October 2004

New LSAC Recommendation Service

Here's how the system works:

You can choose to keep things simple, like they used to be.  You submit two to four letters, specify nothing, and letters get sent to law schools, just as in the old system.  Many of you won't need anything more than this.  However, if you don't do anything else, you'll have no choice about which recs get sent to schools that take fewer than you have.  

OR,

You can tell the system what letters you will submit.  (If you've already submitted letters, you can edit the current description.)

Either way, you go to the LOR section, enter the name of the people writing the rec and how to contact them.  You print out a bar-coded form for each person, sign it, and deliver it to the recommender with a stamped envelope addressed to Law Services.

At any time before or after you print the form, you tell Law Services what kind of rec it is.  There are four kinds of letters:

• General -- will be sent to all law schools unless you specify otherwise.  You have a maximum of 4.
  • You can have more than four general letters on file, but only four can be active.   Since targeted letters can be sent to more than one school, I can't think of any reason to do this!
• Targeted -- these will be sent only to those law schools to which you direct them.  
  • They can be sent to one law school, or a dozen.  
  • One recommender can write one targeted letter, or a dozen, but each recommender can write only one general letter.  
  • You can have an unlimited number of targeted letters from different recommenders, as well as from any one recommender.  
  • You have to provide a label for each targeted rec.  Law Services says, "NOTE: Choose your description carefully. It will be printed on the LOR form. Therefore, it will be seen by the recommender, the law schools that receive it, and LSAC."  In other words, don't go naming a rec "the History Dweeb."
• Inactive -- old letters you're not using any more (most likely relevant to folks who are reapplying).
• Unmatched -- letters that are creating problems for Law Services because they
  • aren't defined in the system,
  • exceed the number of general letters,
  • appear to be duplicates.

Getting Recs to the Law Schools

Next, you add your list of law schools, and tell Law Services what letters to send to each.  

NOTE:  Law Services has a list of law schools in two different places.

 If you use the list with the underlined link, there's an enormous list (ten printed pages) that you can open.  Here's what it says, in short:

• No Canadian law schools use the LSDAS rec service.
• A bunch of American law schools that are not ABA or AALS approved don't accept letters through the LSDAS rec service.  Since I don't help people apply to these schools, I can't tell you anything more about this.  
  • If you're applying to any of these schools, look at the list CAREFULLY.  
  • If you're applying to California schools and don't know whether they are ABA-approved, look in the Official Guide on the LSAC web page   If they have a full four-page display, they're approved.  

If you use the scroll-bar list after clicking the "Add Law Schools" button, you'll avoid those problems and face others:

• Many schools are not listed where you expect them.  
  • Several of the "University of" schools are listed in the U's.  
  • A few "The University of" schools are listed under T.  
  • A few schools are out of order by one or two places.  
• Be creative and diligent in looking for the schools you can't find.  

Whichever list you use, here's what you'll find:

• EVERY ABA-approved law school except Thomas Cooley accepts letters through LSDAS.  (Cooley doesn't accept recs at all.)
• Only a few ABA-approved law schools will accept a maximum of 2 letters.  Most  schools accept either 3 or 4 letters.
• NO ONE, EVER, accepts five recs.  

Now for some caveats:  

• There are many confusing names on the list.  Just as an example:
  • American College of Law IS NOT American University in DC.
  • J. Marshall U. School of Law IS NOT The John Marshall Law School in Chicago.  
  • San Francisco Law School IS NOT University of San Francisco.
• Also, some schools have multiple programs and accept LSDAS recs only for the JD program.  For instance:
  • Temple does not accept recs for the LL.M. programs, but does for the JD program.  
  • Villanova does not accept recs for the Special JD/Ph.D. program, but does for the JD program.  
• When in doubt, refer to the Law School Code, not the name of the school or program!  

Here's how I see my clients using this system:

Erin is a basic 22-year-old.  She has two solid academic recs and one community service rec. She's not applying to any of the "only two recs" schools.  She can do things the same old way as we've been doing them -- send the recs, let Law Services send them out.

Mike, who's been out of school a while and working as a cop, will have three letters.  But he's applying to Wisconsin.  He can send three letters, designate them all as general, and specify which two will be sent to Wisconsin.  If he doesn't designate them fast enough, the first two will be sent to Wisconsin.

Chris went to West Point, has several years' professional work experience, and will be applying to some JD/MBA programs.  He may have four or five letters.  He should mark them all as "targeted."  Then he can send the military ones to state schools, the JD/MBA ones to schools where he's applying to both programs, and letters from alumni of specific schools to those schools.  

Yvonne is applying to CLEO.  She has to mark all of her recs as general, or CLEO won't receive them.  

NOTE that Erin could mark all of her letters as "targeted," but then she'll have to specify to send them to each school, instead of their being sent automatically.  Ditto, for Mike; if he doesn't specify, the first two received will go to Wisconsin.

SO:  anyone who has more than three recs should probably just list them all as targeted and specify who gets what.  Anyone with two or three should list them all as general and specify as needed.  Anyone with more than three AND who is applying to CLEO will have a problem.  Email me for suggestions.  

Working around the system's limitations:

• If you want to print a recommendation cover letter/waiver form without the recommender's name and address on it, there's exactly one place to do that (so far as I can see):
  • Sign in;
  • Click on the "My Docs" tab;
  • Click on "Forms" on the pull-down menu;
  • Just below the listed recommenders, there's a "generic LOR" link.
• You're adding a recommender.  You click on "submit," and it keeps bouncing you back to the same page.  
  • You put a period after the "Ms." or the middle initial.  Delete the punctuation mark and try again.
• You can't print the form without the recommender's contact info.  You can't change the form after you've printed it.  You've got to bring it with you when you ask for the rec.  
  • Your best bet is to look it up on the web page of the school or business.  Most institutions list an incredible amount of info on their web pages.  
  • Your second-best bet is to call the department and ask a secretary.  (S)he may get surly after the 100th call, but isn't likely to just refuse.  
• You printed the rec waiver form.  You ask the person to write the rec.  The person says no.  You've used up one of your precious rec slots.  
  • If it's a general rec, you can't make it inactive.  You can't remove it.  You've just wasted one of your four spots.  
  • But it's not the end of the world; you can add someone else as a targeted rec, and use that one instead.  It's more work, but the school will get four recs.  
  • Make all your recs targeted.  Then you have infinite flexibility.  You can add another rec letter for the person.
  • DON'T PRINT UNTIL YOU'RE SURE the spelling, address, etc., are correct.  These can never be changed.  

CAVEAT:  I figured this out all by myself, without any input from Law Services except what's on their web page.  Follow this advice at your own risk.  But it is most decidedly what I will tell my clients to do.  If you don't believe me, call Erin, Mike or Chris.  :-)