Crafting a Winning Law School
Personal Statement
Presenter: Karen Buttenbaum
Partner, Spivey Consulting Group
Our webinar will begin promptly at 7:30 p.m., EST.
You are invited to type in questions prior to the start of the webinar.
Our presenter
Karen Buttenbaum
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15 year veteran of law school admissions
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From 2001-2013, she was a voting
member of the admissions committee at
Harvard Law School
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16,000 applications and interviewing
over 1,000 applicants
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Member of the Massachusetts Bar
Insights About Law Admissions from
Eamon Ladewski
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Associate Director of Admissions,
Michigan State College of Law
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Seven cumulative years of
admissions experience, most
recently at Notre Dame Law School
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Assisted and counseled thousands
of students through every level of
the law school admissions process
WHY IT
MATTERS
(IN A NUTSHELL)
A TALE OF TWO
STATEMENTS
THE BAD
THE GOOD
85% 15%
WHAT MAKES THE BAD, BAD?
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Wrong Audience in Mind
Poor Judgment
Sloppy
Top 10 mistakes
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Not proofreading your own work.
Restating your resume in paragraph form.
Talking about someone else more than yourself.
Trying to make something out of nothing.
Thinking that the essay needs to be all about why law or why a certain law
school.
Focusing too much on your career plans.
Declaring love for one area of law without knowing anything about it.
Repetitious use of certain words.
Too much information.
Using too many unnecessary words and/or lack of precision with the words you
use.
WHAT ABOUT THAT OTHER 15%?
• Something that YOU are passionate
about
• Tells a story
• Puts a smile on the face of the reader
- Doesn’t mean the story has to be
about an achievement
- Some of the best are about
failures
THE THREE MOST IMPORTANT ELEMENTS
(1) (2) (3)
BE
COMPELLING
LEAVE THE READER
BE PROFESSIONAL
WITH A FOND
IMPRESSION OF YOU
WHAT DOES A GOOD PS LOOK LIKE?
I sit and I play. I play until it is too dark to
read my music. Then comes that
indescribable moment, sought by all
musicians, when thinking becomes
subordinate to instinct. The music is no
longer just sound, but poetry spoken from
within.
I love to play French horn at dusk. Before I
begin to play, I imagine the most beautiful
conglomeration of sounds and expressions
traveling through the air. I take a deep
breath and immerse myself in the music
that I love so much.
Playing a Strauss concerto or a Beethoven
sonata represents, for me, the culmination
of countless hours of practice and hard
work deciphering fingerings, tempos and
pitches. In this transcendent moment,
though, when I play in the darkness of the
room, I think not of the fingerings and the
intervals that I need to execute, but rather
of the expression and interpretations that
make the music mine. I play late into the
night with nothing on my mind other than
trying to make each note I play the most
beautiful and sonorous sound. I hear the
ethereal tone of my horn echoing off the
walls and saturating the air.
There is something intoxicating about
dwelling in a single moment in time. Hours
spent trying to perfect a note that is born
in the soul and travels through the air to
live no more. The endless pursuit of one
moment of perfection ultimately not mine
to have and to hold. My life is spent
pursuing these moments.
WHAT DOES A GOOD PS LOOK LIKE? (CONT.)
In college, I found that my fascination with
musicality and expression translated easily to
literature. When I first read Lolita, I
recognized in Nabokov’s writing the same
lyricism that I always strive for when playing
French horn. I saw the same passion I so
often feel “in the moment of music.” I
immediately fell under the spell of Nabokov’s
enchanting prose and artfully chosen
words. It was the most beautiful story I had
ever read—the story of a grown man, head
over heels in love, driven to murder by
forbidden concupiscence. I began to
empathize with this man, thinking to myself,
“How terrible to love someone so much…
someone so unattainable.” And just like that, I
found myself rooting for a pedophile.
Perhaps it was my passion for music that
allowed me to fully see this side of Nabokov’s
“hero.” Life is rarely black and white. I found
that I could empathize with someone who
was desperately trying to hold onto
something so poignantly beautiful, something
that could never last, while at the same time
being completely aware of his gaping flaws.
As I learned reading Lolita, Nabokov’s clear
love for and mastery of language,
while incongruently romantic, is at the same
time capable of transforming the depths of
one’s perception and understanding of the
world. There is a power in words, not only to
entertain and enlighten, but also to persuade,
convince and even transport. I have seen this
power manifested in the plea of an applicant
for political asylum, in the argument crafted
on his behalf and in the judge’s ultimate
decision, which can bring a human being out
of danger and to a new life. It is this power of
expression and my desire to master it that
draws me to the law.
Q&A
Upcoming programming
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Wednesday, November 5, 7:30 p.m., EST: Career
Options and Market Outlook for Attorneys
Wednesday, November 12, 7:30 p.m., EST: Expert
Advice as You Plan for Law School and a Legal
Career
Wednesday, November 19, 12:00 p.m., EST: Careers
in Private Practice and Government
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Additional Events Hosted by MSU Law
On Campus
• Friday, October 24: Lunch and Learn: Tips for
Assembling Your MSU Law Application for Admission
• Tuesday, November 11: Admissions Reception with
Alumni, Students and Faculty
Virtual Events
• Wednesday, October 22: Video Consulting Session
• Tuesday, November 4: Online Chat
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Contact MSU Law Admissions for a free
copy of our LSAT Prep Guide:
[email protected]
or
517-432-0222
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Thank you for joining us!
Karen Buttenbaum:
Eamon Ladewski:
[email protected]
http://spiveyconsulting.com/blog/
[email protected]