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Clerkship letters of recommendation massive snaffu

Posted: Mon May 10, 2010 11:47 pm
by Anonymous User
So, I screwed up when I was getting letters of recommendation for clerkships. I oversubscribed--I have five professors writing.

I am at a complete loss on how I should handle this diplomatically. Essentially, I jumped the gun and asked two professors I had early in my law school career, before we had the information sessions on clerkships with OCS and so on. These professors are fine, but I don't really know them that well--I just did well in the classes I had with them. I want to replace them with two professors I had later on, who I did well with, but also interacted with much more frequently.

Ugh. Any advice, aside from /killself?

Re: Clerkship letters of recommendation massive snaffu

Posted: Tue May 11, 2010 11:05 am
by nylaw23
Talk to your OCS people.

Do they help coordinate your recommendation letters? At my school, the professor sends them to our OCS and they print them on the letter head and sign them with an electronic signature. Maybe you can have them just accept the letters but not process them.

So again talk to your OCS. And soon. If your school's process is different, you might have to kindly inform your earlier professors that you talked with OCS and they recommended that you select different professors for your recommendation and that you apologize for the inconvenience. If they haven't written the letter, they might actually be happy because it is one less thing to do while grading exams.

Re: Clerkship letters of recommendation massive snaffu

Posted: Thu May 13, 2010 4:35 am
by Anonymous User
If your school's clerkship office is like mine, you won't have a problem. Find out how yours work, but generally, faculty submit their letters to the school (so you dont see them). Then you tell the clerkship office which letters go with which applications. OSCAR apps are even easier. Professors upload their letters to OSCAR, and then you can choose which letters to attach to which applications. Just send the letters you want. Also, it is not uncommon to send one more letter than the judge requests, so you may end up sending 4 to a lot of judges.