Yale Law
School
Letters of
Recommendation
Tip Sheet
2022–2023
Yale Law School Admissions Office
Letters of Recommendation Tip Sheet
We are thrilled that you are interested in Yale Law School. The guidance below, while not exhaustive,
will help you learn more about the characteristics of strong, effective letters of recommendation. Feel free
to share this resource with your recommenders! You can also learn more about Letters of
Recommendation by watching this brief video.
• Know your audience! At Yale Law School, your primary audience is our faculty.
o Faculty members care deeply about your academic ability and how you will perform as a
student in their classrooms.
o Faculty readers believe that their peers, specifically professors or others who have taught you,
are most credible when speaking about your academic abilities.
• Letters of recommendation should place primary focus on those skills that are most relevant to
your ability to succeed as a law student, as well as the ways in which you stand apart from your
peers.
o Key skills for law students include analytical abilities, research and writing skills, and overall
intellectual strengths.
o Letters should focus on those areas about which your recommenders have firsthand
knowledge.
o Letters that include details and examples are usually much more effective than letters that
rely only on general statements.
o It can be helpful if your recommenders compare you to other students they have taught either
qualitatively or quantitatively (e.g., “one of the top students in my career,” “top 10%”; “a
standard of deviation beyond”). It is important for these comparisons to be genuine; not every
student can be “the top” student.
• Letters of recommendation should limit discussion of certain topics.
o There is no need to provide a detailed descriptions of the course(s) themselves. While these
descriptions are fine if brief, they should not be overly long.
o Letters of recommendation should also not provide a detailed discussion of activities that are
covered on your resume (e.g., extracurricular activities or work experiences). This is
especially true when your recommender does not have any firsthand knowledge of these
experiences.
• Letters of recommendation can be a good place to provide context.
o If you received a significant award from your institution, especially one where the
recommender was involved in the selection process or one awarded by your recommender’s
department, it can be helpful for the recommender to provide some context for the award.
o If specific courses that you took or programs that you participated in were particularly
challenging, your recommender can provide this context. It is far better for your
recommender to describe your challenging coursework than for you to discuss this in an
addendum.
• Whom should you select?
o Ideally, your recommender should be someone who has taught you in doctrinal and/or
rigorous courses; even better if they have taught you in multiple courses.
o Someone who has directly supervised your research or worked with you one-on-one on a
significant paper or project can be an excellent recommender.
o Always choose substance over signature! It is far more important for your recommender
to know you well than for us to recognize their name.
o Try to contact former professors even if you’ve been out of school for a while, and try to
maintain those relationships after you graduate.
o If you must choose professional recommenders, advise them to emphasize your academic
abilities as demonstrated through your work if possible.
• Whom should you avoid?
o Family members, friends, and peers.
o ‘Big name’ recommenders with little direct insight into your abilities.
o Recommenders who seem reluctant to write a letter for you.
• Use good judgment about how many letters to submit!
o We require two letters of recommendation and allow up to four.
o If submitting more than two, ask yourself whether the additional letters are as strong as
the first two are, and whether they are duplicative. Less can be more, and weaker letters
can detract from stronger ones.
