Advice/opinions about odd recommendation response please

VerdantZephyr

So I was really surprised by a declined request for a recommendation from a grad school professor who has written several excellent recommendations for post grad programs for me before. They said it would not be helpful coming from them. When I asked why they declined I got this rough reasoning.

A. I finished grad school 4 years ago with an interdisciplinary MA in 2016 so there is a time gap.
B. They are a history professor and do not think a recommendation would be valuable for this reason.
C. They have been hating life in academia (understandable because academia is rough these days and the administration there was awful) and plan to leave academia entirely in 2021. They feel that since they will no longer be working in academia next year the recommendation will be worthless.

The reason I asked them is because they are the professor that knew me best in grad school and can speak not only about my academic performance (they were my thesis advisor) but also personal obstacles I overcame. Perhaps it is lip service, but my understanding is that graduate schools are looking for diverse academic backgrounds and would hardly turn up their noses at a recommendation from a published socio-cultural history professor. Actually, in retrospect, my concern is that the undergrad professor I went to for a law school rec was also a history professor and this does not show the breadth of my studies with two interdisciplinary degrees, but I think on the whole that is negated by my close relationship with both.

B: For a mature, mid 30's grad like myself 4 years hardly seems like a large gap in time for an academic recommendation. Law schools would, I assume, probably be happy to have an academic rec letter from a mature applicant, again, especially because they can write well about me.

As for C, that one I can see perhaps mattering but, especially for mature applicants, it would not be uncommon that a professor has retired since they left school, which doesn't seem much different to me? I know for grad school I asked a retired former professor for a rec letter and they complied with a strong one.

I am inclined to make these points and ask again, but before I do I wanted to hear what other people who may be more informed than I think. I will also probably send some anonymous emails to the schools I am looking at.

If you aren't bored yet, background below.

VerdantZephyr

Extra Background: My main targets are a half dozen lower T14-mid teen schools. I am still narrowing down backups but they will be between #18 and #s 31 I am an extreme super-splitter with a strong grad school GPA, terrible undergrad, and anticipate (fingers crossed) a mid 170+ on the LSAT.

I have been working internationally since grad school so the people who could write rec letters for me are 1: not culturally North American as well as second language speakers or 2: "supervised" from the other side of the planet and we met only annually. I can probably wrestle up a few decent work related rec letters but I do not think they will be nearly as strong as my academic ones. My initial plan was 1 from undergrad 10 years ago to talk about my strengths and weaknesses then (I know this letter will be incredibly strong, we have stayed very close after graduation) and 1-2 grad school letters as well as 1-2 work related letters. I have one other professor that could probably write a pretty good letter and they are a big shot in their field, but relationship trumps name is what I always hear. For work I think I will ask a couple of people and see what kind of quality they are if I get 2 strong ones I will use them both, if not I will use the better. Some schools interview rec writers though I think, and that would be hard when they live in Asia.

What are your thoughts?

motximotxi

Your reasoning is super compelling and I agree, I think the issue though is that if they are extremelly demotivated they're probably struggling to even respond to your email, so I am not sure they'd be able to write a strong letter unless they had the previous ones they've written for you saved. What you gotta achieve is not so much convincing them that you are worth recommending (they already think that) but that they are worthy of writing a recommendation and that academia is worthy of their time, which is a much harder ask. I imagine your recommender is just extremelly burned out and just barely managing to continue to work, so finding reasons to care is super hard. Having said that, I'd definitely respond to ask again and just honestly remind them about why they matter to you and the impact they had on you and how much of a positive impact this letter could have. I don't know your relationship with them but you could also offer to have a phone call or somethign (though this might be too much given their current state as well!)

VerdantZephyr

@motximotxi Thank you for your response, it was excellent and very helpful. I also sent anonymous emails to my top 6 schools and they confirmed my thoughts on this. I am also struggling with the idea of asking anyone reluctant to serve as a reference to right one.