Self-study
I initially wanted to go to law school in 2022, and started my LSAC profile then, so two of my LORs are from 2022. While I would still request an LOR from these individuals today, would it be ideal to request newer LORs from them? I know one of them is not dated, but the other might be.
There's also a third person I'd like to obtain an LOR from, who is the Dean of my current program, which is at my target school. Should I swap one of those older LORs for one from him, or is it okay to have three?
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2 comments
For the old letters, I would just recommend reaching out to those recommenders and saying something along the lines of "Thank you for writing the LOR, I am looking to now apply, and I wanted to check that you are still okay with me utilizing this letter. If there is anything you'd prefer to update, or you no longer wish to provide this reference, please let me know" (in a more polite and eloquent way, but something to that effect)
For the LOR from the Dean, 2 things to suggest:
It depends on the school. If a school says you can have more than 2 LORs and you think the Dean would give you a strong one, absolutely go for it. If the first 2 LORs are strong, might as well add a 3rd strong one!
In my experience, schools prefer someone with a close professional relationship to you over a big name. If you genuinely have spent a lot of time working directly with this Dean in a professional setting, they would be a good LOR writer. If you have not, I wouldn't recommend using them. If you instead worked with perhaps a professor or another admin, or something, that would be stronger. But, again, I'm not certain of your relationship with the Dean, so I'll leave that up to you. Just good to be aware of.