LOR Follow up?

[StayinAlive]

Hi all,

I’m planning to apply to law school this fall for the 2026 cycle and could use some advice on how to follow up with a professor who hasn’t responded to my LOR request.

I graduated last year and recently visited my college campus to reconnect with professors. I reached out in advance to two faculty members I hoped would write my academic letters. One responded promptly, agreed to write a letter, and we were able to catch up in person, which was wonderful. However, I never heard back from the other professor, whom I knew well as a student and had taken multiple classes with, so I was a bit surprised by the silence.

It’s been about a month, and I want to follow up respectfully since I know professors get swamped with emails. Would it be too forward to include my resume and samples of past coursework in that follow-up? In my initial email, I shared some updates about what I do now, why I'm interested in law school, and what skills I gained from their classes and guidance, so I’m not sure if the added materials would be helpful context or come across as presumptuous given the lack of response. Any advice on how to strike the right tone would be much appreciated! Thanks in advance.

[Dana D]

Hey StayinAlive,

There could be multiple reasons for your professor not responding to your intial request that have nothing to do with you but will prevent them from writing a LOR in time for the upcoming cycle (they could be on medical leave, an unannounced sabbatical, etc.). Most likely, they missed your email or aren't checking their school address. If you have another way to get in touch with them (like their school phone number) that could be a good option to try and use for a follow up. If you do send a second email, I would forward your original message (in case the it initially got deleted or sent to spam) and say something brief along the lines of that you are following up and wanted to see if they would be willing to write a strong letter of recommendation for you by the end of summer. You can end with something like "Please let me know if I should seek an alternative recommender, I understand and appreciate your time!" This gives them a nice out if for some reason they are not comfortable writing a letter for you. If they do end up responding and say they're willing to write a letter, then you have an opening to forward more information to them to assist in the drafting.

That being said, you should also seek an alternative reccomender and reach out to them ASAP. LSAC will let you store multiple LORs in your profile and then pick and choose which you want to send to a particular school. Best case scenario, this professor gets back to you and you have 3 strong letters to chose from, worst case scenario you still have the 2 LORs you will need for most apps.

Hope that helps and best of luck!