A young philosopher on tenure-track writes:
Do you have advice for professors on how to convert philosophy job market letters into law school letters of recommendation for their advisees who decide they want to pursue a law degree? I’m guessing this would require a substantial amount of different material.
I’m currently a professor, but my interests have been substantially changing. My PhD advisor is happy to rewrite my letter; but, neither her nor I have any idea on how to do this (and the advice on how to write law school letters of recommendation I have found online seems very focused on undergraduates applying to law school). Any advice you have would be greatly appreciated.
I'll open this for signed comments from philosophers with experience, but I also have experience in this, from both sides, in particular, having read many letters of recommendation for philosophy PhDs applying to Law School.
The primary audience for a Law School admissions letter is an admissions dean. At some law schools (including my own) faculty also often read files, but at most law schools faculty do not, or do not systematically. What that means, first and foremost, is that the kind of letter you'd write to a philosophy colleague about the candidate's work and teaching ability is not what is needed. You do not need to describe the dissertation in detail or explain why it makes a contribution to the literature and so on.
Law school admissions (sadly) is very heavily driven by the numbers: by undergraduate GPA and by LSAT score. But at the better law schools, letters of recommendation are taken seriously. And what will really help a law school admissions dean is (1) an explanation of your familarity with the candidate and the quality of the candidate's oral, written and analytical skills; (2) some information about the quality of the PhD program, what it's gradutaes usually end up doing, whether some go to law school, and how the candidate compares (this will be more important for students from first-rate PhD programs that law schools may not necessarily know about, like NYU, Rutgers, Arizona, Pittsburgh etc.); and (3) why the candidate is now looking to go to law school. Here the candidate should help out the letter writer by supplying a narrative about the reasons for the move, or sharing the personal statement the candidate will submit to law schools. Ideally, it's nice to explain how the prior work in philosophy makes law study an attractive next step. Sometimes, of course, the reasons for the change are wholly personal/professional, and unrelated to intellectual interests, in which case one shouldn't try to concoct an intellectual reason for the change.
