Personal Statement Consider This Personal

Personal Statement

Consider this personal statement an opportunity to introduce yourself to the Admissions Committee and specific interest in Northwestern University School of Law.

What does a potential lawyer seek from his or her legal education today? What does a prospective student of the law demand from his or her law school, in terms of building his or her practical skills as a lawyer, as well as intellectually preparing him or herself for the practice of the law? And what, of course, does the prospective law student hope to give back to the scholastic community as a scholar, student, and future attorney? All of these questions cannot be definitively answered before one attends law school, however the resources of The Northwestern School of Law provide some possible solutions to such probing questions that are on the mind of every thoughtful law school applicant.

Eclecticism and diversity is key to Northwestern's approach -- it gives students a strong background in the basics of the law and a core, traditional legal education, yet it also has substantial resources to enable its students to relate their nature to the increasingly global nature of the law, as issues of economics, politics, and humanitarian concerns cannot always be neatly confined within borders. Moreover, it stresses for the need for effective, clear communication for lawyers, as is underlined by its requirement for all first year students to take a legal communication course. This acknowledges another reality of the legal field -- as legal language becomes increasingly arcane and obfuscating, lawyers must strive to express themselves with greater rather than less clarity.