Who to Ask for LORs if You’ve Been out of School for a Long Time

So Now What?

Instead, you’re going to get professional letters of recommendation. What is a professional LOR? In essence, it’s a letter from anyone in a managerial position that you work closely with. Some examples include a boss, coach, volunteer coordinator, perhaps even a pastor or priest if you’re active in your church. These people can write a great letter of recommendation because they can still address the topics law schools want to hear about:

• Intellectual skills
• Positive personal traits, such as motivation, compassion, sound judgment, personal initiative, professionalism
• Your integrity and honesty
• Communication skills
• Task management skills
• Your ability to work with others

These are the traits law schools want to hear about. These are the traits that professional letters of recommendation can discuss. As long as they address the same characteristics and features that an academic recommender would, their letters hold value within your application.

Your Situation Isn’t Rare

Law schools understand that students who’ve been out of school for a while aren’t likely able to obtain recommendations from academic sources. They’ll welcome hearing about the student’s qualities from an informed third party! If you have any questions about how to handle these letters or what each school looks for in a recommender, call each school and ask. Schools are more than willing to give you information on what they need to make a decision.

Keep in mind, though, the ability to obtain only professional recommendation letters is something that only older applicants have. If you were in college just last year, or within the last two years, then you need to obtain academic letters of recommendation as well. Failure to do so will beg the question of what happened with you academically that you were unable to secure any academic LORs.

Ready to start asking for LORs? Check out this post for some advice on when and how to ask.