RECOMMENDATION LETTERS – University of Chicago
RICHARD BADGER, ASSISTANT DEAN
Each year we read between 8,000 and 10,000 recommendation letters in conjunction with the
applications submitted to Chicago. Admittedly, this task is less onerous than writing those
recommendations. Unlike a number of other law schools, Chicago puts considerable weight on
recommendation letters and we find that helpful letters and the evaluative interviews which we conduct
often provide the best guidance in making the final decisions among a group of applicants who appear to
be equally promising on the basis of other information. I am occasionally asked what distinguishes the
helpful letters from the unhelpful ones. I have pulled together below some thoughts on that question
with the hope that they may assist people writing on behalf of applicants to Chicago. While I cannot
state that I speak for other law schools, I do have some reason to believe that my views are generally
shared by other institutions and certainly by other members of our Admissions Committee.
I read each recommendation with three questions in mind: 1) How well does the writer know the
applicant and the applicant's academic record? 2) What does the writer have to say about the applicant's
abilities and characteristics which are important for success in law school and the profession? 3) In the
final analysis, how enthusiastic is the writer's support for the candidate's admission to this particular law
school? The answers to these questions are obviously interrelated but for the purposes of this
memorandum it may be helpful to deal with them individually.
Most letters of recommendation will partially describe how well the writer knows the applicant. They
usually contain brief descriptions of the size and number of courses in which the writer has worked with
the student. Often absent, however, is a description of the kinds of formats in which the writer has seen
the student perform. For example, did the student write a short answer examination at the end of the
course or were there a number of papers to complete? Did the writer see the student respond in class on
a regular basis? How much informal contact was there with the student outside of class? I will generally
assume that the larger the class and the larger the institution, the less familiar a reference will be with the
applicant. This assumption is frequently incorrect but I will not realize it unless that is made clear.
Writers will often say, "Mary's academic record speaks for itself." This, unfortunately, is not true unless
I am familiar with the particular academic program. In short, all applicants with 3.8 grade point averages
are not judged as being equal. Some students will have taken more challenging courses than others.
Some faculty are more demanding than others. Our Admissions Committee may not be aware of which
courses are graduate level courses or which are part of an honors program. All applicants to Chicago are
asked to supply academic references with copies of their full transcript so that those who write may
comment, to the extent they can, on the quality of the overall academic record.
There may be little to distinguish between the abilities and characteristics which law schools look for in
comparison with those characteristics which other graduate academic programs seek. Legal education
and the legal profession, however, do emphasize some skills over others and the following comments
may help writers who are not familiar with these distinctions.
Language is the lawyer's working tool and the best law students are those who have the ability to write
and speak with precision, fluency and economy. Not only must the student be able to communicate his
or her own thoughts clearly, but he or she must have the ability to read and listen carefully with an eye
and ear for fine points and subtle distinctions
Legal education demands well developed analytical skills and the ability to juggle multiple variables.
Legal reasoning at one time or another involves deductive reasoning, inductive reasoning and reasoning