New LSAC Recommendation Service
The new LSAC Recommendation Service (known as the LSDAS LOR -- really!) can vastly simplify the job of getting recs to law schools. Now all you need to know is how to get them to LSAC, and how to give LSAC the instructions you need to get them to law schools.Here's how the system works:
There are three steps to the LSAC Recommendation process:
- Choosing your Recommenders;
- Printing the necessary paperwork and getting the recs to LSAC;
- Assigning the recs to the schools.
Choosing Your Recommenders
Because recommendations are the most important thing in your file after GPA and LSAT, you must evaluate the courses on your transcript to see which courses required substantial writing and the level of your contact you had with the instructor during classes. For further advice on choosing and approaching recommenders, see that section in Essays and Addenda.
Getting the Recs to LSAC
For each recommender you are using, you must register that person in the Letter of Recommendation (LOR) section. There are (at least) two different ways to get to the registration page.
- Log in to your account at LSAC.ORG; you'll see a light blue sidebar and a white main area; this main area has three columns.
- In the lower left-hand portion of the white main section, you'll see a link for Letters of Recommendation.
OR
- Log in to your account at LSAC.ORG; you'll see a dark blue menu bar at the top of the page. Click on the "apply" column.
- You'll see a light blue sidebar and a white main area; in the center column of the white main section, you'll see a link for Letters of Recommendation.
Either of these methods will take you to the same page.
| NOTE that you'll need the complete name, address, phone, snail mail, and email for each recommender, so gather your data before beginning! |
Along with the identifying and contact info for each person, you can specify the number of letters that person will write.
- You can ask the recommender to write just one letter, or you might want a special letter if the writer is attached to a particular school. For each letter which the person is submitting, you need a separate registration form. You assign a description to each letter, whether you have one for the person or several.
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." |
Once you've completed a form for a recommender, that form is assigned a code: L1, L2, L3, etc. You click on that code, and a pop-up box appears. the pop-up box allows you to print a bar-coded form that you MUST give to each recommender.
- 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.
Assigning the recs to the schools
Unlike the pre-2009 system, you need not add your list of law schools; when you choose a school, it is automatically added to the LOR page. However, you must tell the system what letters you want submitted to each school.
If nothing has changed since this writing (April 11, 2010), 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.
- There may be additional evaluation forms in the application itself.
NO SOONER DID I WRITE THOSE WORDS THAN LSAC ANNOUNCED A CHANGE!In late April, ANNE M. BRANDT, Executive Director of LSAC wrote: Greetings! I write to let you know... about the new Evaluation Service that will be launched in late summer. This service complements the Letter of Recommendation Service and law schools may accept, recommend, or require that applicants provide evaluations as part of the law school application. An evaluation is composed of an online form with six categories of skills and attributes important in the law school admission process. The evaluator rates 30 individual skills and attributes and may provide comments about each category. General comments about the applicant can be made at the end of the evaluation. The service will be completely online. Candidates will furnish LSAC with the names of those persons doing an evaluation; LSAC will contact the evaluator with a link to the website; and the evaluator will establish an account with LSAC and complete the evaluation forms online and submit them to LSAC. The evaluations are sent as part of the law school report. |
What does that mean?
Many applications have both a "primary" application, which is submitted electronically, and "Supplemental" forms, which you must snail-mail.
Note the "Supplemental Form" button at the bottom of the middle column.
(If the button is grayed out, there are no Supplemental Forms.)
Supplemental Forms can include binding decision contracts, scholarship applications, and certifications from your school that you never got in trouble for fighting in the dorms, etc.
One common Supplemental Form is an evaluation grid. In 2010, Cornell's looked like this:
The applicant had to print and snail-mail the letter, As a result, not many applicants sent the letter. So LSAC is adding it to the online rec service. Schools will get to require it, make it optional, or refuse it.
Working around the system's limitations:
- 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 print the rec waiver form. You ask the person to write the rec.
The person says no.
- You can't make it inactive. You can't remove it. But it's not the end of the world; you can just ignore it.
- 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.