Education

4 Things I Learned Reading My Law School Admission Essay

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Before I graduated law school, I asked the admissions coordinator for a copy of my law school admission essay. My request came as a surprise.

“Not many people ask to see those,” she said. “Are you okay?”

I told her not to worry. I was just wondering why I originally applied to law school. The thought came to me after reading an article that compared University of Toronto law school admission essays to what those eventual lawyers really did. The article contrasts high ideals with “the reality” in large corporate law firms.

“Did my motivations change?” I wondered.

When I looked through the cloud for my old application essay, I couldn’t find it. Somewhere in the five years, two laptops, and multiple cloud services I used since applying it had gotten lost. Our administrator was kind enough to give me a copy. Reading my law school application essay was one of the most important things I did before graduating.

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For anyone unfamiliar with law school, the admissions essay or “personal statement” is every applicant’s one chance to tell their story. It’s completely unstructured, often with no page limits or guidelines. The blank page stares back and says, “Tell me about yourself. Why do you want to go to law school?”

After half a decade, I didn’t expect my application essay to still ring true. A lot happened in the five years since I had applied. Wikileaks was just unfolding. Snowden. The Boston bombings. China also surpassed Japan as the world’s second-largest economy. It’s hard to say how much those events influenced me. In that time I had also completed two graduate-level degrees, made mistakes, and learned a lot about myself.

When I read my law school application essay I learned four things:

  1. Passion is about action. When I wrote that original essay, there were a lot of things I could have talked about. I could have talked about big issues, world events, or the importance of a legal education. My passion really shone through when I talked about action. What I did spoke far louder than anything I could have said. Taking on early roles as a community leader, mediator, researcher, and writer showed I already had a passion for doing what lawyers do–even if I didn’t really know what it was like to be a lawyer.
  2. Vulnerability is as important as strength. Law school admission essays can be awful to read. It can be very difficult to read someone else promote themselves. When all that’s presented is strength, we want to turn away because it’s not real.  After reading my essay, I thought the best part was my struggle (and eventual failure) to learn Japanese. Addressing failure helps us stay human. It helps us show our resiliency. And it makes us trustworthy. Nobody is perfect, and I’m glad I didn’t try to be.
  3. The only way to know “what you want to do next” is past experience. Ever heard someone complain that they’re not sure what they want to do for an education, a career, or a next move? That was me before I came to law school. I wasn’t sure if law was really for me, and my uncertainty comes through in my writing. The only information I was proceeding on was from past experiences. Not everyone has known what they want to do since they were born. I certainly didn’t. For most of us, “what to do next” comes from past experience. We need to constantly try new things to learn about ourselves to calibrate our compass for the way forward.
  4. Our most difficult moments define us and refine us. Strangely enough, I was encouraged to become a lawyer by my first tough experience in university. I had to find an apartment off-campus when all my friends were moving into residence; I had forgotten to hand in my housing forms on time. Two things happened after I moved into an apartment off-campus: (a) I became much more social and outgoing on campus. (b) I found out how to break my lease legally by researching the Residential Tenancies Act. That early experience could have made me give up. I could have stayed isolated off campus and stayed put. Instead, the experience forced me to grow.

After reading the essay, I was relieved to learn my motivations for going to law school hadn’t changed. I still want to use law to be a leader in my community.

If you’re in law school, I highly recommend you read your admission essay before you leave. It never hurts to re-calibrate your reasons for pursuing a long-term commitment. If you’re not in law school, but you’re thinking about committing to something or someone or somewhere for years, you should try writing a personal statement.

Leave a comment if you do read your admission essay. What does it say?

Failure Should Be a Graduation Requirement

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Every university and high-school student should be required to fail one course before graduating.

It’s easy to focus on achievement, and reward those who meet (or exceed) expectations of performance.  Our school system feeds its success obsession using standardized tests, pass rates, and college admissions as a measurement of its effectiveness.

The problem is that many of the highest achievers graduate without ever being challenged.  They never learn how to take risks and fail.

Failure Hitting the Ground

The pressure to have high pass rates have made it tough to actually fail in Ontario high schools.  I’m not saying we should celebrate the failure to show up to class, or failure from a total lack of effort.

Real failure is about trying your hardest, and still not making it.

If every student were challenged to that level, we’d have the opportunity to teach real life lessons.  How to ask for help.  How to come to terms with your weaknesses.  How to push on when you feel like giving up.

With admission averages to many competitive Ontario university programs continuing the “upward spiral” that began over a decade ago, it’s no wonder students are allergic to failure.

At my alma mater, the University of Waterloo, you only have a 40% chance of receiving an admission offer to civil, mechanical, or software engineering if your high-school grade point average (GPA) is between 85 and 90%.  If your GPA is between 91 and 95%, the probability of being admitted jumps to 85%.

I’m not an engineer, and frankly, I would have never been able to make into a program at Waterloo if I had applied.  Even with such high admission averages, Waterloo was failing an average of 20% of its first-year engineering classes.  This bothered people so much they suggested making changes to the first-year curriculum in 2010.

As a residence don for 1st year engineers at Waterloo, I witnessed first-hand what failure would do to some of those 18-year olds.  Adult responsibility for their own learning hit many of them like a truck.  Some reacted by doubling down and studying seriously for the first time in their lives.  Others escaped into virtual worlds online.

For those of us who overcame it, failure was the best lesson of our lives.  My first lesson with failure didn’t come until I took a Japanese course for credit, and was blown out of the water by classmates who had studied it as a second language in Hong Kong and China.  Failing test after test taught me how to push myself harder, to ask for help, and how to take responsibility for something marked with the letter “F.”

If every school required students to fail at least one course, it would make failing okay.  Students would be encouraged to take risks, and get seriously challenged without the risk of their average slipping to an unacceptable 89%.

To have the F count as course credit, the student should have to (1) reflect on why the failure happened, (2) make a plan to overcome it by using all the resources at their disposal, (3) develop a “plan B” if their first plan doesn’t work, (4) follow through with the plan, and (5) reflect on the experience.

What do you think?  Would this ever work?  Would this have enriched your overall experience in school, or should we wait until people graduate before they’re allowed to fail?

Don’t Bring Your Laptop to Class

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I don’t know when it happened, but law lectures have lost their terrifying charm.  In my experience, students’ unwillingness to speak up—and most teachers’ merciful unwillingness to demand answers—has replaced the Socratic method with more passive classroom learning.

Without that pressure, the need to thoroughly prepare  for the next day’s lecture has faded away.  Safely nuzzled into laptops, my 60+ fellow students can follow along with our lecture using a PowerPoint slide presentation, waiting for each legal issue to be pointed out.

The proud and the few who do prepare may be disappointed to find there is no class discussion they can use to flex their arguments.  Their interpretations are never challenged or questioned.

Law school doesn’t have to be like that.  Laptop learning can be done at home.  The classroom should be for vigorous advocacy and engagement with the material.

The Socratic Method

Do we have to go back to “Paper Chase”-style call and answer in class?  No, I don’t think so, even though it has its merits.  Being put on the spot, thinking on your feet, and applying the law to unpredictable questions are a great foundation for future skills as an advocate.

What’s missing is a greater emphasis on legal problem solving, instead of the more narrowly focused case method.  Is it possible to have it both ways?

I’d like to ask legal teachers to consider taking a new approach.  Here are some elements I’d like to see in my next lecture:

  1. Demand preparedness: ask students who aren’t prepared to leave
  2. Provide—or work with students to develop—materials to learn doctrinal fundamentals at home, so people don’t come to class to type a transcript of your lecture
  3. Focus on practical problems in class.  Start the lecture with an interesting exam-style fact pattern.  Use that as a lead-in to the area of law the students are about to spend four to eight months investigating.  Talk strategy.  Talk about what the case means for future litigants.  Refer back to the case as a concrete example for core concepts.
  4. Draw out quiet participants.  Reward participation.
  5. Make the back row of students sit in the front row.
  6. Ask that laptops be shut, bowed down, or left at home.  If students are dependent on typing what you are saying in class, they didn’t read the material.

Do you have a Professor or instructor who teaches like this?  Let me know in the comments below. I’ve met a few, but it isn’t the norm.

We shouldn’t leave law school without speaking up, advocating for a position, or making eye contact.  For our future clients, let’s try leaving our laptop at home.

The Liberal Arts: Irrelevant in a Digital Age?

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University degrees are splintering into a wider range of disciplines than ever before.  New programs are starting to blend traditional disciplines with cutting edge technology like nanotechnology engineering, or creating entirely new mixes that more accurately serve the needs of the workplace.  The pile of programs and credentials available may be daunting, but students are not complaining — the higher their chances of obtaining full time employment after graduation, the better.  That makes the case for studying liberal arts increasingly difficult in the face of such a diverse array of more “real world” degrees.  The question is, is there still a place for the world’s oldest degree in a digital age?

Several years ago there was a flurry of positive rhetoric in the media about the value of a liberal arts degree, but the voices died down in the shadow of the sub-prime recession.  Just like everyone else, BA holders continue to graduate into less than ideal hiring conditions, and have to work harder than the average applicant to convince people of the value of their degree.  Part of the challenge is a negative perception of arts majors, and sizable number of arts graduates competing for the same positions.  For these reasons and more, the humanities and social sciences are as unappealing as ever — so how do the lucky few overcome the negativity?

It’s about Passion – Period.

In the wide world of university, arguments abound about the merits of a particular degree.  It used to be that a university diploma was your rolled up ticket into a job, and in some limited spheres it still is.  So when in doubt, people are cajoled into signing up for a degree that will “guarantee” them a job.   There are many reasons for going to university, and I think getting a job is as valid a reason as any other.  However, spending 4 years of time and potential income on any subject you’re not passionate about isn’t guaranteeing anything but misery.

The question is, is there still a place for the world’s oldest degree in a digital age?

If liberal arts has one strength, it tends to be the passion that people have for it over other disciplines.  If you are passionate about what you study, the information tends to stay with you.  Too many people spend their undergraduate degrees dispassionately passing courses just to get by… And what good is that?  If you graduate from the most elite job-guaranteeing program in the country, and you hated every minute of it, do you think you’ll enjoy the job waiting for you?  I’m not saying that living on a cloud for 4 years and graduating into poverty is ideal.  I believe that pursuit of passion naturally makes you more successful because you’re personally invested in the outcome.  If your passion is Actuarial Science, all the better for you.  For the rest of us, we should study something we enjoy!

Career Development Happens Between Classes

When you graduate, degree in hand, many other people will too.  If all that sets you apart are the letters on your degree, it may be difficult to prove you’re the best person for the job.  So how do you differentiate yourself?

The fact is that real career development happens between classes. In most cases, it’s true that students in professional programs like accounting and engineering are given crippling workloads that far exceeds the demands of your typical essay writing arts student.  When it comes to career development, however, this can be a blessing in disguise.

With the additional free time that a flexible arts degree provides, an enterprising student has time to work part time, network, get involved in academic life and still come out with great marks.  Is this a substitution for a degree in software engineering?  Absolutely not.  But there is enough room outside the academic demands of a typical arts degree to get immersed in what you love doing.  Outside class is a perfect place to practice networking, traveling, and upgrading your technical skills.  There is nothing stopping an ambitious political science student from becoming a PhotoShop wizard or web designer.  Don’t wait until you have your degree to develop your interests; in any discipline the best career skills are learned outside the classroom.

What you Learn becomes Irrelevant; How you Learn Never Does

Quickly after you graduate from university studies, the specific tidbits of knowledge you learned will fade away, becoming less and less important as “real life” experience takes over.  The details become obscured, but the core skills you learned stay with you for a long time.  How to research, attack a problem, meet new people, do a presentation, and write coherently are all skills you can come away from university with — or not.  It’s up to you.  The more varied your experiences are, the more of these foundational skills you’ll come away with.  Combined with passion and personal initiative, a liberal arts degree allows you the freedom to develop transferable skills that set you apart.

Now and in the future, the latest greatest most specialized university program will always be in demand.  Amid the vast selection of  “real world” degrees and their promise of a 98% employment rate, remember that you are paying for an experience, so make sure it’s a good one.  Liberal arts have stayed relevant for centuries, and will continue to do so despite what the critics say.  Above all, study what you love, develop your skills outside the classroom and the rest will come naturally.