hello,
I found your discussion by Google - was seeking for a right advice on how to produce a successful motivation letter (statement of purpose) for postgraduate studies. I have applied a couple of times, but had been rejected and I know why - I have never submitted an appealing statement even though my academic record is fairly good.
So could you please help me? I just want you to assess adequitely the statement below I wrote for the same programme and tell me my chances,
thank you very much!
Dora
p.s. it's a bit lengthy and I didn't insert greetings, etc. is it a great minus?
MOTIVATION LETTER FOR EUROPEAN MASTERS IN LAW AND ECONOMICS COURSE BY D.J.
One of my utmost long-term goals is to pursue successful academic career as a prominent legal scholar. So far I have been interested in law and legal studies only, but after completing my Bachelor’s degree I understood that the area of law is by many means interrelated with other subjects as sociology, politics, international relations, health, culture and, more than all, with economics. Both spheres are mutually influential and, in a well-build system, usually develop in parallel, corresponding to changes of each other, reflecting new trends, new ideas and new modus operandi.
As long as both areas are linked they ought to react promptly to any minor changes in their associates. If not, negative consequences are inevitable. For example, the challenges or gaps in national law may, in some circumstances, jeopardize a logical growth of country’s economic benefits. In the instance with absence of intellectual property rights protection in a country may restrict certain foreign investors from bringing their businesses into it. Thus the amendment of the existing legal framework of the country will remove barriers in the further progress of the market and subsequently, facilitate increase of the cost-of-living index of the nation and create healthy business environment.
Here is another situation. Assume a developing economy with low GDP results is entering a new stage of its history. Say, it is emerging into a new subject of international law – a confederation or union, or it is dissolving from the former one. At the transitional stage, the economy is apparently vulnerable, because it experiences colossal shock and most of the development cornerstones are challenged. In this period the most active and mercantile actors may realise the profitability of the circumstances and use the chaos for their malicious benefit. For instance, after collapse of former Soviet Union, most of former member states suffered a lot from so-called “financial pyramids”.
The key of pyramids’ success was in the population’s depressive state after the dissolution of the Super Power, disorientation in economic values and not readiness for changes. But the tragedy could have been avoided if not poor and ineffective implementation of legal protection from fraud and financial crimes, which led to increase of MMM pyramid in the mid 90s. The MMM company was a bright example of a financial institution created exclusively for money-collecting purposes. Although established in 1989 it was only June 1994 when President Eltcin issued a special decree prohibiting financial institutions from publicizing the expected income, the aspect, which is, in fact, a ground principle of commercial secrecy law, and thus predicted a soon end of the firm. Somehow during long 5 years the interested parties managed to lobby their interests in the governing stratum and impeded it from issuing any legal obstacles. Meanwhile the company involved at least two million people and collected as much as 1.5 billion USD. In its heyday the company earned about 20 billion rubles (about 11 million USD).[1]
The examples above illustrate how the economic factors can influrnce the creation of favorable legal framework and how the lawfulness and legality ideas may overcome the horror of extremely profitable but fraudulent and unlawful elements’ economic activity. However, neither law nor business shall be admitted as a dictate. If the law is an absolute prevail, any temptation to act in a manner, different from that one described in normative rules, will be regarded as an offence, or even crime. This will lead to corruption, bureaucracy and, in most cases, excess of official powers and legal norms will never be amended or modernized. Whereas, the economic interest is a dominant, the situation will be far less different than that one occurred in early 90s in post-soviet space.
In order to avoid these disastrous instabilities and illogical situations, in my opinion, it is vital to learn how legal rules and economic factors interact, influence each other and find the optimal ways of parallel co-existence. Over the past decades modern legal scholars have developed a new area of law – “law an economics”, which is basically concerned with economic analyses of legal theory (Continental, mostly German, scholars see this concept in Staatswissenschaften approach to “law and economics” and the German Historical School of Economics; this view is represented in the Elgar Companion to Law and Economics (2nd ed. 2005) and partly in the European Journal of Law and Economics.)[2]
“Law and economics”, or, simply saying, economic analysis of law, as a rule, is split into two main trends, positive and normative. The first one employs economic analysis to foresee the consequences of various legal rules. So, for example, a positive economic analysis of tort law would predict the effects of a strict liability rule as opposed to the effects of a negligence rule. While the latter, normative law and economics make policy recommendations based on the economic effects of various policies, thus going one step further than positive analysis of law.
Generally, economic analysis of law uses economic concepts to explain the effects of laws, to assess which legal rules are economically efficient, and to predict which legal rules will be promulgated.[3] It helps the economists to understand better the legal environment in which economic activities must be conducted and lawyers to be aware of the economic effects of current legal rules and the expected outcome under a different legal regime. Sometimes the consequences of law in real life markets may be different from what the lawmakers have in mind and generate adverse counterproductive effects. For this reason, I strongly believe that in-depth knowledge and skillfulness in the area of interaction between law and economy may improve any legal system. Taking this into account, I consider the offered course of European Master in Law and Economics a unique opportunity which allows students to explore extremely interesting and challenging subject of economic analysis of law.
I am definitely in need of prospective studies at European master in Law and Economics course because it will certainly enrich my knowledge and views on the law-economics relationship. In my view, I have all key qualifications necessary to satisfy the criteria imposed for applicants and personal features to comply successfully with an academic policy and study environment of this program. My academic and professional background allows me to consider myself an adequate candidate, eager to be enrolled in this course. In addition, I am confident that following the completion of the program I will be able to start my activity as a legal consultant for small and medium businesses in my home country, thus making an adequate contribution to economic and legal development of Uzbekistan. My future plans also include becoming a parliamentary representative for private sector and hence, I believe, I would be able to put my efforts to influence the law-making process for the benefit of private business and entrepreneurship and for the formation of lucrative Uzbek economic environment in general. Also, I hope that studying of the abovementioned course in famous European institutions such as the University of Rotterdam, Bologna University and others, which have a wide range of information resources and vivid library, will facilitate the development of my skills in conducting enhancive legal research, writing, delivery and presentation and interpersonal communication.