What should I talk about in a law school admissions essay?

In the most general terms, you should talk about something positive about yourself that isn’t apparent from the rest of your application.

Importantly, your essay need not—and for many people, should not—be about why you want to be a lawyer or what kind of law you want to practice. To wit, if your essay boils down to “being a lawyer seemed like a good fit for my intellectual abilities,” talk about something else. It will be apparent from your grades and LSAT scores whether law is a good intellectual fit for you. And the fact that you’re applying to law school is itself evidence of your baseline interest in law; an essay about your interest in the law should be backed up by something far more compelling.

On that note, if your essay is about how you loved mock trial, talk about something else. You might as well say you want to be a lawyer because you liked watching Suits. Even if you’re one of the people who won mock trial awards, just put that on your resume, not in your essay. Unless your claim is something on the level of “my dad died from medical malpractice and I see it as my life’s work to make sure patients and their survivors get justice,” you would be better off choosing a different topic and angle for your essay.

Just the same, if your story is essentially about how you crashed out of another field and chose law as a backup, talk about something else. Now, there’s nothing wrong with switching into law from another career—I did that myself. But it’s not a good topic for an essay unless you can articulate why the switch reflects positively upon you. For instance, one of my classmates was once a front-line union employee. She wrote about how going to law school would help her advance the legal interests of union members and that her experience would make her a better labor lawyer than someone who had never been in that position.

Why might you be a good lawyer? What have you learned thus far in your life that you hope to apply in your legal career?

Note that these questions can be answered without any reference to past legal or legal-adjacent experience. You can absolutely talk about your experience as an amusement park worker, a telemarketer, or a college club president. The key is that the essay reveals something about you that evidences your intellect, character, and drive.