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TLS, I was recently no-offered by my summer associate firm. Most of the attorneys liked me, but one of the hiring partners did not.

I developed a particularly good working relationship with one of the partners, and I am considering contacting him regarding a letter of recommendation for clerkship applications. Is this a bad idea? Is he obligated to discuss the no-offer, even though his experience working with me was positive? Should I play it safe and stick to law professors for LORs instead?

I mean, the firms you apply to will already know you were no offered, so you can't really draw more attention to it. I personally think it would be strange to get no offered and also not have any recs from people for whom you did real legal work. You should ask the partner in question to write you a recommendation and trust that he'll put in it what he would want to see in a recommendation for someone in a similar situation to yourself. Maybe that involves a reference to the circumstances behind the no offer, but I really doubt that.

Good luck.