U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT — Lawyers tend to err on the side of caution, and the legal profession is notoriously resistant to change. Perhaps that’s one reason why many people have a strong mental image of a “typical lawyer” – a pale older man with a briefcase and a suit who looks like he hatched out of a dinosaur egg. When many aspiring lawyers picture a “typical law school applicant,” they imagine a younger version of the same guy – perhaps his son – who always knew he’d be a lawyer, worked at a law firm every summer and relaxes by reading tax law rulings and coaching mock trial tournaments. The persistence of such stereotypes leads many law school applicants to believe that that their personal, academic or professional background makes them an outlier. Not only are such beliefs discouraging, but they also cause applicants to portray themselves in ways that sound overly defensive, insecure or even self-absorbed.