My law school application personal statement

It's cliche to say I witnessed something that "changed my life." So suffice it to say I won't soon forget a story I covered when I was a reporting intern at The Hays Daily News.

One afternoon a colleague grabbed me by the arm and hustled me out the door, into his car and down the road. In a nearby small town a man was on trial, accused of sexually abusing his foster children.

My first reaction was the disgust that comes to any sane person confronted by sexual abuse towards children. Kids shouldn't have to fear adults, especially in that way. Then I heard testimony and listened to evidence. I soon realized what was going on, and it horrified me. The defendant was an innocent man.

My parents still tried to talk me out of applying for law school.

"I think you should go to work for the Post Office," my dad told me a few months ago. Sure, it'd be a good job — reasonable hours, decent pay for a job much less stressful than legal practice — but I have higher ambitions.

In fact, I've always had higher ambitions. When I first graduated high school I intended to pursue a teaching career. I wanted to "save the world, one 15-year-old history student at a time." Seriously. A teacher can only do so much, but a positive influence on a child's life is no small thing.

I even used to joke that I intended to be president one day. (For what it's worth, my mom told me I'd be wasting my time running for office, too. Evidently, I'm too conservative and outspoken to stand any chance at getting elected.) But self-indulgent glory and attention was not what drew me to that notion. I joked about running for office because I've always had a deep-rooted desire to improve the world around me.

When I was on a camping trip as a child, an older cousin taught me the "Plus-One Rule." Every one of us in our camping group picked up each bit of trash we brought into the campground — plus one piece of litter that was left by someone before us. It's a compromise between the idealistic desire to have a perfectly clean and natural outdoor experience, and the blunt reality that a person can only do so much — I can't save the world alone.


The Plus-One Rule is our small way of making our campgrounds and fishing holes just a bit cleaner. It's grand and I wish I could get everybody to follow it. But it's a small thing, and there's a thing about doing small things. They're small. Not to repudiate those who devote small efforts to make small differences, but I want to do more.

As I watched that sex abuse trial, I contemplated a question that I've asked myself many times since: What if the defendant had not had a good lawyer? I've not yet found an answer that I like, and that ultimately is what has brought me to filing this application. As a reporter, I could write a story. If it was compelling, it might spark a public outcry. Perhaps it would induce policymakers to alter the way such allegations are investigated. But for the defendant, at the time, my services were not much use, especially in contrast with those of his attorney.

My undergrad classmates and I joked about "going out and saving the world." We theorized and boasted and discussed the possible. For the defendant in that case, while a jury considered whether or to find him guilty of an especially heinous crime, legal advocacy was frighteningly UN-theoretical. His life as a free man was on the line.

I still follow the "Plus-One" rule when I go camping. I don't like seeing littered ground in lieu of pristinity, and it's an easy way for me to improve the the world around me. And it's a wonderful thing, to help in small ways.

But the defendant in that trial did not need someone to help him in a small way. I suspect he did not care if litter soiled the park. He needed someone highly educated and skilled to fight for his life as he knew it, to protect his innocence, to preserve his liberty. A well-trained, persuasive advocate to articulate a competent legal defense.

At the conclusion of the trial, I watched the defendant's family mill around him to celebrate his acquittal. A teenage daughter hugged the man and beamed. And then she saw her dad's lawyer and pounced at him, offering a sober and adequate rebuttal to every lawyer joke ever told. "Thank you," she said, pumping the defendant's hand, on the verge of relieved tears. "Thank you for giving us our dad back."

Some time in the recent past, a man went to law school. He learned the law and he learned persuasion. He practiced and became skillful, then he offered his abilities to his community. And now, because that man devoted so much of his life to the cause of justice, that teenage girl has her dad back.

I would like to be such a man. I know in the grand scheme of the universe, my efforts will be small in scale. But if I can one day prevent an innocent man from going to prison, I will have done a big, big thing.