The Law School for Veterans series was written by a friend of the site who is a current veteran student at a Top 10 Law School. Going from the military to law school can be a popular option for many veterans looking to take advantage of their GI Bill and this part of the series is all about the Law School Application.
Today’s topic continues past the uGPA (if you don’t know what this is by now, head back to Part I) and LSAT and into the rest of the contents of your law school application packet. But before we get started, I must reiterate that the uGPA and LSAT numbers are, in my opinion, 90% of what matters in your application.
What we are about to discuss is the remaining 10%. Do not be fooled into assuming that because uGPA and LSAT were covered in part III and the remainder is covered in part IV, they are given equal weight in this process. They are not. If your time is limited, focus on part III, not here.
For those of you who have your uGPA and LSAT in order, though, it’s time to consider the rest of your packet. I’ll start with a list of what a completed application packet consists of:
- The Standard Form Application
- uGPA/LSAT Scores
- A Resume
- A Personal Statement
- At Least 2 Letters of Recommendation
- (Optional) A Diversity Statement
- (Optional) Other Essays
- (Optional) uGPA/LSAT Addenda
- (Optional) Character and Fitness Addenda
- The School Application Fee
- The CAS Fee
All of this is done through LSAC which you should be intimately familiar with considering you’ve already given LSAC hundreds of dollars for the pleasure of them compiling your grades and administering the LSAT for you. We’ll look into each piece of the application one by one, but first I want to speak a bit on the more holistic nature of your application.
Your application should tell a consistent story. That is, each part of the application should make sense when considered with the whole. No part should feel out of place. That much seems obvious.
But what many fail to see is that your application should also not be redundant. What do I mean by that? For instance: if your personal statement is simply a rehash of your resume, you haven’t made full use of your personal statement. Rather, you’ve annoyed the reader by making them read your resume twice.
Likewise, if you’ve chosen to write any of the optional essays and they’re simply a new take on the same angle you’ve taken in your personal statement, think again. You know how much you hate that boss who wastes your time? If you are saying the same things over and over in your essays, you’re wasting the time of the admissions officer reading your packet.
Rule 1 should be “Don’t piss off the admissions officer.”
I say again, each piece of the application should have its place in a story, should further some general theme, and none of it should be redundant. I’ll provide a few good examples of what I feel this looks like at the end of this entry once I’ve outlined each piece of the application packet.
The Standard Form Application
This is the last step in the process (other than paying) and will be initiated through lsac.org when all your other documents are uploaded and ready for submission. The law school application form itself must be completed individually for each school. Once you complete the form, you attach all the other documents to the application and authorize LSAC to send it to the school for you. This is all fairly standard, and perhaps the least-stressful portion of the application process.
But I must caution you. One day, four years down the line, when you have graduated law school and are applying for the state bar in the state where you wish to practice, this application WILL be read again by a state official who has also conducted a third-party background check on you.
It’s essential that this application and that background check match. This includes information you provide on your application about: all schools attended, disciplinary records, criminal records, job history, and more. If your law school application and third-party background check do not match, you have a problem.
If you do not have evidence supporting why your application materials are correct and why the background check is incorrect, it casts doubt on your “character and fitness to practice law” and will likely be the impetus for further digging into your past. This could even result in administrative proceedings to ensure you aren’t a scumbag before they admit you. It’s not quite as intensive as an SF 86 for a TS/SCI clearance, but you would do well to fill out your applications as if they ARE an SF 86 just to avoid this trouble down the line.
When you are answering questions about whether you’ve been arrested or been subject to any academic discipline, you MUST be honest here. Do not think you’re going to sneak a DUI past the state bar and conveniently “forget” to list it on your application. You’ve been warned before. I warn you now. I will warn you again. Be honest.
In this case the cover up is far worse than the crime.
uGPA and LSAT Scores
These are already taken care of by LSAC through their Credential Assembly Service (CAS) and will be included with your application once you’ve completed the evaluation and paid the ridiculous (I think it was around $400) fee. This is the first thing you should focus on. But the law school application itself also asks you for individual scores to each test you took. List them honestly. Some applications even ask if you’ve taken the GMAT/GRE/MCAT. If you’ve taken those tests as well, you need to list those scores too. Simple stuff here, really. Part III gives you detailed information on how to make these scores (again, 90% of the strength of your application) as good as they can be.
The Resume
Do NOT take your most recent OER/NCOER and convert it, word for word, to resume form. Most military bullets are too technical and obtuse for the average civilian to understand. You need to rewrite your resume in an industry-standard format and translate your skills into civilian language. I am not a resume expert, but some bullets are easier to convert than others.
Mark here. Here’s a helpful article from the site to get you started on your resume.
If you have any bullets that cover your responsibility for money, these are easy to convert. The civilian world understands you being responsible for money and not losing it or stealing it. If you were responsible for leading a team that trained OPFOR for pre-combat simulations, that one is much harder to convert.
Rule of thumb? Lean into the skill that potential lawyers would value and rewrite the bullet around that. Something like, “trained and led a team of 12 individuals in order to complete a series of high-intensity, last-minute directives” would be much closer to what you want that bullet to say. The “high intensity” and “last-minute” inclusions in the resume approximate exactly what lawyers think that they do, whether it’s true or not.
A good test for your resume is to hand it to someone you know with a white collar job and ask them if there’s any part of it that they don’t understand. If they are confused by anything, either rewrite those parts or throw them out. If you do choose to get professional help on creating your resume, I think that’s a decent investment to make. If you’re still on active duty, most education centers will help you with this for free. Also, check out Service2School. They have resources and dedicated law school students to help you.
One final note, you are not important enough for your resume to exceed one page. Brevity is the soul of wit. It’s also professional. Get everything listed on a clean one page.
The Personal Statement
This is the part of the law school application where you have the opportunity to give “voice” to everything else in the application. This is a two-page, double-spaced open-ended essay that is standard for every law school application. You will use the same personal statement for every school. You can literally write about ANYTHING you want. But the key here is to tell the school who you are and what you have done that makes you a complete person and ideal candidate for a professional school. It should usually shed some light on why it makes sense that you are applying to law school.
This can be done in so many different ways that it’s almost impossible to explain how to do it right. Instead, having read a ton of these and edited them for others, I’ll share with you the most common mistakes that military applicants make with their personal statement. If you can avoid these, you’re already well on the right track.
Mistake 1: “The Team” vs “I”
This is, by a factor of some magnitude, the most common mistake I see in military applicants’ personal statements. We were all taught to take the “I” out of our vocabulary in the military. In fact, those of us who went to a BCT or a Boot Camp of some sort weren’t even allowed to say the word. Because of that training, we only speak of our success in relation to our teams. And while that’s admirable and part of what makes you unique as an applicant, the law school is NOT ADMITTING YOUR TEAM AS A WHOLE and, as such, they need to hear about YOU, not the team.
This leads me to a bit of an aside. You need to get used to talking about yourself as an “I” as opposed to a “my team”. I realize this feels unsavory to most of you – it still feels that way to me and I’m four years into this process. But the bottom line in the legal world is that you are being hired for a technical position as an associate attorney and your employer wants to know that you can do the technical job.
Mark’s note: This is true for whatever you want to do in the civilian world.
Chances are that you never advance to the position where you have ownership over more than your own work product, so they don’t care at all about your ability to manage a team. Yes, this is to their detriment a few years down the line when they NEED small team managers to coordinate product, but law firms fire people all the time (“Right to Work” is code language for “Right to Fire You Whenever and for Whatever Reason”) and so leadership failure is just another landmine that, if you step on it, they use to justify letting you go.
They don’t particularly care if you’re a good team manager. They care if you can do the operative legal work. In the Army we called this the “dash 10” level. The operator. The bottom of the ladder. That’s what you are for a legal employer. That’s what you are to a law school. Save your leadership skills for ten years down the road when they’re useful to your employer. If you bring them out too early you look like someone who isn’t willing to start at the bottom and pay the dues everyone must pay.
Mistake 2: “Others” vs “I”
A cousin of mistake 1, you don’t want to spend precious space in your personal statement talking about the journey of someone else. Don’t talk about the plight of a local national worker on your COP in Afghanistan. Don’t talk about how your parents struggled to get you into the Academy. Don’t talk about your dog’s plight for health. This statement should be about nobody but you.
You need to talk about YOU.
If your personal statement doesn’t have a bunch of sentences that start with “I” then you’re probably doing it wrong. You want some sort of hook or story that leads with “I…” Then you want some sort of learning process that jives with that story where you talk about what “I” learned. Then you want some forward-looking goal which “I” am going to achieve, preferably one that necessitates law school. That’s the blueprint for what this should be.
Again, I know it’s disgusting to think about using “I” that much. But “I” is exactly who the readers of your application are interested in and you are a fool if you give them something, or someone, else.
Mistake 3: Poorly Written
This really should go without saying, but just to be safe, here it goes.
There is no excuse for typos in your personal statement.
You’re trying to prove that you’re a professional and that you’re suitable for a professional role that uses legal writing. If you can’t master subject/verb agreement in a two-page document, what hope do you have?
This essay is a proxy for how you will communicate professionally in the future. If it shows the editing care of a 7th grader, the admissions officer reading it will assume that’s also how you will communicate with potential employers. They don’t want their school’s name associated with a sloppy product. Yes, it’s branding. They are the brand. You, as a potential product, are an extension of their brand. The school wants to attract potential employers with polished students who are ready to bust their butts for the employers. If you’re not polished, you’re not wanted.
Mark’s note: I’m sorry? Are your feelings hurt? Oh great. Here’s a giant pile of “no one cares.” That’s the same you will get from the admissions committee. Read this to understand more.
Furthermore, beware of long sentences and the passive voice. I fully understand that this is hypocritical after you’ve spent an hour reading my musings. The fact is, simple sentences that draw logical conclusions from point A to point B are the crux of legal writing. Long-winded self-flagellating musings critiquing reason are better saved for master’s programs in creative writing and philosophy. You want your documents to be easy to read. If you don’t know what this means, find someone who does and have them proofread your essays.
While we’re on that topic, proofread, proofread, proofread.
Again, consider your audience. I’m not writing for a professional audience in this article, I just want to give you the 100% honest truth. That involves using language that isn’t necessarily professional. Guess what? I STILL proofread my work several times before I send it to the editor of this site for publishing. My job is not only to make this information accessible to you, but to make my editor’s job as easy as possible. Your writing should assume this level of professionalism. There’s nothing worse than reading material that hasn’t been proofread.
Editor’s note: And I proofread again. My best advice for your personal statement? Write it. Read it. Read it again OUT LOUD. Send it to others who will give you honest feedback.
If I’ve not made this clear by implication, I will now:
A personal statement is not something to crank out in a day.
I spent a month on mine, writing or editing for thirty minutes almost every day. I had other professionals who knew what they were doing read it and edit it. I took their notes and crafted it down to a solid two pages. Then I proofread it every day for a week making tiny changes. It took some real effort. But I’m proud of the product. I know that I couldn’t have written something better. That was good peace of mind.
Letters of Recommendation
This causes more consternation for military applicants than it should. Yes, most schools want academic letters of recommendation; most of applicants are coming directly from undergraduate studies. If you have a recent academic recommendation from a professor who knows you well, bully for you. Use it. If you don’t, and many of us don’t, you can still satisfy the LOR requirement by getting one letter from your direct supervisor and one letter from your commander. I did exactly this and it did not hurt me whatsoever.
The catch? You don’t get to read the letters before they’re submitted.
Here’s how that works:
You send LSAC the contact information for your recommenders. LSAC sends them the link for submission. They write the letter. They send it without showing it to you. That’s how it’s supposed to work. Once they’ve submitted it, it’s in the system. You then attach it blindly to each application.
Here’s the secret about letters of recommendation. If they’re good, they matter very little in this game. Almost every applicant has two letters of recommendation that speak to them in glowing terms. They’re usually on point and concern what makes the applicant an ideal candidate for law school.
So why are they even in the packet?
There’s a chance (a small one, admittedly) that your recommender actually writes you a BAD letter. Want to scuttle the rest of your packet past “the numbers”? Attach a bad letter of recommendation to your packet. Because you don’t get to see it before it’s submitted, you would never even know!
It goes without saying, then, that it pays to have an honest conversation with your potential recommenders about what you’re asking of them before you give their information to LSAC. If they are at all reticent about writing you a letter, just move on and ask someone else. It’s far better to have two boring, boilerplate positive letters from lower-level supervisors than to have a lame letter from someone with more power.
Most law school admissions officers don’t know a PFC from QVC. There’s no need to stress over this. This especially applies if you interned for a General or an Admiral and they barely remember your name. It shows poor judgment asking them to write you a letter when they can’t say anything specific about you. Instead, ask for letters from people who know you well and can speak to your potential as a law student.
Optional: Diversity Statement
If you grew up in a background that is underserved in the legal sphere, this is your chance to talk about how you would benefit the legal community by bringing your experience to the profession. The goal here is to add more nuance to your law school application and round yourself out as a person who the legal profession benefits from hiring.
Your same diversity statement will be included with each application to which you choose to attach it. The essay itself assumes the same structure as your personal statement, but it should not tell the same story. Some common situations that might warrant a diversity statement in your application include:
- You are an underrepresented minority group member (definitely write one)
- You are an immigrant (definitely write one)
- You are disabled (definitely write one)
- You grew up DIRT POOR (lean toward writing one)
- You are a first-generation college student (lean toward writing one)
- The military was your way out of a bad situation (50/50)
- Generic military experience (lean toward NOT writing one)
If you are a generic applicant, you lose NOTHING by choosing not to write a diversity statement. In fact, you stand to lose more writing one by demonstrating bad judgment.
Example?
If all your friends went to private school but your parents forced you to go to public school, that would be a POOR topic for a diversity statement.
You should not write one. If you don’t have an immediate hook for a diversity statement in your head, it’s probably best not to write one. Diversity statements should be so personal to your development that they influence your every day in some manner. If this is not you, just move on to the next section.
For those of you who do have that hook, however, it pays to follow the advice above for the personal statement. You have your initial story, your list of lessons learned, and your forward-facing mission. “I” statements are again crucial, but much easier to use here because the topic is usually so personal. Once again, cleanliness and professionalism rule the day. Even though this topic is more emotional, it does not absolve you from the need to write cleanly and clearly.
Optional: Other Essays or your Law School Application
Certain schools have optional essays that they want included. LSAC’s applications will have a checklist that will alert you to this information. You can also check it out by searching the applications portal for each school to which you want to apply for a checklist. Having said that, though there are some outliers (Yale, Stanford, and Georgetown come to mind), most schools will only really be interested in a “Why X School” optional essay. I recommend writing one of these statements for every school to which you apply. Is it overkill? Probably.
Can it help you? Possibly. Let me show you how.
Imagine you’re an applicant who took your preparation seriously and ended up with a 3.9 uGPA and a 172 LSAT. You are competitive for almost every school in the T14 including Harvard. But you want to go work as a prosecutor in Minneapolis. You’re tied there because your spouse can’t leave the area.
When you apply to the University of Minnesota, you 100% MUST include a “Why Minnesota” essay in your application. Why? Because Minnesota KNOWS that you’re competitive for Harvard solely based on your numbers, and without that essay they’re going to assume you will eventually go to Harvard or Penn or Virginia and so Minnesota won’t be rolling out the red carpet for you. They might even waitlist you! Why? Because if they admit you and you choose not to attend, it affects their “yield” metrics upon which they are judged by the bosses.
Don’t allow this to happen to you. Write a short, 1-page essay about why you want to attend their University. This will soften their fears and turn you from a “meh” into a “YES!” in their eyes.
For almost that same reason, you should write “Why X” for every school that isn’t Harvard, Yale, or Stanford. Those schools KNOW why you want to attend. They don’t need your extra BS. But the other schools want to know that if they admit you, you will attend. This essay helps prove that.
As for content? Keep it to one page. Keep it succinct. But also keep it true. You’re applying there for a reason. Tell the story of why. This goes without saying, but it shouldn’t be “you are a highly-ranked school.” That’s not enough, even if that’s 90% of the reason. It helps to talk with someone at that school before you apply and then name-drop them in this essay. That’s a nice easy way to get yourself a hook. Add that name drop to the school’s “ability to place you in your XYZ desired job” and you’ve got yourself enough for this essay. Don’t overthink it.
Optional: uGPA/LSAT Addenda
But BEWARE, these should be short sentences for a small paragraph that explain boring facts, not some grand story. For instance, a uGPA addendum might read like this:
“I am applying with a 3.19 uGPA. When I began my undergraduate education, I chose an engineering major for which I was uninterested and unsuited. After three semesters at a 2.5, I switched to political science, where I found much more success. During my last three semesters I earned a 3.93 GPA.”
If you have some sort of discrepancy between scores here, either in your undergrad record or the LSAT, it might make some sense to provide some color for your application that explains the discrepancy.That’s it. That’s the story. There’s no crying or begging, just information. It at least puts the thought in your head that you’re more than the 3.19 on your application, even though you will be a 3.19 in their metrics. An LSAT addendum might be even shorter:
“I mistakenly took the LSAT in February of 2019 without preparing properly. My score of 152 is a reflection of that lack of preparation. After preparing more diligently, I earned my current score of 168 in September of 2019.”
Boom. Simple. Total story. It takes away the shock of a reader seeing a 152 and a 168 in your score log. Since they only count the highest score in their metrics, this isn’t entirely necessary. But it does answer the obvious question.
One aside here: These addenda are almost never going to matter much in your law school application anywhere except in the margins. If a school suddenly needs to pull five applicants off the waitlist in June, they’re likely going to go with applicants who have provided a clear picture of who they are. This is just another way to help do that. Do NOT expect to addendum your way around bad numbers. Every school where your numbers are below both medians is an assumed reject no matter what you say in your addenda.
Optional: Character and Fitness Addenda
These are much trickier to write. The first hurdle to clear is whether you should write one at all. The standard form application will list a series of questions that, if you answer “yes” to them, you will need to add an addendum explaining that answer. If you have a few speeding tickets over the course of 5 years in your app as the only mark against your character and fitness, an addendum is not necessary, unless it’s specifically asked for. If you have a DUI, or you were ever suspended from college, you 100% need to write something explaining it.
Pretty simple, if you answer “yes” on the application, you write an addendum. Here’s how you do that:
- Describe the facts (uncolored) in as detailed a manner as possible.
- Take full, unqualified responsibility for your actions.
- Make sure you haven’t deflected any blame toward anyone else.
- Describe what you’ve learned from this situation and how it will never happen again.
For example:
“In April of 2016, when I was a freshman in college, I was involved in a physical altercation at a party. The police were called, I was detained, and I spent the night in jail. Though charges were ultimately never filed, I learned that I must be more careful about the choices I make. Since that day I have steered clear of any other altercations and have invested in my own ability to de-escalate situations where others might show anger. I learned that I ultimately am responsible for my role in any future altercation and I am confident that, if faced with a similar situation, it would never happen again.”
This is a good C&F addendum, even if it is a little long. It addresses the situation noting the honest facts. It takes full responsibility for the individual’s actions. And it shows what that individual learned. Perhaps most importantly, it doesn’t deflect any blame. It doesn’t badmouth the police. It doesn’t discuss what the other person’s role was. It doesn’t even mention anyone else. Perhaps most importantly, your story of what you learned is believable since, presumably, you don’t have other addenda to share.
The school disciplinary addendum can be even trickier. If you have any sort of academic dishonesty in your background, this is a serious offense and must be addressed. Be careful of oversharing, though. Just the facts:
“During spring semester of 2018, I collaborated with a classmate on a physics homework assignment which was against the rules of the course. My professor noticed, and when confronted, I admitted fault. I received an F on the assignment and completed the class with a grade of C. I am still upset with myself for having done this. I made a stupid decision in a moment of stress that I regret to this day. Ultimately, I learned a harsh lesson about how breaking the rules is not the answer. I have never again broken the rules on an assignment and I never will.”
The most important thing in these addenda is taking individual responsibility. You will not “explain away” a DUI or academic probation. Take responsibility for it. Talk about what you learned. Explain why you remain confident that it will never happen again.
The Law School Application Fees
It costs somewhere between $40 and $140 to apply to a single law school. Luckily, many schools are moving away from individual school application fees. For the schools who still have application fees, you can typically get these fees waived by emailing their admissions office with your LSAC account number and a copy of either your DD214 (not recommended unless requested specifically) or your ORB/ERB (a lot less sensitive information in there).
The LSAC fee, unfortunately, is not so easily waivable. A good rule of thumb at this point is just to assume each law school application will cost $50 after you’ve sent your fee waiver requests. I applied to 26 (too many) schools when I went through this process. Even in 2018 that cost me about $1,200. Had I not used the process for soliciting fee waivers it would have been double that cost.
Law School Application Packet Examples
Having talked about each individual piece of the application packet, let’s look at a few hypothetical success stories.
Applicant 1:
26-year-old, white, male ROTC grad from rural South Carolina who was a Marine logistics officer. 100% GI Bill. He took the LSAT the maximum number of times in a year (3) and got a 152, 162, and 166. His uGPA is 3.8. He is applying to schools only in the D.C. area as he is married and his wife has a job on the Hill and they can’t move. He has one minor-in-possession (alcohol) charge from 6 years ago that was dismissed.
Applicant 1 writes his personal statement about learning how much the rules of logistics acquisitions are influenced by the different interpretations of those rules and how that has shown him that interpreting and drafting legislation is of great interest to him. He talked with a few lawyers his wife knows from her job and decided he wants to be a lawyer too. He now knows that the skills he learned in his logistics job have prepared him well.
That’s a great PS topic.
He does not write a diversity statement. He’s white and didn’t grow up poor. It would be in poor taste to write one about his service, he thinks. He writes both an LSAT addendum explaining his jump in scores as well as an addendum giving an honest account of his MIP citation. He applies to Georgetown, George Washington, UVA, William & Mary, and American. He writes a “Why X School” for each of these schools, explaining how he is tied to the area and cannot leave the vicinity because of his wife. He ties that to the opportunities he would have from each school. He sees that Georgetown also has an additional optional essay (he found it on their website) and he writes that too.
He has a long cycle but ultimately he gets into four of the five schools including both Georgetown and George Washington.
Success!
Applicant 2:
30-year-old, Iranian American, female USAF Academy grad who flew planes. She has a 173 LSAT (first try) and a 3.4 uGPA. Moved to America when she was 7, grew up in Chicago. Diagnosed with ADHD when she was 10. 100% GI Bill. She is applying to the entirety of the T14 plus a few “super regional” schools. She has four speeding tickets on her record but nothing else.
Applicant 2 has an interesting decision to make. She almost has too much to write about. Since it’s so much of her identity, she writes her personal statement about being an immigrant, and the lessons it taught her that have driven her toward law school. She then writes her diversity statement about having been a female at the USAF with ADHD and how she had significant challenges to overcome.
She adds a uGPA addendum explaining that her GPA as reflected at her institution in her major (engineering) is actually considered impressive. She knows it won’t boost “the numbers” but at least she can color it a bit for the reader. She does not write a C&F addendum for her speeding tickets. They didn’t rise to the level where she had to answer “yes” to any of the application’s C&F questions. She writes a “Why X School” addendum for each of the 17 schools she applies to giving honest reasons why attending those schools makes sense for her. It takes a long time.
In the end she gets 6 offers for admission and ends up at Northwestern.
Another success!
Conclusion
Law School Applications should be viewed both by their individual parts as well as the whole. For every piece of information you convey, ask yourself “does this contribute to the story I’m trying to tell?”
I’ll offer one last piece of advice: All of this takes time.
The reason I tell people to start LSAT prep so early is because the more corners you cut during preparation for each step of this process, the less likely you will be to succeed. Time is your best resource and the easiest one to mistakenly sacrifice. It is almost always better to sit out a cycle than to apply late. The sweet spot for applying is between September 1 and October 31. A complete, best-of-your-ability packet is still probably okay before Christmas. If you’re still not ready in January, start thinking about sitting out a year.
I’ll get into further detail about this timeline in Part V: The Application Cycle.
Next: Military to Law School: The Application Cycle (Part 5/7)
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