The Amicus Interviews are meant for broader discussions on legal education, and the legal profession at the global level. One of the goals of this series of interviews is to get the views of Indian academics on legal education, both in India and abroad. Another goal would be to track the educational aspirations of the Indian Law Graduate (ILG), especially when it comes to studying outside the country.
I first heard of 7Sage when Conrad Noronha (JD, Columbia Law School) mentioned it in his FPA interview. He had used their services while prepping for the LSATs. After a bit of research, I thought it would be a good idea to speak with David Busis, head of admissions at 7Sage who, incidentally, turned down both Harvard Law School and Yale Law School.
This is what he had to say.
David, let’s get this done with right at the start before the suspense kills me, you chose not to attend Harvard Law School as well as Yale Law. This beautiful essay provides a few reasons why. But do you ever regret the decision?
Ha! Honestly, I don’t. Although I love helping other people get into law school, I knew it wasn’t the right path for me. I was supposed to be a teacher, coach, and writer.
And keeping with that theme, do you ever find yourself telling LSAT takers that law school may or may not be everything it is made out to be?
I haven’t gone to law school, so I can’t speak from experience, but if I get the sense that someone is applying to law school out of desperation or a failure of imagination, then I poke around and ask if they know what they’re getting into.
The application process is a small crucible that can help a student discover his motivation—or help him discover that he doesn’t have one. It’s important to go through that before you begin your 1L year, which is a much bigger and hotter crucible!
“The application process is a small crucible that can help a student discover his motivation—or help him discover that he doesn’t have one. “
Now that that is done, let’s get down to business: do you think the JD programme continues to be an attractive option for today’s student? Or do you see the rush for law school applications decreasing in the US?
Applications are slightly down compared to last year, but the volume of law school applicants has climbed for three years in a row. Anecdotally, a lot of the applicants I talk to continue to be motivated by our fractious political situation. (People talked about the “Trump bump” last year.)
We also see a lot of applicants who came of age during the 2008 financial recession and are motivated by what they saw.
There are a number of Indian law graduates who are considering the JD at US law schools. How early should they start LSAT prep, and any other advice you would have for them when it comes to writing the LSATs?
In my experience, most people need to study for at least six months to maximize their potential. I would start by learning the foundational principles of logic games and logical reasoning, then titrate in some full, timed practice sections and weekly prep tests. We have a free study schedule tool here.
When I was studying, I kept an LSAT journal in which I wrote down my mistakes and the inferences that I missed. I reviewed that journal before I took a practice test.
One of the more common pain points when it comes to law school applications is the personal statement. Any advice on how the prospective applicant ought to structure her personal statement?
Locate the inflection point of your story. It may be that one event changed your life; it may be that a circumstance or encounter caused you to grow. In either case, you can follow the classic “before, turning point, after” structure.
Before: I was/believed X.
Turning point: Y happened.
After: I am/believe Z.
But this structure has a corollary: don’t invest an event with more importance than it deserves. This is one of the most common mistakes that I see. People try to spin a minor incident into a triumphal narrative, presumably because they’ve read a truly dramatic essay—about resisting a hijacker on a plane, escaping an oppressive country, surviving cancer—and believe that they must reach a similar pitch of emotion. The mistake doesn’t lie in writing about a minor incident. The mistake lies in aggrandising that incident.
“The mistake doesn’t lie in writing about a minor incident. The mistake lies in aggrandising that incident.”
You don’t have to make your admissions reader bang the desk and cry out, “By gad, admit him!” All you have to do is transmit something genuine and illuminate your motivation.
“You don’t have to make your admissions reader bang the desk and cry out, “By gad, admit him!” All you have to do is transmit something genuine and illuminate your motivation.”
Our admissions course has a lot more free advice about the essays in general and structure in particular.
Final question, one of the more interesting aspects of 7Sage is the avowed mission to “level the playing field” when it comes to law school applications. Do you think that US law schools are also addressing this need for diversity and inclusivity?
I really do! Admissions officers are making a huge and sustained effort not just to consider diverse applicants fairly, but to recruit more of them in the first place.
This goal affects every aspect of the admissions process, including the trend of accepting applicants on the basis of a GRE score alone.
Hi folks!
I’m a J.D candidate at Harvard Law School who recently applied to be an Essay Editor for 7Sage. I was interested in 7Sage because I was interested in taking pro bono opportunities, which 7Sage’s job description says they offer. I’d like to help students from disadvantaged economic backgrounds and under-represented communities.
As part of the application, I had to make suggestions (which were stuff I wrote in my own personal statement that got me into HLS) on a sample essay.
When I become passionate about something, I invest myself in it completely, and I have many passions. Several trips to New York have been extensively planned around restaurant reservations. I have seen all ninety-seven lost episodes of *The Twilight Zone* through fan-made restorations I could barely tolerate. And I can tell you from first-hand experience that *Wicked* is even better on Broadway than it was off because I developed methods to get the tickets.I have grown to love all forms of art, but the passion that has sustained me the longest is cinema. Just like every other kid who grew up in the nineties, I was first exposed to it via mainstream family films from Disney.
But when my mom took twelve-year-old me to the American Museum of the Moving Image to see a retrospective of the Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki, I was bowled over, and my outlook on cinema began to develop for the first time. I was impressed not only because of his films’ creativity, but because these movies had a viewpoint that was completely foreign to what I had seen in American film. In high school and college, I pursued cinema aggressively and holistically, seeking out the widest possible variety of genres, nationalities, tempos and styles.
Seeing movies from everywhere about everything fed me perspectives I knew nothing about, exposed me to new cultures and ideas, and ultimately increased my ability to empathize with other people. I decided to pursue my passion in college and graduated with a Film Studies degree in the middle of Obama’s first term, just after the economic recession. I looked hard for film-related jobs and internships, but wasn’t able to land anything.
Eventually, I gave up that pursuit and fell into a Technology department internship at Burnham & Drake that blossomed into a full-time position.At first, this was great – I’ve been passionate about computers since I first started unknowingly running up long-distance telephone bills on BBSes in the late-nineties (my parents, on the other hand, weren’t so thrilled). Though I had a minor in Computer Sciences, the job I got at Burhnham didn’t use any of those skills. Everything was new, and I relished the opportunity to learn tasks and build up a set of problem-solving skills. I worked harder than I previously knew I could, and my co-workers appreciated me, which in turn led to a developing sense of self-pride. I had more money in my pocket than ever before, so I began to go out almost every night to see a movie or a play, to a museum exhibition or an interesting restaurant.
On weekends, I went hours out of my way into New Jersey to see a two-and-a-half-hour Indian movie without subtitles about a housefly seeking revenge, and even took a bus down to Washington, D.C. to see the new *Star Wars* movie on seventy-millimeter IMAX film because the local options just weren’t good enough for me.
But as time passed, I started to feel emptier. I became great at my job, but greatness led to feeling unfulfilled because nothing was hard anymore. I was entrusted with more important tasks, but I already possessed the logical and analytical skills required for them, so they came easily. I still experienced a thrill when I solved an unusually difficult problem, and I received immense satisfaction when I assisted lawyers with pro bono asylum cases, but these moments were exceptions instead of the norm. Meanwhile, the pursuit of art led to fleeting dopamine rushes and cherished memories, but the pursuit couldn’t prevent me from feeling unsatisfied.
I knew deep-down that I wasn’t challenging myself enough, was consuming too much and producing too little. I never stopped working hard – in fact, my new job responsibilities meant I had to work even harder, and frequently longer – because I wanted to continue to be proud of myself for doing my best. That pride did not stave off boredom. I knew I needed to shift gears so I could continue my personal growth, but I couldn’t decide what direction to go in.Then November 2016 happened.
The election shocked me, not only because the outcome went against the prevailing “wisdom” of the time, but also because I didn’t realize how emotional a political result could make me. I was too young to really be engaged with the 2000 election, but was the perfect age for the Iraq War, Katrina, and the subprime mortgage crisis to leave me disenchanted with conservative politics. I disagreed with some of the Obama administration policies, but I also appreciated their many accomplishments, and was politically complacent because my guy was in charge.
I worried that a Trump administration would conjure up both his many authoritarian-sounding campaign promises and the economic incompetence of a failed-businessman-turned-reality-television-star. I couldn’t sleep that night, and called out sick to work the next day, deeply afraid.And then, shortly after that, I watched a film. The documentary *HyperNormalisation* is Adam Curtis’s attempt to explain how politicians and their cohorts shaped political power dynamics by chronicling a selective history from 1975 to the present.
Curtis makes a claim close to the beginning that immediately provoked self-reflection: namely, that the shift from the sixties to the seventies saw individuals on the political left abandon collective action in favor of self-expression. Curtis narrates, “They believed that instead of trying to change the world outside, the new radicalism should try and change what was inside people’s heads,” but that this in turn resulted in “a whole generation … los\[ing] touch with the reality of power.” Without collective action, there was no strong opposition to the changing power dynamic in New York City in the mid-seventies.
I’m not knowledgeable enough to assess the accuracy of the history Curtis depicts, and thus I’m skeptical of his thesis’s validity. But for me, the factuality of this claim matters less than the self-realization it provoked. Throughout college, I saw people protest the Iraq War in Washington Square Park, and I admonished them because I believed they could accomplish nothing. I never went to Occupy Wall Street because I thought their collective action was pointless. Instead of attempting to experience power first-hand, I continually consumed the self-expression of others to change what was inside my head.I still believe in the necessity of art as a conduit for information and empathy, but I now believe that art alone isn’t enough to enact lasting change in society, and it’s also not enough to keep me intellectually satisfied.
I now believe that truly understanding the society we live in requires us to understand the reality of power, and I believe that reality is law. My response to my post-election fear is to learn about the law, because I believe knowledge abates fear, and I want the legal knowledge to fight the uncertain future. I want to stop being a passive voyeur and become active in civil society. I want to represent the moral, the immoral and the amoral, because I believe in the rights of legal representation for all, because I believe in empathy for all, including the guilty and the corporate.
I want to increase my understanding of how society operates from a better source than cinema. I want to learn to construct legal narratives because I want to engage with another form of storytelling. I will not be able to find satisfaction in my life unless I continue to grow, and for that growth, I will challenge myself harder than I ever have before. I will invest as much energy as I have in my other passions to be the very best lawyer I can be.
Dear Student,
Thank you for submitting this first draft – it was excellently written and I really enjoyed learning about your various passions (cinema, computer science, politics) and the emptiness you felt in your current career that led you to courageously embark on this new journey.
You seem to have multiple selling points, some of which are:
You’re passionate about pursuing what you care about
Your love of cinema, which often features multiple characters with varying motives, could allow you to appreciate multiple perspectives, a skill that should come handy in today’s world of political division.
You care deeply about social justice, which is what’s motivating you to apply to law school.
The following are my recommendations for how to best emphasize your strength:
Beginning
I love how you begin your essay by noting the several instances in which you invested yourself “completely” about things you were passionate about. This is good because the legal profession needs passionate advocates.
I would, however, suggest streamlining by focusing on one idea or event.
For instance, you can begin by telling a story about how you developed a passion for storytelling. With details, you can subtly convey what your upbringing was like to the reader. Feel free to expand on the influence your mother had on your artistic horizon.
“Just like every other kid who grew up in the nineties…” Moving forward, I would avoid expressing certainty in generalities where exceptions could easily be found (i.e., the reader may know people who grew up in the 90s without having watched Disney films).
“…these movies had a viewpoint that was completely foreign to what I had seen in American film(s).” This could be a selling point. Your early exposure to different viewpoints via films has ultimately gifted you with the power of empathy, which the legal profession needs more of.
In summary, perhaps you can begin your essay with a snapshot of the moment when you fell in love with cinema or daily rituals that consumed your childhood.
Example: Seattle is where I first fell in love with words… I would come home every day after school and escape to my room carrying newspapers my father subscribed to… With the sound of the monsoon rain in the backdrop, I would be transported to places I never knew existed and converse with people from all walks of life, even if only through a quote or two…
In your intro, I would recommend following the “Show, Don’t Tell” narrative technique. Instead of telling us that you “aggressively” pursued cinema, actually show us how. Help us re-live the formative moments of your life. Feel free to elaborate more about how your passion for cinema “ultimately increased [your] ability to empathize with other people.”
Avoid restating your curriculum vitae as you do in the third paragraph where you recount looking “hard for film-related jobs and internships” as admissions officers will have access to your resume when they read your personal statement. They’ll most likely have a good sense of what you’ve been up to since graduating from college. Instead of what you did, admissions officers would be more curious about why you did the things you did (I highly recommend watching Simon Sineck’s TED Talk on this topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4ZoJKF_VuA).
“I looked hard for film-related jobs… but wasn’t able to land anything.” That it took you some time to find a job is something all of us can relate to, but it doesn’t add much value to your candidacy, unless you faced and overcame truly daunting obstacles (for example, racial prejudice and lack of education, as in ‘The Pursuit of Happyness), which is one of the powerful topics for a personal statement (if you’ve had to overcome obstacles in your life not mentioned in this first draft, please let me know).
“… the job I got at Burnham didn’t use any of those skills..” What exactly did your job at Burnham entail? In any case, the admissions officer will have already read your CV and would know that your duties at Burnham didn’t entail utilizing your minor in Computer Science – we can perhaps use the precious real estate for something else – was there any memorable incident where your passion for/love of storytelling was awakened?
“…my co-workers appreciated me…” Praise of oneself often lacks currency so it is best uttered through letters of recommendation (i.e., your boss should vouch for how much your colleagues enjoyed working with you). If you want to talk about your job, then I would recommend elaborating further on how you “relished the opportunity to learn tasks” – did your love of cinema/storytelling play any role in this? I ask this question because generally in a personal statement, you want to strive for an easy-to-follow, simple-to-understand linear plot (so-called Chekhov’s Gun in playwriting, the idea is that if a gun is seen in Act I, then by Act III, it must go off).
Your various passions mentioned at the beginning of the essay are like Chekhov’s gun – they must logically appear throughout the Personal Statement as it progresses.
Middle
“But as time passed, I started to feel emptier…” Feeling hollow in your current job is a great reason to change careers, as you seem to be doing. But you want to avoid any negativity in your personal statement so perhaps we can add a positive spin to how achieving “greatness” led to you “feeling unfulfilled because nothing was hard anymore.”
Perhaps, like Siddhartha Gautama, you were living a materially comfortable life but at some point, something happened that awakened something in you. Perhaps it was the election of Trump or a documentary you watched – whatever it is, that moment when your eyes were opened to the problems and suffering of the world could be the focal point of your essay. I’d recommend elaborating on that moment.
“I received immense satisfaction when I assisted lawyers with pro bono asylum cases..” What excited you the most about helping the lawyers? Did you find your passion for the cinema rekindled by seeing the lawyers artfully craft a compelling story for their clients? Law professors like to emphasize that jurisprudence often boils down to finding which competing versions of the story is more plausible.
I would recommend expanding on your interactions with the lawyers, however brief they were, and cutting out any dissatisfaction or boredom you felt. It’s much more exciting to hear someone wanting to study law due to the promise it offers rather than because of unhappy days at a previous job.
“Then November 2016 happened…” It is perfectly fine to mention Trump’s election as a motive for wanting to go to law school but I’d try to stay away from taking a particular side in case the reader is a Trump supporter. Rather, try to rise ‘above the fray’ by pointing out something that most people miss or reiterates the theme of your personal statement: that you’re a person of empathy who can see issues from multiple angles thanks to early exposure to various storytelling mediums.
Was there any particular moment when your love of storytelling gave you a unique perspective?
Perhaps, as a liberal, you supported Hillary Clinton, but you felt your stomach churn when you heard her describe Trump supporters as a “basket of deplorables.” This might be because from having grown up reading The New York Times or watching documentaries (Roger and Me?), you learned about factories closing over the years and the ensuing decline of the American middle class. You therefore sort of understood where Trump supporters were coming from, even if you found the candidate deplorable.
Showing how you could see both sides of an issue could make you an ideal candidate for law school.
“Curtis narrates,…” I would recommend shortening the quote from Curtis (boiling down to just a few words). Perhaps it might be more effective to paraphrase what it was about his work that inspired you to engage in self-reflection.
“Curtis makes a claim… that immediately provoked self-reflection: namely, that the shift from the sixties…” I think it would be more fascinating to hear bits of your actual self-reflection instead of dwelling on Curtis’s claim.
In summary, I would recommend keeping the storyline and theme of your personal statement consistent and easy-to-follow by focusing on your life-long love of storytelling and how it allows you to see multiple sides of the same issue. I would recommend making your observation of lawyers doing pro bono work the centerpiece of your essay.
Perhaps you can draw similarities between the work that lawyers do when crafting their clients’ stories in briefs to what screenwriters/directors do with screenplays. Perhaps you were excited to learn that despite the clear constraints in place, there was much room for creativity in the practice of law, as in art. Instead of dwelling on negatives (previous job was unfulfilling, boring), focus on the positives – what excites you about the legal profession, how storytelling plays such an important role, and how you can see yourself bringing positive change to the world by pursuing that life-long passion as a lawyer.
Ending
“…but I now believe that art alone isn’t enough to enact lasting change in society” Can you elaborate on how you came to this realization?
“I want to stop being a passive voyeur and become active in civil society.” I am excited by your ambitious vows. I would recommend, if you can, to try to put a face on the issue.
For example, perhaps you and the pro bono lawyers helped an interpreter from Afghanistan named Hussein gain asylum in the U.S. You were moved by how Hussein risked retaliation from Taliban to help U.S. soldiers. But then you were shocked to hear that Trump was trying to ban immigration from Muslim countries. What would that mean for people like Hussein? In addition to the fear-mongering, doesn’t his story deserve to be told as well? It might be more powerful to end your statement by mentioning specific people and issues you want to help and solve.
Being a lawyer often entails professionally advocating for someone. While the primary trick of the trade is storytelling, there is much need for empathy and that can only be attained by having more empathetic people enter the profession.
Take the question – “What kind of a lawyer do you want to be?” – and transform it into “What kind of a story do you want to tell?” And “how?”
You can also talk about those whose footsteps you would like to follow, for the profession is built on precedents.
My application was nevertheless rejected for not having 7Sage’s “high standards.”
Here are 7Sage’s own sample edits: https://7sage.com/admissions/personal-statement-before-and-after/
Did my suggestions really fall below their standards?