Law School Personal Statement Openings

What makes a great law school personal statement opening sentence? In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Mike Spivey is joined by Sarah Zearfoss (Dean Z), Senior Assistant Dean at the University of Michigan Law School and former Dean of Admissions, to evaluate five famous opening lines from literature and discuss how they would work as personal statement introductions.

They explore the importance of authenticity and avoiding overly dramatic writing (1:41), finding the balance between creativity and trying too hard (2:16), writing about family and making bold claims (3:47), and keeping the focus on your own story (5:22). They also discuss using personal growth and reflection to create compelling openings (6:35) and navigating political or controversial topics in law school applications (7:13).

Through their reactions and occasional disagreements, Mike and Dean Z offer insights into what makes an opening sentence memorable- and what might make an admissions officer think twice.

[0:08] Mike Spivey: Welcome to Status Check with Spivey, where we talk about life, law school, law school admissions, a little bit of everything. Today was a quick but fun one. I posted on LinkedIn, “Five Famous Opening Sentences from Literature.” I said one of them, I think, would make a good personal statement opening sentence—if these were original to the applicant, you weren’t familiar with this, which is an important part of the thought experiment.

So, among the many people who chimed in was Dean Z, who is no longer at Michigan’s admissions office; she’s still at Michigan. But she’s the long-standing, highly regarded, and well-known former Dean of Admission for Michigan. So we knock down three, and we debate two, and I think at the end, we settle on two of these five sentences would work, and three probably wouldn’t. We’ll let you listen to how we slice it out. So without further delay, this is me and Dean Z.

Dean Z, it’s great to see you.

[1:03] Sarah Zearfoss: So good to see you, Mike.

Mike: You saw my post on LinkedIn, and we decided ad hoc, with 10 minutes to spare, that we would talk about each opening sentence.

Dean Z: It is true. I was heading back from the dentist when you asked me to do this and ran right to my computer, and here I am.

Mike: We both have—

Dean Z: Just-in-time advice about first sentences, so let’s go.

Mike: —but this is kind of how it works. In admissions, you don’t set up how you’re going to read an app; you just read it.

Dean Z: That’s correct. Yes.

Mike: So I’m going to quote the author, but I’m not going to give the author name.

Dean Z: All right.

Mike: I’ll give the quote, and in a vacuum, if this was the first sentence of a personal statement, not a famous literary, we’re going to see what we agree on and what we disagree on, right?

Dean Z: Perfect. Let’s go. Let’s do it.

[1:41] Mike: “It was a wonderful night, the kind of night, dear reader, which is only possible when you are young.”

Dean Z: Absolute fail as a first sentence, for several reasons. One, the tone is completely wrong. “Dear reader”—people do say stuff like that, and it’s so pretentious, and it’s so contrived, and it doesn’t sound authentic. No one writes like that. No one talks like that. Don’t do it.

The other problem with this is the person says “only possible when we are young.” Who can say that? Someone who’s not young. Most of the people applying to law school are way too young to reflect on their youth. So, fail.

[2:16] Mike: We’re one for one in agreement. It would be very “de-elevating” is the word I use. It’s also kind of insulting to older people. “Only I in my 20s can get this. You, in your 50s, Mike Spivey, have no clue what my personal statement’s going to be about.” So both of us would not like that at all.

Dean Z: And me, in my 60s, might as well be dead. Sure. Okay.

Mike: Moving on. “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.”

[2:43] Dean Z: Ha! All right. On the plus side, I do want to read this story. What the hell is happening here? On the minus side, I don’t want to admit a bug. This is too weird, and it’s clearly fiction, and that’s not what we’re looking for in a personal statement. But I like the writing, and it is engaging. So, structure-wise, it works. Content-wise, it does not.

Mike: Yeah, I would probably say to myself, “This person is very likely trying too hard.”

Dean Z: Yes.

Mike: “And I’m about to get a bunch of bloviating writing. But maybe not. I could be wrong. Let me dig in.”

Dean Z: Also, it’s in third person, right?

Mike: Right.

[3:16] Dean Z: So, never write your personal statement in the third person.

Mike: And if you’re going to use a name, don’t use the Mountain from Game of Thrones.

Okay. That’s in the category of, “Most personal statements can work, but most that can work you shouldn’t do.”

Dean Z: Yeah.

Mike: It has a 2% chance of working.

Dean Z: Right, sure. I like to never say never. That first quote was a never. This one is a maybe. Probably not.

Mike: Yeah, don’t insult admissions officers is a “never,” as the first quote.

So number three, “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

[3:47] Dean Z: Okay, so here’s where you and I get into it, because I remember having this quote told to me over dinner when I was nine years old by my mom. It stuck with me forever. I just thought it was so interesting. It’s an absolute. It makes the reader want to argue. And so that’s your concern about it. My reaction, though, is—back it up. Just tell me why you think this, and it could be very, very interesting. It’s an interesting way to start. So I liked this one.

Mike: So here’s the thing. There’s two that work for me. This one on the mild category, and my only reservation is, as a lawyer, you’re trained to qualify everything.

Dean Z: Sure.

Mike: Your first phone call with a client is, “What are my odds of winning the case?” “Well, I hope they’re good. We’ll find out.” I love saying this: you’re never speaking in absolutes. You see what I just did there?

Dean Z: Right. But—

Mike: Right.

[4:32] Dean Z: —the thing is, Spivey, the people who are applying to law school are not yet lawyers, and I don’t want them to act like they think they are. I want them to be honest about who they are. So, to me, you don’t have to even convince me with this kind of claim, but you could give me a good argument, and that would be intriguing.

Mike: I think the quote could go a lot of great directions, because I do think all families have their own, for lack of a better word, ups and downs in the functionality.

Dean Z: Correct.

Mike: And talking about your family is incredibly personal. So we’ll put this in the category of Dean Z really likes. I would accept it, but I’d be hesitant. If there was one more absolute in that personal statement—“All lawyers are kind people”—I would really then not like it.

Dean Z: Sure. You could even walk this back immediately. You could say, “Well, that might be going too far,” or something something.

Mike: We said it when we talked about this. I said, even if the second sentence was, “Okay, well, almost all.”

Dean Z: Right.

[5:22] Mike: Okay. Moving on.

“I don’t know the exact moment it happened. It wasn’t a moment, really. It was the way you held your cup and looked out the window at nothing in particular and still looked beautiful doing it.”

Dean Z: Okay, the problem with this is you’re talking about someone else, number one, not yourself. You need to talk about yourself. Number two, what the hell? This is weird. This is obviously, like, a love story, and that’s not what your personal statement should be. So, that’s why I say no to this one.

Mike: I think it’s a beautiful first sentence. It reminds me of, Salinger wrote something like, she wasn’t doing anything but standing against the balcony holding the universe together. Right? So the fact that I can quote that means it’s memorable to me.

Dean Z: Yes.

[5:57] Mike: So it’s beautifully written, but you’re not writing a love letter to the admissions office. Please, never.

Dean Z: Right. And you certainly aren’t writing a love letter to someone else that you’re sharing with the admissions office. Even weirder.

Mike: Right.

Dean Z: So, no good.

Mike: It also falls in the category of trying too hard.

Dean Z: Yes. And also, I just want to emphasize, you can talk about other people in your personal statement, but the focus is you. It’s your story.

Mike: 100%.

Now, for the last one. No one picked this, by the way, so far. “It was the best of times, and it was the worst of times.” Again, in the vacuum of “this is your original sentence as a personal statement.”

Dean Z: That’s what we’re pretending. You write this. It’s not already famous.

Mike: For all these.

Dean Z: Yeah.

[6:35] Mike: You could talk so well about how your hardest days were the ones you learn from the most. If every day was 79 degrees and sunny, you would stop appreciating them. There’s so many ways to juxtapose, the best of times in your life were also the worst of times, but also, in hindsight, you learn from them.

Dean Z: And, of course, in Dickens, who wrote this, the story is about two worlds within one world, which is a lot like what we’re living through right now, right? So let’s not get political. But there’s tough stuff going on for some people, and some people are really thriving.

Mike: Yeah. And I think people listening should know that admissions officers are open-minded.

Dean Z: Yes.

Mike: So if you’re political, I think people over-worry about this.

[7:13] Dean Z: Absolutely. I just don’t want to do it here because it’s like a distraction from what we’re talking about, but absolutely, if you had a political viewpoint—first of all, I have a pretty idiosyncratic set of political views. I don’t think I’m easy to peg, right? You’re never going to know anyone’s political views if you’re applying to law school. You’re never going to be sure of that. So if you want to talk politics, fine. Back it up, and recognize somebody’s going to maybe disagree with you, and write accordingly. That is like writing a brief, right?

Mike: Oh, 100%, and what you have to do as a lawyer.

Dean Z: Right.

[7:41] Mike: So you mentioned society. It’s great for society today. You could use it with AI; you could use it with anything. But it’s also great for introspection. That’s why I liked it. It’s forcing the reader to introspect on why is the best of times for them and the worst times.

Dean Z: Okay. So there you go!

Mike: So, between the two of us, we’re not saying we’re absolutely right, because remember, I hate absolutes. But we both agree that the third and fifth quotes would work. The other three, unless the person just did magic with it, we would caution them very much. Don’t do it.

[8:10] Dean Z: It’s probably hard to pull off. I would actually say the first one, no way. Can’t do it.

Mike: Yeah, even the “dear reader” is just—you’re trying too hard.

Dean Z: Yeah.

Mike: Okay. I enjoyed our quick chat.

Dean Z: Peace. That was fun.

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October 6, 2026

20 Easy Law School Application Fixes Before You Submit

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Timestamps:

1:57 — #1
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Dean Blazer’s podcast, Admissible, is available here. Listen to the episode she mentions, one of her favorites, with a successful reapplicant here.

You can listen to our previous episodes with Natalie here: 2025 | 2023 | 2022

You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠, Spotify⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠. You can read a full transcript of this episode with timestamps below.

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A note on interview formats: Much of the advice in this episode is most directly applicable to invited interviews and one-on-one interviews with a human interviewer. However, many of the preparation strategies discussed also apply to other formats, including Kira and other prerecorded interviews.

Related resources: For a broader overview of law school interviews, including different interview formats and additional preparation advice, see our Interview Strategy Deep Dive with Former Law School Admissions Officers podcast. For more on the types of questions applicants may encounter, listen to Five Categories of Law School Admissions Interview Questions & How to Answer Them, with former Harvard Law Director of Admissions Karen Buttenbaum—including a bonus sixth category of curveball questions.

For more advice and resources on researching individual law schools and developing a strong, differentiated “why X,” see our Why X Essay Deep Dive: Advice from Former Law School Admissions Officers podcast episode. Anna also references our earlier conversation with psychologist Dr. Guy Winch, Dr. Guy Winch on Handling Rejection (& Waiting), which includes the confidence exercise discussed in this episode.

You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. You can read a full transcript of this episode with timestamps below.

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Dean Z on 5 Famous First Lines from Literature as Personal Statement Openings

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