Pleaes Halp!
As most of you know, I’m in the waning throes of applying to law school, and my application is now only missing one final piece of the puzzle: the much-hated essay. I’m pretty sure I screwed this up the first time around with colleges, so I’m gonna try something new. I”ll post my first draft here and hope that some of you are kind enough to read it and tell me what’s wrong with it. I figure if the whole thing’s gonna be about the potential of the internet, then I ought to put my money where my mouth is. Leave a comment, send me an email, yell at me in person, however you want to get your point across is fine with me. Just keep in mind that it’s already about as long as it can be, so if you think I need to add something, let me know what you think I should cut. Now without further ado, The Essay:
Personal Statement, Draft 1:
I want to go to law school because of the internet. Not because I found out about the wonders of legal education and the grandeur of first-year associate salaries from an online discussion board, but because of an organization called Project Gutenberg, which makes books in the public domain freely available online. It’s been around longer than I have, but I first encountered it when my family connected to the Prodigy service in 1992. During the course of my first experience with online discussion boards, I found out two things: first, that not all Amy Grant fans were as peaceful and gentle as they seemed, and second, that there was this organization that was attempting to take old books and make them freely available to the whole world. Now, the former discovery was a bit shocking to my 12-year-old mind, but I wasn’t even ready for the latter. I was beginning to understand how great the internet was going to be at making communication easier, having sent a few emails back and forth, but I hadn’t even imagined the possibility of communicating entire books. Books were still, in my mind, heavy ponderous things that one carried around in a bag, and their availability was limited to my house, the library, and Barnes & Nobles. Suddenly I was being told that many of the greatest books in history were only minutes away from anyone who was connected (now it’s more like seconds away, but back then a 2400 baud modem was the hottest thing on the streets).
Some years later I realized that a wall had come down, that this network of computers and people had become one of the greatest repositories of human knowledge in what amounts to a historical instant. What’s more, it was growing, and it has continued to grow, faster and faster, such that Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive, has recently stated that universal access to all human knowledge, past, present, and future, is now possible. For the cost of one year of missile defense programs, he could archive it all. Sure, that would save me a few trips to my local public library, but when you consider what such an archive could mean for remote villages around the world with a phone line but no access to a library, the proposition moves swiftly from a nice convenience to a moral imperative.
So much knowledge could be made freely available through the internet, yet it is not, and that is primarily because of intellectual property law, especially in the US. I have enormous respect for intellectual property; my father, as a photographer, makes his living from it, but I’m also deeply worried that in focusing too narrowly on enabling creators to control the use of their work we are in danger of squelching the vibrant public domain that has made our culture so prolific and rich. In seeking a legal education I am trying to understand, among other things, the best ways to balance the rights of the public with the rights of the creator. I want to work towards Kahle’s concept of a universal archive, a digital Library of Alexandria that is freely available to anyone who cares to access it. I also want the creators of all that work to be compensated, but I believe that compensation needs to be structured to encourage them to create more work, rather than to squeeze every last penny out of their existing work. In short, I want to go to law school because I believe in the internet; I believe it has the potential to educate the world and to push us towards new frontiers of creativity, but only if a better balance is found in the laws of intellectual property.
evan :: Oct.29.2004 :: Notices :: 6 Comments »
I have two concerns:
1- Recognizing the severe space limitations imposed on you, I’d still recommend explaining the moral imperative. While it’s self-evident to you and me, you might be surprised as to what an arcane subject IP is to most lawyers.
2- Law school emphasizes arguing from both sides of an issue. Maybe you should talk more about IP protections. You mention your dad as well as finding alternative compensation schemes, but in the context of your essay it’s almost like you are paying mere lip service to his ability to feed, clothe and shelter you.
Finally, I wouldn’t add either of these at the expense of your more informal moments. I think you should leave the essay as it is rather than cut the banter in favor of further analysis. In fact, maybe you can add another ‘joke’ near the end to balance the tone better. Your LSAT & GPA will speak to your ability to reason well and do good, serious work. (OK, so I guess there was a third concern.)
Good essay, though. Better than mine was…
Having not read your essay, but knowing you as well as I do, I’m anticipating that you used too many words and not enough bright colorful pictures. law schools like pictures. Sometimes you just gotta play the game.
evan, just a few small edits. in the first paragraph, youjuse “even” again in the sentence “I was beginning…” . Find a substitute. also “communicating” entire books?
in the second paragraph,second sentence, the “It” doesn’t have a clear referent
Third graph, maybe insert “as I understand it” after “yetit is not, and that…”
I take the point of the person who thought you might need more balance. aren’t there other prolific cultures with a different law? what about all the science patents coming from asia now? what’s their law?
I like it. It sets you apart from the typical applicant because you actually have a specific reason you want to go to law school. It even sets you apart from other kids who say they like IP law either because they majored in engineering or just because its so god damn sexy.
I’ll take a stab at offering a few suggestions although I wouldn’t say I think these are crucial. Maybe you should throw in a sentence or two about what a compensation scheme that encourages more work would look like, just to reinforce that this is an issue that you have seriously thought about. Also, you might want to try and tailor this essay for the individual schools–some of the schools your applying to have “centers” for the study of internet and law or society and/or notable professors in the field. Even if you just add on a sentence or two at the end I think it will be really good.
By the way, I’m proud of you for getting this draft done. If you can get your Apps in by Thanksgiving you’ll be in good shape.
Thanks, everyone, for the help. Especially Mr. Gursky; without his penetrating insight, I couldn’t even tie my shoes in the morning, much less apply to law school.
Marc, I’m worried I may have stumbled into some jargon accidently. By “moral imperative” I only mean to say that it would be a moral failing on our part to not pursue the potential to provide these resources to those remote villages (also I’d like work in that it’s a two-way street, that connecting these places to the internet allows the rest of us to learn from them as well, but there might not be room for that). If instead I’ve invoked a particular IP concept, then I’ll have to rephrase.
As for my father, it’s interesting, he’s been a long-time proponent of fair use, not as a matter of principle or policy, but as a good business practice. Basically he knows locking the work down and charging for every re-use of an image is going to result in fewer clients buying initial uses. He also draws a wide line between commercial and non-commercial uses, almost always only charging for the former.
Ellen, thank you for the edits, those are perfect examples of the poor phrasing you stop being able to notice when you’ve rearranged a paragraph 10 times.
Dan, thank you for reminding me about the centers, I definitely meant to leave space for names. I really don’t think I have space to get into the alternative compensation schemes, though, even if most of what I’d say would be “roll back the term extensions.”
You make good writing words, but “S” at end of “Barnes and Noble” is for talking, not for writing. If writing on purpose, probably deserve apostrophe.
Maybe I think more later.