Hi Psmnop,
Great question! On believability, since you're entering the legal profession people will expect you to be honest and candid, because you can get in a lot of trouble if you lie (starting with your law school application and throughout your career). In fact, when you apply for the bar exam, they ask you to update your law school application if anything in it is dishonest. My point being that no one is going to fact check your claims, but you do have a responsibility to be honest and not over-exaggerate.
That being said, if you want to talk about some of these achievements, focus less on whether they seem
believable and more about how they fit into your story as a law school applicant. For the most part, the only thing that law schools care about with respect to law-related experiences is how they fit into your story and motivations. But law schools want a diverse class, they don't want all of their 1Ls to have been paralegals--that would make for some boring class discussions! I had zero experience with law, and no one cared, but they did love to hear about my time working in software because that made me more interesting and showed maturity over applicants who have never worked. I was also able to talk about how my previous jobs made me interested in going to law school by showing me what I really wanted and needed from my career. It helped to weave those experiences into my story as a non-traditional applicant. Everyone has different strengths in their application and you should focus on those strengths, things that make you stand out!
Why do you want to be a lawyer? What can
you bring to the law school community that no one else can offer? With so much life experience, I'll bet you have much more valuable experiences to draw the attention of admissions committees!
I would only pull in those law-related experiences if/where they relate to your story, how you got to be here, and what you can contribute. You can talk about your previous career, why you want to transition to law, and what you've learned from that and other life experiences (
e.g., kids, marriage, paying a mortgage, traveling, personal hardships). You should curate your law school application--don't throw everything at the wall to see what sticks, tell a cohesive narrative about yourself.
Here are some questions to consider with respect to your specific examples:
- You started a new law student group--why? Did it get you interested in law? Did you meet someone through it that inspired you?
- You met a law school professor--What kind of impact did that have on you? Did they inspire your or provoke your curiosity?
- You worked with a human rights commission--What did you learn from that experience? Did it get you interested in non-profit work?
- You attended a continuing legal education class while homeless--This is really powerful, and the one thing in your list that I would absolutely include. I'll bet there's a compelling story there! Why did you want to learn about the law when you were homeless? Moreover, how did that time in your life contribute to the person you are now? How can you use that to be a better lawyer? If you want to work with low-income clients, it would probably help you connect with them, but I'm sure there are also other ways you can leverage that life experience that enhance you as an applicant.
Finally, I can really only see these experiences coming up in a personal statement, I wouldn't put any of them on your resume since they are old and you probably have more recent/relevant things to put there. If the application has a section to talk about your experience with the law you might bring them up, but I haven't seen that come up often.
Hope that's helpful, and good luck with your application!
