Your law school personal statement has three purposes, according to top-law-school.com: to convince your readers (usually members of the admissions committee) that you should be admitted to their law school, to clear their minds of any doubts they may have about you and to convince them to act on your behalf (i.e., actually admit you to their law school). Applicants should write their personal statement with these goals in mind. The personal statement should be a persuasive essay, not simply a list of facts or a narrative with no purpose.
According to the Berkeley Career Center, law school personal statements should be a short narrative with one or two main points. The center recommends applicants construct a narrative in which they are the main character and they grew or changed in some way. Applicants may choose from a variety of different topics but should especially consider narratives or stories that show off their best attributes.
According to the Boston College, structure the personal statement like an essay---that is, it should contain an introductory paragraph with "attention-grabbing" material, body paragraphs with topic sentences and a conclusion that summarizes the writer's main points. Structure the body paragraphs, introductory paragraph and concluding paragraph around a unifying theme. Both Boston College and top-law-schools.com do not recommend titling or using epigraphs (quotations placed at the beginning of the statement) in your personal statement, as these can distract the reader.
Penn State University recommends applicants use creative nonfiction writing to show, not tell, the audience the point of their narrative. Statements such as "I learned X, Y and Z from participating in this activity" are an example of a reader telling her audience what she learned. Instead of this, try to show the audience what you learned through examples of your behavior or thought process. Penn State also reminds applicants to have several other people look over the personal statement, perhaps with an eye toward catching grammatical, spelling and punctuation errors.
Top-Law-Schools.com stresses that applicants should not focus their personal statement on their application's weaknesses. If an applicant has a low LSAT or undergraduate GPA, he can attach an addendum to his application discussing these weaknesses. Penn State's personal statement guide warns applicants against being too cynical or too arrogant and recommends the use of the third person rather than the first person. Applicants should not title their statements, use an epigraph (a quotation placed at the beginning of the essay) or go over the length limit recommended by their targeted law school.