Letter of Recommendation and the New  Evaluation Form

LSAC Letters of Recommendation and Evaluation Services

Letters of Recommendation (LOR) Service

• The LOR is the traditional document submitted by recommenders to LSAC.
• The LOR can be submitted electronically or through paper submission.
• Applicants are required to submit Recommender information as well as provide a description of the contents or intended use of each letter. This description, as well as the applicant’s LSAC account number and a barcode, will appear on the LOR Form that applicants must print out to give to their recommenders.
• LORs must be received by LSAC at least two weeks prior to a school’s application deadline.

Evaluation Service

• The evaluation service is a new process for the 2013 application cycle.
• The evaluation service is designed to give evaluators a chance to determine if the applicant is a good fit for law school and the legal professions.
• Evaluations can only be completed electronically.
• Evaluations are designed to augment LSAC’s current LOR process.
• Applicants do not have to print out a request form, as done with LORs.
• Evaluators can include comments after each category and general comments at the end of each evaluation.

Should you complete both a LOR and an evaluation?

• Law schools are able to choose any combination of letters of recommendation and evaluations that they may wish to require or accept from students.
• While a recommender can do both a LOR and evaluation, the applicant must determine, which service to solicit and assign. Therefore, a recommender’s LOR and evaluation for a student will not go to the same law school.

What is Seattle University’s FERPA Release?

• Grants the recommender permission to discuss non-directory information about this student in an LOR.
• Required for LORs by not for Evaluations.
• A student must complete a Reference Letter Request  before a recommender completes an LOR.