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Successful Harvard Law School Essay: Personal Statement

See with a critical eye. Question everything. Never accept anything simply because “that’s just the way things are.” These are the lessons of my past, my present, and my future.

By the early 1980s, life for freethinkers in Iran was untenable. Ayatollah Khomeini, fearful of Westernized Iranians who questioned the authority of his newly formed theocracy, ruled with an iron fist. Dissenters were jailed, disappeared, or, like my father’s oldest brother, killed. As the Islamic Republic became increasingly powerful, government coercion forced the majority of Iranians to accept the new social and political order imposed by the ruthless regime. My parents, however, were defiant and unwilling to accept a life of fear and oppression. Given that my mother is Jewish and my father Muslim, they understood that Khomeini’s new regime would not recognize their marriage. Thus, they chose to leave their life in Iran behind and escape to a new world where they would have the opportunity to live free.

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My parents knew that starting over in the United States would not be easy. In Iran, they were well-educated people with postgraduate degrees. When they arrived in California in 1983, they encountered freedom, but it came at a substantial cost. They did not speak English and had no money. They also had two small infant children. To make ends meet my parents found work in whatever field they could; an architect became a gas station attendant and a university professor became a librarian. Having witnessed their sacrifice, I remember asking my father one day if he regretted leaving Iran. He chuckled and said, “No. Not at all. I would rather be a liberated gas station attendant than an oppressed architect.” My parents were willing to give up everything they had for a chance at freedom. At a young age, therefore, I too, became aware of the importance of standing up for your principles, no matter the cost.

Through the lens of my parents’ experiences, I learned that standing up for what you believe does not guarantee justice. Rather, it often results in great suffering. It is not easy to right a wrong. In 2000, shortly after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, my mother was fired from her job as a librarian. It wasn’t that she couldn’t perform her job; she just didn’t fit in anymore. Her termination was clearly a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. But at the time, my family did not have the money to hire an attorney. In the end, she was unable to right this wrong. In 2001, I encountered a similar predicament when I was arrested and falsely accused of a crime I did not commit. With little financial resources, I was unable to spend the money needed to defend myself properly. Instead of clearing my name, I found myself accepting a plea bargain. These two experiences evoked a feeling of helplessness that I never wanted to feel again. It was just a short while later when I encountered yet another wrong. This time, however, I had the chance to do something about it.

Growing up as an Iranian-American, I have always had a deep respect for tradition and it was UCLA’s tradition of excellence that drew me to Westwood. For decades, under the leadership of Coach John Wooden, UCLA’s men’s basketball program, symbolized this tradition. During my first two years at UCLA, however, the program had rapidly deteriorated under the leadership of head coach Steve Lavin.

Game after game, coach Lavin justified losing with what became his favorite byline: “Our opponent played at a magical level.” To me, Lavin’s words translated to “that’s just the way things are.” Rather than taking responsibility for the team’s failure, Lavin blamed defeat on a paranormal performance by the opponent. Lavin’s reasoning implied nothing could be done differently to change the outcome. I disagreed. Progress comes through change, and if UCLA basketball was to improve, a change in leadership was needed.

I was determined to restore the tradition of excellence to UCLA’s basketball program. To do so, I started a grassroots campaign to “Lose Lavin.” In the spring of 2002, I designed a “Lose Lavin” T-shirt and created a website called LoseLavin.com. The website allowed fans to express their outrage with Lavin by signing an online petition, posting comments, and most important, purchasing my “Lose Lavin” T-shirt, which served as a walking advertisement for the website. It was not long before my “Lose Lavin” T-shirts flooded Pauley Pavilion, and LoseLavin.com became the talk of almost every major sports radio show in Southern California. As the resistance mounted, the athletic department had little choice but to quell the uproar. On March 17, 2003, less than a year after the launch of LoseLavin.com, Steve Lavin was fired.

When compared to the injustices the world faces today, my “Lose Lavin” campaign undoubtedly dealt with a trivial issue. Nevertheless, I learned an important lesson: One person can make a difference. I was just a lowly sophomore in a student body of 36,000, but I rallied the troops and I made a difference. I saw what I believed was an injustice at UCLA and I did something about it. My efforts were not in vain. In fact, just three years after Lavin’s dismissal, the UCLA men’s basketball team made it to the national championship game. Today, UCLA is the #1 ranked men’s college basketball team in the country. UCLA’s tradition of excellence has been restored.

This triumph fueled my drive to be a reformer. Upon graduation, my mind turned back to Iran and problems more pressing than college basketball. Although I was only six months old when my parents fled the country, Iran has nevertheless had a profound impact on my life. Stories from relatives back in Iran constantly remind me of the harsh reality facing the Iranian people. These sad stories inspire me to want to make a difference, to bring about change. Today, Iran is experiencing vast levels of unemployment and underemployment - particularly among the youth. In my honors thesis, I learned that these devastating conditions are the result of the Islamic government’s oppressive economic policies. Researching my honors thesis taught me that jurisdiction in the wrong hands can serve as instruments for not only social and political oppression, but also economic oppression.

During recent work on my newest venture, iAmerica Capital, I have seen a similar phenomenon here in the United States. Relaxed lending laws and an unprecedented period of low interest rates have driven an increase in personal consumption, even though personal income growth is the lowest it has been in decades. The high debt burden coupled with rising interest rates will likely result in a large number of loan defaults in the coming years. This trend combined with recently enacted tougher bankruptcy laws could spell real trouble for a large number of low-income American families. These new bankruptcy laws, by rebuffing individuals seeking debt relief, will make it far more difficult for underprivileged people to escape the cycle of poverty. With this and other injustices, like those seen in Iran, I am not one to accept the status quo or the hopeless pessimism of “that’s just the way things are.”

My life experiences have taught me that the rule of law in the wrong hands can be a powerful tool of oppression. Oppression can only be overcome when people stand up, fight back and do something about it. I want to do something about it. Laws should protect and empower the less fortunate, rather than oppress them further. Today, I look at Iran and see history repeating itself. After eight years of empty promises by reformist President Mohammad Khatami, Iran has returned to the hard-line mentality of the Islamic Revolution. The current climate in Iran is a stark reminder of my parents’ experiences and all they endured to escape oppression. The difference now is I have the opportunity to do something about it. To this end, I seek to attain a legal education, which will provide me with the tools and legal training necessary to go forward and make a difference in this world. After all, jurisprudence is a field of study that is critical in nature, and that which is critical, by constantly challenging the status quo, always has the potential to be better.

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Professional Review by LSATMax

If you were to brainstorm a checklist of all the things you’d want a personal statement to have, this one would check off many of those items.

One item on that checklist would be an anecdote about a challenging experience and how that experience informed the person the applicant became. A personal statement doesn’t need to focus on a hardship to be powerful, and personal statements that focus on hardships aren’t always successful. But this applicant’s discussion of their family’s emigration from Iran informs the theme of this personal statement: the applicant’s lifelong belief in “the importance of standing up for your principles, no matter the cost.”

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Another item most would put on this checklist is a discussion of the applicant’s goals as a future attorney and the steps they’ve taken to reach those goals. Even though the issue is admittedly “trivial” compared to his parents’ emigration from Iran, the discussion of the “Lose Lavin” campaign checks off this item. This provides a real example of a time when the applicant stood up for what they believed in and rallied supporters, not unlike an attorney rectifying wrongs through a class-action lawsuit.

The last item is a description of why the applicant needs to go to law school to achieve their full potential and future life goals. This statement points to legal issues that motivate the applicant and explains why the applicant wants to use the law as a tool to “fight back and do something about” these issues.

But more than simply checking items off a list, this personal statement tells a coherent story with an identifiable theme. Each paragraph flows into the next, leaving the reader with an undeniable lesson: this applicant’s experiences add up perfectly together to show why they will be a successful attorney, whether they attend Harvard or somewhere else.

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