will be my second time taking the LSAT, hopefully I can get my 162 to something way closer to 170 and make up for my grades.
I was thinking to do my personal statement on how almost everyone in my family practices law in Mexico and that's what I assumed I would do but the terrible situation in my state town forced me out of the country and how I am kind of glad because I had the chance to attend an amazing boarding school, a great college and now I am getting ready to study law in the US. It also helped because I am gay and my family is too conservative to accept it so being "forced out" ended up giving me a way out.
First time attending, and I really appreciate this opportunity.
Only a few hours left to get yours in!
1) Hi my name is Brittany. I am one of 5 children, I am the first in my family to graduate college. I like to read. I'm not a very interesting person so that's all I could come up with.
2) My biggest worries would be the LSAT score, not having enough recommendations from teachers, and my personal essay.
3) I only have one idea for personal statement and that would be just to talk about how ive always wanted to be a lawyer, since I was young.
4) Never attended before.
1. I'm a reporter turned firefighter who's expecting his first kid. I'm of mixed racial heritage and have picked up a few languages while living abroad, none of which match my heritage. I like my job mainly because it demands only 10 days/month, meaning I can pursue poorly-paying passions like running political campaigns.
2. Poor undergrad GPA (graduated in 2002)
3. A) Had spent years skating by as a mediocre paramedic when a fellow firefighter died on the floor of my firehouse. I had to make a single decision between a path which would protect my livelihood and ego but reduced the firefighter's chance of survival and a second path which would slightly increase the firefighter's chances but more likely end in a career-crushing failure.
B) Colorado's urban renewal laws have long given developers a cash-filled trough in which to gorge at the cost of fire departments and schools. For 20 years the state's most powerful lawmakers had failed to make changes. Two years ago, I got a call from the union president asking for a hand lobbying legislators on yet another doomed attempt. One week later I'd led the upset of the session by bringing together lawmakers who were sworn enemies.
4. No.
You'll have to mute yourself with the mute button on your cell phone.
I don't think there's an audio pin for this session. I just double checked the settings and don't see one. If there is one, it will tell you what it is when you call in and enter the access code.
Question about how to join the meeting with cell phone, if I follow the below instructions, what will the audio PIN be? And will my microphone be on automatically? Sorry I am on a trip right now and cannot join the meeting through Internet.
Dial +1 (571) 317-3112
Use the access code 196-286-165.
Use the audio PIN shown after joining the meeting.
David - thanks for offering this!
Three-sentence biography
Hi, this is Nancy. I'm a 27-year-old female from China and moved to the US 8 years ago for college. I've been working as a management consultant in the finance industry since graduating from a liberal arts college. I have been tinkering with pursuing either a JD or an MBA, and ultimately felt that JD is better aligned with my personality traits and long-term interests of going into public policy.
Biggest worry about your application
College GPA (below 25 percentile for target schools)
Two ideas for personal statement
1) Track record / long-time interest in the intersection of policy, business, and law.
As a student: I researched the impact of economic policies on small businesses; interned at a policy institute in the Caribbean; provided pro bono consulting for social entrepreneurs.
As a consultant: have experience in digesting new regulations, assessing their business impact, and implementing solutions for compliance.
2) What having a bad boss / work experience taught me about professionalism, resilience, and management style.
Did you attend last time? Did I get to you?
I did attend, but was not selected.
Robert
1. I graduated from an average public state university in California 7 years ago. I worked my way up from being a paid door knocker for a political candidate to campaign manager. For the last four years I have worked in the political department of a large labor union of healthcare workers in California.
2) Standing out in a sea full of amazing applicants.
3) Personal Statement A - Talking about a recent union contact campaign that I was involved in. I'm thinking of first starting off by talking about how I felt responsible for a union leader being fired. She was a proponent of a ballot initiative that I filed and ran which would limit hospital executives at her hospital from earning over $250k. She was fired out of retaliation.
This made me question myself and if I was truly helping people or doing harm. In the end, I ran a political campaign for this initiative that resulted in the CEO being fired, we were able to settle on a great contract, we dropped the initiative, and I recruited several hospital candidates who are running this fall and are committed to working with us to reform the hospital's leadership.
Personal Statement B - Talking about how college was at first tough for me. My parents lost their home due to my dad's alcoholism and I was nearly kicked out of college for poor grades.
I was inspired by a professor during sophomore year and saw school as my way to figure out how this world works and how to fix it. My grades improved dramatically and I learned that I can't control my dad's actions, but I can control my own.
I couch surfed and lived off ramen soup after college (it sucked and I was poor). I worked really hard and progressed as a paid door knocker to campaign manager and got several folks elected and re-elected to state and federal offices'. I now work a labor union in California and have done amazing things. I recently led on a statewide ballot initiative that qualified for the November 2016 ballot and would raise the state minimum wage to $15. The day we qualified the governor called our union and we brokered a legislative deal. The governor signed this bill into law and it will raise the minimum wage to $15 by 22 and it will be matched to inflation thereafter.
Your three-sentence biography.
I am in the midst of a year off, studying for the LSAT while helping to manage my family's real estate business. I wrestled division 1 for four years and graduated with a history major, CS minor, and 3.49 GPA. I have business management experience in restaurants, nightclubs, construction, and bookkeeping.
Your biggest worry about your application.
What theme or parts of myself should I highlight in my LOR and personal statement. (should I have addenda/diversity statement?)
Two ideas for your personal statement.
1. The reason I want to be a lawyer (happened in college). My senior year I took cross registered courses through Harvard Law during the fall and spring semesters (with Professor Gordon-Reed and Professor Unger respectively). In my statement I'd explain how their lectures and readings sparked my interest to pursue the legal profession. Might refer to a rewarding paper I wrote on the patent system. It's thesis was that as result of the modern tech boom, presently patents cannot cover the new questions of intellectual property that go to court. The solution I offered adopted pre-packaged bundles of rights that could be shared, my argument used copyright law and the creative commons as a successful example of such a system.
2. A few months ago I performed an audit and discovered a fabricated company. Then using Lexus Nexus I found the employee who used that company to embezzle funds. My essay would recount this experience, which took place just a few weeks after graduation, and how I handled the criminal activity without undermining my organization in the months that followed .
Did you attend last time? Did I get to you?
Did not attend last time.
Thank you David for doing this!! Thank you 7Sage for putting this together!!
1. Your three-sentence biography. I’m Jamal; I’m a thirty-one year-old African-American male who came back to the States last year after working and living in South Korea for over 8 years upon completing a Fulbright grant. I am currently working as a pawn broker, jewlery, and personal trainer. I’ve always been passionate about setting BIG goals and reaching them; graduating from one of my dream schools is the next BIG goal I’m working to reach.
2. Your biggest worry about your application. 1A) Letter of Recommendation (LOR)-the professor who wrote my LOR for the Fulbright is deceased 1B) Personal Statement-not being able to tell a cohesive story 1A +1B = TIME
3. Two ideas for your personal statement.
1) The first time I every spoke of going to law school was at my uncle and aunt’s house, sitting at their kitchen table, less than a mile away from my dad’s house. This is significant because for 15+ years I silenced that goal because my relationship with my father, who has done well for himself in the field of law, had deteriorated to the point I didn’t want anything to do with anything he was a part including the law. As my time in S. Korea unfolded, and as I gained new experiences, relearned old life lessons, and shared stories with different people in Korea and in the other countries I was fortunate to travel to my heart was softened towards my dad, my humanity was increased for others, and my curiosity for the law was reinvigorated.
2) I believe in the promise of America, even though at times its promise has been fleeting to many groups of minorities/majorities throughout its young history. It’s my goal to use the law (and the spirit of the law) to find commonalities that bring more Americans together and real things done, not just dreams, i.e. Hyperloop. I will work to implement best practices-not just words or stats, which are found outside of the Continental US into productive and effective strategies for the American ethos.
4. Did you attend last time? Did I get to you? Yes. No, I didn’t submit anything.
1) I am Moises Guedes, father of 3, worked in the insurance industry for 10+ years, moved to Brazil a few years back to care for my father, while here went to school and will be earning my Law degree from here next June. I am moving back home to SoCal in July 2017 and intend to start pursuing my JD in CA next year.
2) My personal statement is in fact my biggest worry about my application
3) I am having a hard time coming up with ideas for my personal statement but so far was thinking of using my experience of moving overseas to care for my father and taking advantage of that situation to head back to school and pursue my life long objetive of becoming an attorney.
4) I did attend the last webinar but unfortunately you did not get to me, hoping for this time around, could most certainly use the guidance.
Three-sentence biography.
My name is Addison, I am the oldest of two children, first in my immediate family to attend university and I did in 2009 because I felt I had to, and I'd been accepted into a highly selective program out of high school. I couldn't gain traction during university, starting in 2013 I switched from a concurrent English Lit HBA/BEd program into a joint English Lit and Philosophy HBA, where I rediscovered my love and deep appreciation for law. I graduated June 2015 after being diagnosed with ADHD inattentive type in 2014 after seeking note taking help after shoulder surgery (during my meeting I broke down into tears, unable to understand why I didn't seem to care about any of my classes, couldn't focus on readings, and couldn't bring myself to work on anything ahead of time).
Your biggest worry about your application.
My GPA, a 2.9, doesn't accurately reflect my potential to succeed. I turned around 23 years of terrible academic habits and that doesn't happen overnight, so I didn't peak academically while completing my HBA. 12 months after graduating I scored 169 on the June 2016 LSAT.
I'm worried about how to properly address that time in my life, it's hard to describe the invisible barrier that was my disability while also pointing out the positive things that came from that time as well.
Two ideas for your personal statement.
1) The first time I can remember telling anyone I wanted to be a lawyer, it was my grade 8 teacher. The same man who I screamed at for 5 mins once over a 1mm wobble in a rectangle I'd drawn on a test, for which I was deducted one mark, dropping my grade below an 80. He aptly illuminated the fact I was depending on the use of a ruler to make my case, while I had clearly not used one on the test. Years later, after switching to philosophy, while I was discussing interpreting Marx's views regarding inheriting material conditions with a guest lecturer, I said, "so, we can accept these conditions as they are, doing nothing to change them, work to change them through whatever channels are made possible by our society, emigrate from the society, thereby validating the inherited condition's power, or kill yourself" to which she simply said "yes."
These stories, for me, reinforce how important, and meaningful, a career practicing law is. According to my psycho-educational assessment, I have a brain that loves rules, and the verbal reasoning to make a great litigator, my LSAT experience proves I have the work ethic.
2) Studying philosophy changed my life, and gave me a renewed interest in practicing law. Pairing my love for philosophy and its natural intersection with a legal career, I truly believe I was meant for this. My great grandfather was a lawyer, who graduated from Canada's oldest law school, Osgoode Hall, in 1918. I think of all the people who need help but do not have to capacity to represent themselves, they deserve the best representation, and I will deliver that with the training I receive during law school.
A recent example that solidified this belief for me was helping my father receive a disability tax credit for a knee injury he sustained at work years ago. He had already talked to his doctor about the forms, and his doctor had dismissed him, stating he did not qualify for various reasons. I spent less than an hour reviewing the form, the relevant definitions provided by the Canadian Government's website, and drafting a two page document for my father to bring with him and read verbatim to his doctor. After his next visit, his doctor approved his application for the credit. These kinds of things are exactly why I believe I should be a lawyer.
Did you attend last time? Did I get to you?
I did not attend last time.
I won't be able to attend due to a work engagement, but hopefully there will be another one soon!
Your three-sentence biography.
Born in Egypt, and immigrated to Canada when I was 3 years of age. Worked in sales for 10 years while and after doing undergrad. I did a Sociology major, and am 30 years old.
Your biggest worry about your application.
For it to be generic, and not highlight who I really am. I failed high school miserably (had to redo grade 12), but was able to get a 3.5 GPA in my last two years of college. Getting "A"s was one of the most challenging things I had to do in my life; it was mainly because I had self doubt and a somewhat traumatic experience with school because of my failures and bullying.
Two ideas for your personal statement.
1.) How I overcame past academic failure by getting a 3.5 GPA in my last 2 years of college (Biggest struggle of my life).
2.) Overcoming my fear of public speaking by taking many public speaking courses, and preforming a stand up comedy routine as a final project for one course, in front of an audience.
Did you attend last time? Did I get to you?
No, this is my first time with this.
Hi David,
Biography:
I graduated three years ago with an Economics degree from a state school in CT and am looking to apply to a few schools in New England with the hope of getting into business law, investment, or patent law. During school I held many different jobs as well as club leadership positions and had an internship with an engineering company. Post graduation I spent a year teaching English in South Korea, a few months traveling in South East Asia, and now am back home working as a personal assistant for a construction business as well as umpiring sports at the high school and collegiate level.
Biggest worry:
Fine tuning my essays for the schools I'm applying to and LSAT score (good enough to get in, not assured funding).
Personal statements:
1. I wanted to talk about how my dad would bring me to work with him when I was a child because they couldn't afford daycare. He and my grandpa work hard at their business together every day and I was lucky to grow up seeing first hand all the dedication my father put in to building a better life for our family. My time spent watching their small family business grow inspired in me a passion for business and building something from nothing. Their hard work and dedication made me see that growth is made through small steps each day and perseverance, as well as approaching every endeavor with a cool head and confidence. I would then illustrate how this foundation of hard work and perseverance helped me through endeavors in my own life (chairing committees in my university student government, moving abroad to teach English in Asia, moving up the ranks to referee at a collegiate level) and why these experiences have propelled me towards a career in business law. Maybe choose one to focus on.
2. Overcoming challenge in my freshmen year of university because my financial aid was cut in half one month before school started and I was unable to afford housing on my own. My mother moved out of our house the summer before and into a one bedroom apartment where she was not allowed to have another tenant according to her contract (she could no longer afford the rental we lived in together without child support and we were both under the impression I would be living at school anyway when she signed her contract). My father also shared a one bedroom with his girlfriend so living with them was not an option. I spent my first semester jumping around between random family members' couches and friends' dorm room floors (at this time my grades also suffered so I can utilize this as a chance to explain that one semester of poor performance). When I realized I couldn't necessarily rely on my parents or anyone to take care of me anymore I decided to take on three jobs and build up my savings to be able to afford a low budget apartment near school for the next year. Consequently my grades improved and I started engaging in activities on campus that would lead to me choosing to attend law school. Could use this as an opportunity to talk about each job and the skills I improved through each.
Did you attend:
no, I did not attend last time.