Mark Decker (Nebraska/Omaha) writes:

I have a question about writing recommendation letters for students who are applying to law school.  When it comes to writing letters for graduate philosophy programs, I know what they're looking for and what to say.  But will a law school care, say, that a particular student did an independent study with me on epistemic expressivism?  Also, are there length restrictions on recommendation letters; is going beyond a single page permissible?

Any advice you have on this topic would be greatly appreciated.  Feel free to post these questions on the blog if you think that would help.

It is certainly true that JD admissions is unlike PhD admissions in a lot of ways.   Two obvious and pertinent differences in this context:   first, the primary evaluation of law school applications is done by a professional dean of admissions (usually someone with a JD), rather than by faculty (though the good news, I guess, is that, depending on the school, faculty are sometimes asked to take a look at the files of some applicants–I often see the files of applicants at Chicago with philosophy backgrounds, and I certainly give the letters significant weight in making recommendations to the admissions dean); second, law school admissions is very heavily driven by the "numbers" (this is, in part, a consequence of the pernicious influence of US News on U.S. law schools), meaning that the GPA and the LSAT score (the latter counting for as much as the former at most places) are decisive in the majority of cases.  (Again, schools vary–those that live-or-die by their US News ranking tend to make admissions decisions almost entirely 'by the numbers' [NYU and Northwestern, among top law schools, are examples], but there is no law school these days that doesn't give the numbers significant weight.)  Anyway, this second point means that there is in most cases very little you can write in your letter of recommendation that will really matter, unless, of course, the letter is negative.

With those caveats, it seems to me the following are some reasonable rules of thumb about writing letters for your philosophy students applying to law school:  (1) you don't need the same detail about the substance of philosophical work the student did as you would provide in a letter for PhD programs, but details about the kind of work (extensive writing, oral presentations, etc.) is useful, and of course some gloss on the substance (e.g., a class in the history of ethics, or a seminar in philosophy of language); (2) comparison of the student with other students you have known who have gone on to law school is useful; (3) law schools value analytical and argumentative skills, something which philosophy is rather good at teaching, so comments on these skills, to the extent the student has developed them, is particularly useful; finally (4) comments on the student's character, commitment, and collegiality are perhaps a bit more relevant and common than they would be letters for grad school.

The preceding observations are based on what I know about how law school admissions work and my experience reading letters that philosophers have written for JD applicants at Texas and Chicago.  But my experience, while probably greater than the average philosopher's, is limited, and I'd be curious to hear from other philosophy professors, as well as the stray law professor who may have wandered over here, on their experiences and impressions.  Signed comments preferred, as usual.