It's no secret that graduate school has long been the hideaway for many an indecisive, unsure, noncommittal student. Those who studied the liberal arts often see law school as a way to turn a seemingly useless degree into the building block of a valuable asset--a JD. Add to this group those who are genuinely driven to become lawyers and you have quite a competition. However, add to that number the hordes of recent college graduates and the newly unemployed trying to gain more skills and wait out the storm of the bad economy in law school and you have a serious fight on your hands.
Show Where You're Going by Using Where You've Been
In the current application climate the second most important message to send with one's application--behind "I'm very well qualified for admittance on paper"--is "I'm not just applying because I don't want to work or can't think of anything else to do in this economy." To do that one must have a targeted application in much the same way one would have a targeted resume for a given position.
Instead of simply listing accomplishments, qualifications, and experiences in one big, undifferentiated mass one would be wise to show a clear destination in his or her work. If you did one internship with a juvenile law deputy DA, another stint with a criminal defense attorney, and some community service building houses in the Dominican Republic, an application claiming you are very driven to study intellectual property law is going to ring warning bells in many admissions offices. What have you done, they will wonder, to demonstrate this goal? How have you not just pieced together a resume of respectable experiences that don't have much cohesiveness between them?
Obviously it is perfectly acceptable to have dabbled and explored a number of avenues, but keep in mind that with so many misdirected people applying to law school--record numbers thanks to the economy--it is crucial to present yourself as someone who is working purposefully towards a particular goal in the law. The strongest applications are those that not only write about the desire to travel a particular legal path but also make it clear that the applicant is already on that path.
Free Labor Wanted
One of the lone bright spots in the recession is the fact that unpaid labor is in its heyday. With money tight, more and more employers are giving increasing responsibility to interns and low-level employees in order to make ends meet. This means a driven law school applicant looking for experience in a particular field is in a great position to find an experience that goes beyond mindlessly making copies in some windowless basement, provided you can afford to forego getting paid for it. Now more than ever many legal offices are happy to enlist the help of someone for free, especially if that person is driven, intelligent, and a legitimate asset around the office.
One can use the Great Recession to their advantage by combining these two factors and making them work for him or her. By using the desire for unpaid labor to create a background that firmly points in a specific direction, one can greatly improve the chances that their application isn't met with the skepticism that is alive and well at law schools throughout the country.
Michael Piznarski - Michael Piznarski studied English literature at Colgate University. He is a globetrotter, volunteer, former pre-law student, and actor.
