Comments on: A Recommendation Rationing Problem http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2008/04/the_recommendat.html The Law, the Universe, and Everything Tue, 14 Feb 2012 05:18:12 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Former Clerk http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2008/04/the_recommendat.html/comment-page-1#comment-49470 Former Clerk Wed, 23 Apr 2008 21:43:25 +0000 http://www.solove.org/archives/2008/04/a-recommendation-rationing-problem.html#comment-49470 Well, think about it from your audience's perspective. The question is not whether the student could be a good clerk, the question is whether the student is going to be the best of 3 or 4 candidates that the judge is going to hire. There is an inherent quota here. So if you have more than 4 letters, by definition you aren't being helpful to the judge. I think a simple test is, "if I were a judge, which three students would I hire as my own clerks?" Well, think about it from your audience’s perspective. The question is not whether the student could be a good clerk, the question is whether the student is going to be the best of 3 or 4 candidates that the judge is going to hire. There is an inherent quota here. So if you have more than 4 letters, by definition you aren’t being helpful to the judge. I think a simple test is, “if I were a judge, which three students would I hire as my own clerks?”

]]> By: Law Clerk 3000 http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2008/04/the_recommendat.html/comment-page-1#comment-49469 Law Clerk 3000 Wed, 23 Apr 2008 14:18:26 +0000 http://www.solove.org/archives/2008/04/a-recommendation-rationing-problem.html#comment-49469 As a clerk I can understand why rationing can make sense. If your recommendees have significant overlap in the judges that they apply to, whoever reviews the applications can put the letters beside each other and in many cases one applicant's recommendation is a lot more glowing from the professor than another (for instance "recommendee A is in the top 1% of students I have ever taught" versus "recommendee B is in the top 2% of students I have ever taught"). All else being equal amongst the applicants, you would then pick the one with the better recommendation from the same professor. In this situation, the recommendee that received the "second best" recommendation from you may have been better off with a different recommender that would have given them their best recommendation. My philosophy as a recommendee is that you first must choose a professor that you actually know (not just the biggest named professor from whom you have taken a class), but if you have multiple professors that you know, it would be best to get one from the professor that will give you the best recommendation relative to his other recommendees. The other concern may be that since professors try to write strong recommendations for all the students they write for there is a chance that if a judge sees 5 or 6 recommendations touting outstanding students from the same professor the judge will think the prof is inflating the letters (even more than they know professors already do). I think there are 2 ways to try to avoid this issue without adopting a strict rationing policy. 1) to the extent possible, right individualized recommendations (if you highlight the qualities of the person that makes them a great clerk, rather than mainly plugging their stats into a form recommendation you can avoid problem 1 and to some extent problem 2. 2) See if your recommendees have significant overlap in the judges they are applying to, if so see if there is some way to limit the overlap (one of my recommenders had a policy like this, once he had agreed to write two or three recommendations to a particular judge, he declined to write any more). As a clerk I can understand why rationing can make sense. If your recommendees have significant overlap in the judges that they apply to, whoever reviews the applications can put the letters beside each other and in many cases one applicant’s recommendation is a lot more glowing from the professor than another (for instance “recommendee A is in the top 1% of students I have ever taught” versus “recommendee B is in the top 2% of students I have ever taught”). All else being equal amongst the applicants, you would then pick the one with the better recommendation from the same professor. In this situation, the recommendee that received the “second best” recommendation from you may have been better off with a different recommender that would have given them their best recommendation. My philosophy as a recommendee is that you first must choose a professor that you actually know (not just the biggest named professor from whom you have taken a class), but if you have multiple professors that you know, it would be best to get one from the professor that will give you the best recommendation relative to his other recommendees.

The other concern may be that since professors try to write strong recommendations for all the students they write for there is a chance that if a judge sees 5 or 6 recommendations touting outstanding students from the same professor the judge will think the prof is inflating the letters (even more than they know professors already do).

I think there are 2 ways to try to avoid this issue without adopting a strict rationing policy. 1) to the extent possible, right individualized recommendations (if you highlight the qualities of the person that makes them a great clerk, rather than mainly plugging their stats into a form recommendation you can avoid problem 1 and to some extent problem 2. 2) See if your recommendees have significant overlap in the judges they are applying to, if so see if there is some way to limit the overlap (one of my recommenders had a policy like this, once he had agreed to write two or three recommendations to a particular judge, he declined to write any more).

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