Hi everyone! I have a question about LOR. I had a professor who I established a good and strong relationshipwith, who told me that he would be willing to write my letter of recommendation. He told me it would be completed by a certain date. I looked at the CAS application on LSAC and I saw that he did not open the link. Mind you this was back in May and he confirmed with me that he received it. I tried to follow up with him multiple times with no success. I asked another professor who was my fellowship leader who I also had multiple coffee chats with and he only read my message and did not respond to me. I am wondering, I should just get two professional LOR? Any advice would be great.
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IIRC LSAC allows you to have 4 uploaded total .. so if you have the space and want insurance in case your professors never end up writing them, it might be a good idea to have two professional ones on standby.
I'm sorry you're going through this, @NikkiW! Sigh!
First things first - it sounds like you've done your part here. You reached out to two professors with whom you had good relationships. It sounds like you gave some deadlines and that you followed up a few times. If they haven't done anything, it's because something has come up on their side (I'm not saying this happened, but I've run into situations where profs had significant medical issues and dropped off email for a while to focus on that). It could also be that they really know that law school apps don't open until Sept 1 so they have a little more time to get things done. My guess is more on the former than the latter. Profs are usually really good about this because they know that this is part of their professional responsibilities.
My usual rule of thumb is that you should try to have at least one academic letter if you're within two or three years of your most recent higher ed experience (either undergrad or grad). So if you graduated in 2024-2026, it'd be nice to see one academic letter. I leave it to you to balance out "how well do I know any other prof" vs "how well do my supervisors in a professional capacity know me." If you feel like the supervisors know you far better than the next group of profs that you'd reach out to, then it's ok to roll with two professional letters.
And just saying this out loud - in my professional experience, I can count on one hand the number of times when letters of rec made the difference between a waitlist vote and an admit vote. It really doesn't happen regularly. I'm saying this just so that you don't stress out about this situation any more than you've probably already done to this point!
@JacobBaska Thank you so much for the advice! You really put my mind at ease!
I think any glowing letter is better than a letter from a specific individual to simply fulfill a requirement.
I do not know if professional letters carry less weight to schools but if they’re well written it’s better than a subpar rushed letter from a prof.
If you haven’t already, maybe send a draft of what you’re hoping for to all four people you’d like to write one. Give them each a different finished letter that they are welcome to “edit”. Maybe the factor with your professor is a lack of time. Most professors have a completed draft for all students and they just change out keywords that are specific to you… so provide the keywords you’d like them to say.
I looked up the law schools “core values” and included real examples from interactions with each person. For example, if a school loves students who are disciplined, academically inclined and ask good questions, provide those skills in the letter from your professor. Profs will understand when reading your draft those are the skills you would like them to showcase.
When I asked my managers to write one, I wrote about instances I worked well with others, was proactive and reliable etc.
This way you get to be known for multiple skills in the school’s pov and help ease the task from those you asked to write letters.
In short, definitely ask those professional references for help. When you submit to schools, you cannot read the final drafts but you can select which schools hear from which person. I had a sneaky feeling my professor’s letters were less comprehensive than my employers so I selected my stronger letters at the schools who weren’t as specific that they wanted a professor.