Letters of Recommendation from Professors

Many judicial clerkship applications (as well as fellowships and honors attorney programs) require letters of recommendation. Having at least one letter from a professor strengthens your application. We particularly encourage you to consider requesting recommendations from professors who can speak to your research and writing skills when applying for judicial clerkships.

Professors (and their faculty assistants) receive and manage many requests for letters of recommendation. To ensure that all letters arrive at the correct location on-time, you must follow these instructions. When requesting recommendation letters from professors, submit a spreadsheet of the judges to whom you are applying to their faculty assistant. Update the sheet as needed.  

Follow these steps to request your faculty recommendations:

Step 1: Personally request letters of recommendation.  At least one month before your application is due, ask faculty members to start writing recommendations. If you do not give the faculty member one month notice, the faculty member cannot guarantee that the deadline for the recommendation letter will be met (barring exceptional circumstances). Give your recommenders a copy of your updated résumé. You may do this before you have selected judges to apply to. Waiting too long will not allow your professors enough time to draft well-written letters.

Step 2:  Once your recommender(s) agrees to write your letter(s), immediately follow up with your faculty recommender(s) and their assistants by sending the Excel spreadsheet containing contact information and the application method for each of the judges to whom you are applying. To create your recommender spreadsheet, you must use the excel template to create a list of judges. Complete your spreadsheet by entering your name, the names of your recommenders, and your application method (mail, email, fax, or OSCAR). It is very important to include the date the letters are due to each judge. You will find the names and contact information for faculty assistants on each professor’s page in the online Faculty Directory.

State Clerkships: You can locate contact information for state clerkships on the job application, official court websites, or in the Guide to State Judicial Clerkship Procedures (for login information email Career Services or find it in the Resource Library on Career Connect).

Federal Clerkships: You can locate contact information by looking at the job application, OSCAR, official court websites, or downloading the federal Judges List;  find the judges you are applying to and copy the information for those judges to your recommendation spreadsheet. Check the job application instructions carefully. You must supply your recommendation spreadsheet to your faculty recommenders and their assistants at least two weeks before the application deadline (barring exceptional circumstance). Spreadsheets received late may result in recommendation letters not meeting the deadline.

Step 3: Additional Letters. If you request additional letters of recommendation after your initial batch, you must provide your recommenders or their assistants with an updated spreadsheet.