When applying to law school, many people stress out about selecting their recommenders. Although it is important to choose someone who will write a strong letter of recommendation, you likely have more qualified people to ask than you realize. In this blog post, we at Stratus walk you through the process of identifying a strong recommender.
Non-Negotiables for Law School Recommenders
First, it is important to discuss what bar your recommenders must meet. At a minimum, they should be able to write about your academic skills. A recommender does not necessarily need to be a tenured professor with a high-profile background. However, the person should be familiar with your academic performance. Here are some guidelines to follow when deciding between school and work recommenders:
- If you are either still in college or less than two years out, one recommender should be academic.
- If you have been working for more than two years, you can have another recommender be academic, but you can also have a work reference instead.
- If you have worked for five or more years, law schools generally will expect one recommender to be work related.
- If you have taken a long time off between college and law school—like ten years or more—you can have two work recommenders.
Regardless of whether your recommenders are from work or school, abide by these best practices:
- Give your recommenders plenty of time to write their letters (typically at least six weeks).
- Be humble and appreciative in all communications.
- Answer any questions they ask to help them write a better letter.
Ideal Factors
In most cases, when deciding which professors should write you a recommendation, consider someone who taught a class in which you did well. However, if a class was tough for you but you worked hard and developed a good relationship with the professor, and the professor really appreciated your work, that professor could be a good recommender—even if you did not receive the top grade in their class.
Even for professors in whose classes you excelled, you will want to ask someone with whom you are well acquainted and someone who really took note of your work. Often, these are professors from smaller classes, where they have a better chance of remembering everyone and you had more opportunities to participate. These might be professors who taught several of your classes. They also might be someone for whom you worked as a research or teaching assistant, or maybe someone who sponsored a club in which you were active.
For work recommenders, you will want someone whom you would use as a job reference. Typically, you will have worked for them for at least a year. They should be happy with your work and able to share a few projects that provide evidence of your good performance.
What if my recommender doesn’t align with those ideal factors?
Today, many applicants feel they do not have a recommender who has the qualities outlined above. A lot of applicants who were in college during the COVID-19 pandemic believe that they did not have the opportunity to get to know their professors because their classes were held remotely and/or their time on campus was severely limited. Other applicants who have worked a few years and have not kept in touch with their professors feel weird reaching out after so long.
If these situations apply to you, do not worry! Professors have experienced the pandemic too. Many likely wish they could have gotten to know their students better. Professors have hundreds of students a year, and they understand that not every student can stay in touch as well as they would have liked. Therefore, if you did well in a remote class, you should still reach out to that class’s professor; they will likely be happy to write you a recommendation.
When contacting your professors, provide the reasons you are going to law school, and offer to share your application materials and to answer any questions they might have. Many professors will ask for some of these materials anyway; they chose to teach partly because they want to help young minds, so they will likely want to be as helpful as they can.
Employer recommendations work largely the same. It is completely understandable if you do not want to ask someone at your current job for a recommendation out of fear of retribution for potentially leaving the company. If you worked for your previous employer a few years ago, you could still reach out to someone from there; just follow the same communications practices discussed above.
Law School Recommender Titles
As touched on earlier, some applicants think that an academic recommender must be a prominent and tenured professor. Generally, such factors are irrelevant. What is most important is that the recommender knows your work well. So, if an assistant professor or even a teaching assistant got to know your work better than a tenured professor, ask that assistant professor or teaching assistant for a recommendation.
The same rules apply for work recommenders. If you work in a congressman’s office, but the congressman does not know you well, you are better off asking for a recommendation from a staffer who supervises you. For work recommendations, you will usually want to ask someone who manages you. If you cannot find someone like that, consider a client. You want someone who can speak about the work that you have produced for them.
Recommenders from Outside the Legal Field
Many applicants feel they need a recommendation from someone in the legal field or at least something adjacent. But if you were a pre-med student, for example, you will not face any penalty for having a medical professor write your recommendation. This is true for employers as well. Most people using an employer reference are unlikely to have a recommender from the legal field.
Ideal Number of Law School Recommendations
Many law schools specify how many recommendations they want, so make sure to check with every school of interest to you. Even if you do not apply to all the schools, you are still better off potentially having an extra recommender than having to scramble at the last minute to find another one.
Typically, schools want two recommendations, but some will give you the option for a third. In these situations, only provide a third recommendation if the recommender is distinct from the other two and can share something the other two could not. Often, such recommenders will come from a unique initiative you worked on. Having an extra professor write a recommendation because you took a different class with them or having another employer write one because you had a separate job with them is not distinct enough. Most students will only provide two recommendations and be fine.
Another instance where you should get a third recommendation is if you feel one of your recommenders is unlikely to turn in their letter on time. If a recommender becomes unresponsive after you’ve spent weeks following up, it could be a good idea to reach out to a new recommender to avoid being short one recommendation at the deadline.
Other Factors to Consider
If you have a recommender who knows you well but is often disorganized and behind schedule, it might be best to skip them. You do not want your application to be held up because they cannot get your letter done on time. If you do ask someone like that for a recommendation, give them more than the typical six weeks’ notice, and gently check in with them a few times in the lead up to the due date.
For academic recommenders, if you can, ask them the summer before you apply. Many will have more availability because they do not have classes. Now, there is a chance they may do nothing with your letter during the summer, so, again, gently follow up once or twice. Keep in mind that you can never give too much advance notice; giving your recommenders this flexibility will help ensure they have time to write you the best letter that they can.
It can be easy to overthink your options for recommenders. However, following the advice in this blog post can help you put some real thought into who writes your letters and increase your chances of success. Our law school admissions consultants can also help – sign up for a free, 30-minute consultation to discuss your recommenders or anything else regarding your law school applications. Good luck!