Choosing Recommenders for Law School Admissions

You'll have to choose two to four recommenders, perhaps more. As a rule, you can use the same set of recommenders for all the schools on your application list. The best recommenders are people who know you well and have some special skills or experiences that make them good judges of the talents of young people. Examples include undergraduate teachers who have seen many former students go on to law school; employers who hire and supervise the work of young people; or counselors, psychologists, and clergy who work with college students. Lawyers, who have personal experience of legal education, are also desirable recommenders. With certain exceptions, each law school will leave the choice of recommenders up to you.

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Some law schools insist on at least one letter from a professor, because teachers are best situated to comment on an individual candidate's intelligence, study-related skills, and academic accomplishments. Professors can often compare candidates with "known quantities": candidates from previous years, law students, and lawyers. Some professors write many letters; prelaw advisers and other teachers of BGE subjects often develop considerable experience in evaluating students' potential for legal study. As nearby law schools become familiar with a given professor's letters, they may give the letters greater weight. Some law schools divide letters of recommendation into two categories and give all letters from teachers' greater weight than letters from other recommenders.

In his 1974 book, How to Get into Law School, Rennard Strickland quotes an admissions committee member as saying that letters from former teachers are "way yonder the most important." You should always submit at least one letter from a former teacher, even if it is not explicitly required. Your application will seem suspicious without it, as though you're trying to hide some disreputable aspect of your undergraduate career. You're unlikely to have difficulty finding at least one professor who will write a letter for you if your record is generally good.

A few law schools continue the old tradition of asking for a recommendation from a college dean. Years ago, when colleges were small enough for the deans to know all their students, deans would comment on an applicant's moral fitness, including such matters as whether or not the student was a regular churchgoer. Deans would also reveal any disciplinary infractions on an applicant's undergraduate record. But those days are long over. If you need a letter from a dean, ask your prelaw adviser what the policy is at your college. Most likely, you will be instructed to give the letter form to a certain dean-at Bradley, we use the dean at the college of liberal arts-and the dean will then ask you to suggest one or two teachers who can comment on your work. One of these teachers will be asked to draft a letter for the dean's signature. At other colleges, the dean of students or some equivalent officer fills out the forms. The dean will notify the law school of any disciplinary infractions in the files. If there are none, the dean will simply write that he or she doesn't know of any reason why the candidate should not be admitted. At still other colleges, the prelaw adviser fills out the forms over a dean's signature.

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Employers who have been able to observe your job performance and who are in a position to comment on your motivation, enthusiasm, and ability to work consistently and well also make good recommenders. If you are a nontraditional applicant and want your work experience to be viewed as a qualification for legal study, good references from former employers are vital.

If you are a traditional student, all your co-workers have probably also been young people. Your immediate supervisor is in a good position to compare you with other students. You should choose a recommender who will make a favorable comparison.

If you have worked in a lawyer's office, your employers will probably consider a letter of recommendation to be part of your reward for a job well done. They have a tendency to exaggerate their influence. Don't overly rely on a lawyer's letter simply because she is a friend of the dean's, or has worked as an adjunct law professor, or donates a lot of money to the school's fundraising efforts. Because many, many lawyer-alumni and lawyer-contributors write letters for various candidates, no one candidate can get any special benefits. Nevertheless, lawyers are desirable recommenders. They can testify about your work habits. Because they are familiar with legal education, they can comment authoritatively about your ability to perform necessary tasks like working regularly, writing clearly, or operating research computers. Like professors, lawyers can often compare you favorably with successful candidates of previous years.

Coaches and trainers often make surprisingly good recommenders. They know applicants well from direct daily contact and are in a good position to comment on such qualities as drive, dedication, and persistence. They are often good judges of intelligence and communications skills. But never submit more than one letter from a coach. You don't want to give the impression that your undergraduate education was disproportionately focused on athletics.

As much as possible, you should seek recommenders who can comment on the important activities in your life. If you have been active in political campaign work, a letter from a party professional is appropriate. If you are a religious person who is active in church-affiliated youth groups, charity work, or religious study, your minister is a good person to choose to describe this work. But if your only contact with your minister is an occasional handshake after a church service, he or she is probably not a good person to evaluate your potential for law school success.

Recommenders are most valuable if they are good judges of talent or character, have had a good opportunity to evaluate you, and perceive you favorably. A letter from a lawyer, even a very respected one, will be of little value if it is clear that the lawyer doesn't know you very well and is writing only out of a sense of obligation to your parents. By contrast, one law school dean told me that he was moved by reading a letter from a construction contractor who described how hard and how enthusiastically the applicant worked at a tedious demolition job during a sweltering period of summer employment. Although the contractor was uneducated, he clearly knew and respected hard work. He had observed the applicant carefully over a period of time and the applicant had earned his respect.

Since recommenders should be able to comment objectively, they ought not to be relatives or close friends with whom your contact has been mainly social or romantic. You should not seek letters from anyone who is indebted to or dependent on you, like an employee. As a rule, traditional applicants ought not to seek letters from people younger than themselves. Other students, even law students, are not good recommenders because they haven't had extensive experience judging youthful potential.

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