Personal Statement Draft Thoughts Please

[Shaack14]

Here is a draft of my personal statement. Wondering what your thoughts were on topic choice and overall approach. I like how it has turned out so far but don't know if I possibly went overboard with somethings.

Thanks in advance for any comments! I am looking forward to your professional opinion.



Storytelling
Seventeen. It was a number I could not believe I was hearing. I was sitting in a cramped and stale smelling legal visiting room on the second floor of the Central Detention Facility in Washington, D.C. Sitting across from me was a man who was not much older than I was. The man was not even the first client that my intern partner and I had interviewed that day, let alone the first client we had interviewed since beginning our internship terms earlier that summer. When the man uttered the number seventeen, it caught me off guard. I had honestly thought that nothing the individuals I worked with could say would surprise me anymore. I thought I had heard it all. But, I was wrong.
The man who was sitting under the sign that read, “Inmates sit here,” had just met me. Yet here he was visibly shaking and choking back tears as he recounted to me, a young and somewhat naïve intern, how he was stabbed seventeen times with an improvised blade by another inmate the last time that he was locked within the very walls in which he was once again now incarcerated. I could hear the overwhelming sense of fear in the man’s voice as he pleaded with my partner and me to help him get out of the place that terrified him so much. I was floored. While that violent act, that unfathomable number, was not the only piece of the man’s story, it was the piece that jarred me the most. Any sense of detachment I still felt towards the problem of violence within our country’s correctional facilities was instantly erased. Before, I never had a face to associate with the harm. Now, I did. I could do nothing but pause in silence for a moment and let that number, seventeen, penetrate my thoughts.
Once I had collected myself from the initial shock caused by hearing about the violence my client had faced, my instinct to help immediately kicked in. I leaned in closer to the vulnerable man across from me and assured him that my partner and I would do everything we could to help his attorney achieve the best possible outcome for his case. I knew that my words probably offered the man only a small amount of consolation, but my words were all that I could offer him at the time. I left the Central Detention Facility that day with a feeling that I often felt when I left that building full of people who each had their own stories. That feeling was the urge to do all I can to help the individuals with whom I had just met. Although the feeling was a familiar one, it was burning stronger than it had during my previous departures from that building full of stories as the number, seventeen, was still stinging my ears.
As an intern investigator for the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia (PDSDC) I frequented that building. I would make several trips there every week. Sometimes, I would even make multiple trips in a day. Often as I was stuck in traffic on the way to that building, being processed through security, or waiting for a guard to escort my client to the visiting room, I would find myself wondering why I committed myself to a job that required me to be a regular at a jail. After all, before the summer of 2015, I had never even been close to being inside of a detention center. However, the more I thought about what had drawn me towards taking on an internship in a public defense office, the more obvious the sentiment that was driving me became. It was the same sentiment that drove me to be the person my childhood friends could always turn to when they were in need. It was the same sentiment that drove me to be a resident assistant at my college so that I could be the person my fellow students could rely on for help. It was the same sentiment that caused me to have that burning urge every time I left the jail. It was my passion for helping others that led me to take on the challenge of working in public defense. I did not know when I started at PDSDC just how much more it would engrain that passion in me or how it would teach me a lesson that I now think about every time I meet a new person.
The invaluable lesson that working at PDSDC taught me is that every person has a story and sometimes the best way to help people is simply to tell their stories. In a way, storytelling was one of my main responsibilities as a public defense investigator. My intern partner and I would work endlessly to try to learn every detail about our clients’ lives. We would spend hours in those cramped legal visiting rooms talking with them about anything and everything that they thought might be helpful for us to know. We would read and reread their files. We would scour every social media site and database to which we had access for any information that pertained to them or their cases. We would travel to their neighborhoods and seek out their families and friends. We would go to crime scenes and attempt to locate and speak to witnesses. Sometimes we would even read countless pages of medical documents and mental health records in an effort to understand our clients’ health and thoughts. All of that, so that when the time came, the attorney we worked for would be able to tell their stories. And, not just the stories of the crime or violation that had led them to become involved with the criminal justice system in some capacity, but their whole stories. Often those stories, their stories, were their best defenses and telling those stories led to their cases having positive outcomes.
I never would have thought that spending hour after hour in a jail would lead me to find a greater sense of clarity in my life. Working at PDSDC and spending time listening to the stories of the clients I was tasked with helping affirmed for me the direction I want to take in life. I want to pursue my passion by helping tell the stories of people like that man who sat across from me in that tiny room, shaking as he uttered that unbelievable number, seventeen. Law school will help me develop the skills and abilities I need to be that helpful storyteller and a career in the legal profession will allow me to live my life helping individuals who truly need their stories told.

[Jon Denning]

Seventeen. It was a number I could not believe I was hearing. I was sitting in a cramped and stale smelling legal visiting room on the second floor of the Central Detention Facility in Washington, D.C. Sitting across from me was a man who was not much older than I was. The man was not even the first client that my intern partner and I had interviewed that day, let alone the first client we had interviewed since beginning our internship terms earlier that summer. When the man uttered the number seventeen, it caught me off guard. I had honestly thought that nothing the individuals I worked with could say would surprise me anymore. I thought I had heard it all. But, I was wrong.
The man who was sitting under the sign that read, “Inmates sit here,” had just met me. Yet here he was visibly shaking and choking back tears as he recounted to me, a young and somewhat naïve intern, how he was stabbed seventeen times with an improvised blade by another inmate the last time that he was locked within the very walls in which he was once again now incarcerated. I could hear the overwhelming sense of fear in the man’s voice as he pleaded with my partner and me to help him get out of the place that terrified him so much. I was floored. While that violent act, that unfathomable number, was not the only piece of the man’s story, it was the piece that jarred me the most. Any sense of detachment I still felt towards the problem of violence within our country’s correctional facilities was instantly erased. Before, I never had a face to associate with the harm. Now, I did. I could do nothing but pause in silence for a moment and let that number, seventeen, penetrate my thoughts.
Once I had collected myself from the initial shock caused by hearing about the violence my client had faced, my instinct to help immediately kicked in. I leaned in closer to the vulnerable man across from me and assured him that my partner and I would do everything we could to help his attorney achieve the best possible outcome for his case. I knew that my words probably offered the man only a small amount of consolation, but my words were all that I could offer him at the time. I left the Central Detention Facility that day with a feeling that I often felt when I left that building full of people who each had their own stories. That feeling was the urge to do all I can to help the individuals with whom I had just met. Although the feeling was a familiar one, it was burning stronger than it had during my previous departures from that building full of stories as the number, seventeen, was still stinging my ears.
As an intern investigator for the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia (PDSDC) I frequented that building. I would make several trips there every week. Sometimes, I would even make multiple trips in a day. Often as I was stuck in traffic on the way to that building, being processed through security, or waiting for a guard to escort my client to the visiting room, I would find myself wondering why I committed myself to a job that required me to be a regular at a jail. After all, before the summer of 2015, I had never even been close to being inside of a detention center. However, the more I thought about what had drawn me towards taking on an internship in a public defense office, the more obvious the sentiment that was driving me became. It was the same sentiment that drove me to be the person my childhood friends could always turn to when they were in need. It was the same sentiment that drove me to be a resident assistant at my college so that I could be the person my fellow students could rely on for help. It was the same sentiment that caused me to have that burning urge every time I left the jail. It was my passion for helping others that led me to take on the challenge of working in public defense. I did not know when I started at PDSDC just how much more it would engrain that passion in me or how it would teach me a lesson that I now think about every time I meet a new person.
The invaluable lesson that working at PDSDC taught me is that every person has a story and sometimes the best way to help people is simply to tell their stories. In a way, storytelling was one of my main responsibilities as a public defense investigator. My intern partner and I would work endlessly to try to learn every detail about our clients’ lives. We would spend hours in those cramped legal visiting rooms talking with them about anything and everything that they thought might be helpful for us to know. We would read and reread their files. We would scour every social media site and database to which we had access for any information that pertained to them or their cases. We would travel to their neighborhoods and seek out their families and friends. We would go to crime scenes and attempt to locate and speak to witnesses. Sometimes we would even read countless pages of medical documents and mental health records in an effort to understand our clients’ health and thoughts. All of that, so that when the time came, the attorney we worked for would be able to tell their stories. And, not just the stories of the crime or violation that had led them to become involved with the criminal justice system in some capacity, but their whole stories. Often those stories, their stories, were their best defenses and telling those stories led to their cases having positive outcomes.
I never would have thought that spending hour after hour in a jail would lead me to find a greater sense of clarity in my life. Working at PDSDC and spending time listening to the stories of the clients I was tasked with helping affirmed for me the direction I want to take in life. I want to pursue my passion by helping tell the stories of people like that man who sat across from me in that tiny room, shaking as he uttered that unbelievable number, seventeen. Law school will help me develop the skills and abilities I need to be that helpful storyteller and a career in the legal profession will allow me to live my life helping individuals who truly need their stories told.

Hey Shaack,

Thanks for the post and welcome to the Forum!

I really enjoyed this! It read much more like a story than a resume or self-promotion, and that's exactly what you want to accomplish with a personal statement: show an admissions board that your life experiences (or even a single, significant experience) make you someone special and unique, and thus a desirable candidate for acceptance.

So while I don't have a ton of suggestions in terms of needed changes—there's nothing overtly wrong that jumped out at me—I do think there are a couple of things you can do to improve on it.

First, I'd tighten it up a bit. It reads, and likely runs, long. Verbosity is a lawyer's ally, not an applicant's. Go back through it and ask yourself of every sentence, "is this necessary/does it serve a key role in telling my story?," and "how can I convey this point in fewer (or more powerful) words?" Take, as a for instance, this sentence near the beginning (and I'm picking almost at random; nearly every sentence could illustrate this point):

I knew that my words probably offered the man only a small amount of consolation, but my words were all that I could offer him at the time.

How could you say that, but in a more succinct, more gripping way? How about something like, "I knew my words were little consolation, but words were all I had." That expresses the same idea, but in a way that's both more pointed, and more evocative of a sense of helplessness on your part...a helplessness your legal career would be well-suited to remedy (sidenote: don't ever say something like "a law degree means I could offer more than mere platitudes," or whatever; instead, make the case by implying it without being explicit—the people reading this know you want to go to law school and don't need you to tell them outright).

Again, I didn't pick that sentence as a standout example of potential streamlining. It was just the first sentence that caught my eye as I glanced back for an illustration.

Second, I'd dial down some of the Mother Theresa, do-gooder tone. Not entirely, but it comes off now and then as overly sentimental, to the point of being almost saccharin. I read a lot of essays, and this is far, FAR from the worst offender believe me, where I find myself constantly picturing that iconic, and somewhat eye-rolling, scene of Clark Kent ripping open his shirt to reveal the giant "S" beneath, a hero moments before he saves the day. It can be a little humble-braggy in even the most delicate of hands, so be wary of that. Take this sentence:

I left...feeling [what] I often felt when I left that building full of people who each had their own stories. That feeling was the urge to do all I can to help the individuals with whom I had just met.

Not only can that be trimmed considerably as noted above, but I think you'd also be wise to talk less about your charitable nature and more about your resolve to gain a voice capable of more than just superficial comfort, to offer more than promises dependent on the acts of others to fulfill them.

So always remember that great writers, and you write well enough to aspire to greatness, make their point with a laser's precision, and that needs to be your goal with every word you choose here. They say as much, or more, with the emotions they invoke in the space between words, than with the words themselves. It's like jazz, to paraphrase an old adage. To that end, an expert editor could do wonders with this essay. Unfortunately it's beyond my capacity to go trimming it sentence by sentence in this Forum, but if you ever want someone to really take a scalpel to it and carve out something beautiful consider our Admissions Consulting services.

Either way, you're off to an excellent start, and I think with an eye to concision and emotional nuance you're going to have a fantastic personal statement on your hands!

Thanks again!

Jon