If you’ve been waitlisted or deferred from law school, your next best bet is to write a strong letter of continued interest (LOCI).

The world of LOCIs is a bit… confusing. After all, there’s a lot of arbitrary conjecture that sprouts during the college admissions season. This is especially true for students who were rejected.

Are waitlists auto-rejects? Can I reach out to the right person to get accepted? Is there a secret GPA cutoff?

It’s important to get the facts right before making any hasty decisions, especially when writing the letter of continued interest for law school.

Thus, this article is going to cover everything you need to know about how to write a winning letter of continued interest for law school. It’ll also provide example LOCIs for you to use as inspiration.

Disclaimer: this advice we’re covering today has been used to help countless other students get accepted off the waitlist. We’ve repeated these tips to help them write a winning law school LOCI that beat out the rest of the competition. However, competition is fierce. And, college admissions chances are diminishing every year. So, it’s important to get the right professional help on your side if you want a solid shot at getting accepted off the law school waitlist.

Table of Contents

Should I Send a Letter of Continued Interest to Law School?
How to Write a Letter of Continued Interest for Law School.
When Should I Send My Law School LOCI?
Example Letter of Continued Interest.
Why You Should Get a Professional Editor to Review Your LOCI.

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Should I Send a Letter of Continued Interest to Law School?

Yes.

Okay, we know what you’re thinking.

“Will sending a letter of continued interest just annoy them and make me look very desperate? Won’t it inconvenience them?”

This is a completely valid concern. While there are certainly some law schools that discourage their waitlisted or deferred students from sending letters of continued interest, they’re sometimes required for admissions officers. The law school AOs use LOCIs as a tool to determine which students from the waitlisted pool is qualified to get in.

Of course, writing your LOCI in a manner that doesn’t sound whiney and annoying is also important. But, other than having a poorly-written letter or sending a letter when the school asks not to, your LOCIs are welcome.

In addition, law schools often use the waitlist process as a way to compensate for a lack of enrollment in their upcoming class; this is a time when colleges aren’t so sure which students will truly dedicate to their school. So, letting them know your intent to attend through a LOCI makes their job easier!

So, we know writing a LOCI for law school helps boost your admissions chances.

But, the next question is how to write one.

How to Write a Letter of Continued Interest for Law School.

We want to preface this by saying that everyone has their own way of writing a letter of continued interest for law school.

That’s not to say that some people take absolute creative liberty. They’re relatively similar to one another, but still unique. And, there’s still very sensible rules and structures you need to follow when writing your LOCI, as any deviance from it would appear odd and unusual to the admissions office.

We’ve used these methods to help students get accepted into their top choice law schools. Some of them are quite simple. Others are a bit more complex. But, nothing too scary!

1. Be Polite… Obviously.

This is a very, very simple rule.

Yet, oddly enough here at PenningPapers, we’ve reviewed a lot of letters of continued interest for law school that were less than polite. They weren’t rude per se, but they certainly lacked the conventional formalities that constitute polite LOCIs.

Think of it like this: you’re a tired, overcaffinated college admissions officer. The admissions season was supposed to end; but, you get to take extra time out of your hands reconsidering students who were waitlisted or deferred. A second chance, as a show of generosity. And, when you read the first letter, it gets right to the point.

No “Dear…”, no “thank you for taking the time to review my application…”, no “sincerely”. All you get is a letter explaining what they the student deserves to be accepted.

Meanwhile, another applicant is more polite in their LOCI.

Which one is going to look better? Obviously, the more polite one will look better. Now, does that mean civility and politeness correlate with ability to perform in academic settings? Does civility indicate success in the future? No.

But, it certainly helps to be polite when humans are reading your LOCI!

2. Follow the Instructions EXACTLY.

This is another very easy step.

Nonetheless, we get countless requests for help writing the law school LOCIs; and, strangely enough, many students don’t follow the instructions.

It’s not that they missed the mark entirely. Often, there was a detail in the instructions that they missed because they simply read the instructions too quickly. This is a common issue: don’t read the instructions very quickly.

Instead, take your time reading each sentence to ensure that you’ve actually answered the prompt. The admissions process isn’t just your ability to write about compelling content that the admissions office wants to hear. It’s also about writing content that actually follows the instructions set to you.

If you cannot demonstrate to the admissions office that you know how to follow instructions, it can be a massive red flag to your chances of acceptance.

3. Provide New Information Since Your Previous Application and How it Makes You a Great Candidate.

This next point is a little harder.

You want to provide new information since your previous application.

Specifically, you want to provide admissions officers of an update of what happened after you clicked the submit button. This time frame is from the moment you sent your law school application to the moment you received your waitlist or deferral letter.

During that time, what have you been doing? Have you maintained academic consistency and high performance? Have you taken on any work experience or interned at any law firms? Have there been unusual projects you conducted that may actually translate to your work in law?

Note that this experience should not just be an update. It should also demonstrate why you are a great candidate for the law school that you’re applying to.

This is where it gets tricky.

Most students are going to be writing in their law school LOCIs that they were able to maintain high academic performance and that they did internship work at a law firm (or something similar in law.)

So, that brings up another question. How can you provide an update in your law school LOCIs that isn’t generic or boring? How do you make it stand out from the rest of the waitlist or deferral pool?

One method we recommend is to think of your LOCI not as a sale. You’re selling yourself to the admissions office; so, you’ll need to take off the lawyer caps and put on the marketing caps. If you’re talking about new updates since your previous application, but your updates sound similar to other people’s updates, you’ll need to find a way to “sell it” that sounds different from what others do.

It’s like a sales pitch. Does Sprite, Coke, and Pepsi have similar ads? Well, not really. Sprite Cranberry hosts ads that show someone barging into a Christmas decorated house and sharing drinks. Coke has polar bears. Pepsi shows social gatherings.

Their method of demonstrating value is different, even if their product is the same.

Okay, let’s take GPA as an example.

Maintaining a perfect 4.0 GPA is impressive. But, how many competitive students applying for law school are also going to have 4.0 GPAs? Quite a good number will!

So, someone may write in their LOCI that they’ve maintained a strong GPA even after their application was submitted, which shows that they are “dedicated to working hard no matter what.”

Others may say that their high performance indicates that they are “willing to do everything it takes to be prepared for a career in law.”

You may say that your perfect 4.0 GPA actually doesn’t tell the whole story. In fact, you may even say that, despite maintaining a 4.0 GPA all throughout school, you actually developed new methods of study and work that accommodated for your learning style.

This would be a clever way of showing admissions officers that there’s more to your value than just grades alone. And, it’s a great way to sublty add more depth to your LOCI compared to what other students will be sending.

4. If You Don’t Have Any New Information Since Your Previous Application… Do This.

A very common question we get here at PenningPapers is, “What do I do if I don’t have any new information to write about in my letter of continued interest to law school?”

This is perhaps one of the hardest challenges to overcome when writing your LOCI. After all, how can you write about something if there’s no content to talk about?

If you have nothing to update on, you need to look into different mediums.

Whether your GPA increased and whether you gained any new work experience is one thing. But, the details at the micro level also count. What are your study habits like? What’s going on with any personal projects you’re undertaking? Did you find any ways to make your schooling hyper efficient? Or, did you learn something in your personal life that genuinely helped you grow and translate meaningful experiences into your life?

Of course, you probably can’t talk about how you went vacationing to Las Vegas.

But, talking about how you spent the next few months mentoring under a professional who wasn’t in your field may actually be a very suitable topic. Although students believe they can’t learn anything from people in entrepreneurship as lawyers (because they’re not in the same field) they may find they learn much more applicable knowledge than they expect.

For instance, learning about the world of business and marketing and how that translates to client treatment and acquisition in law is a very great topic to write about in your low school LOCI.

Chances are, if you look deep enough, you’ll find unexpected lessons to be learned and experiences which translate to your relationship with law. If you still cannont find any topics to write about in the law school letter of continued interest, you should consider speaking with an expert college admissions consultant and editor. Talk to us for a free consultation, and we’ll help you with writing a winning law school LOCI.

5. Be Sure to Address the Admissions Officer in Your Letter.

This final one is an easy rule.

But, it’s a a bit annoying to do. Nonethtless, it’s entirely worth it. You’ll need to find the admissions officer who sent you your deferral or waitlist notification. Chances are, there’s a name attached to it.

If not, you’ll need to research who you’ll be sending your letter to and what their name is.

If you’re lucky, the school website will contain it. However, we recognize that university websites are not exactly known for their friendly UI/UX.

If needed, you may need to give a call to the admissions office to check who the reviewer is so you can properly refer to them in the letter.

When Should I Send My Law School LOCI?

As a general rule, you should send your LOCI after you’ve been waitlisted or deferred as soon as possible. But, that does not mean that you need to write your letter so fast that you compromise the quality of you’re writing.

In fact, if you had to choose between submitting your LOCI earlier but lower in quality or later but higher in quality, you should choose the latter. The quality of your writing is going to trump all in importance.

Also, you should avoid sending a LOCI to your intended law school if they specifically say in their website that they do not take LOCIs.

Example Letter of Continued Interest.

“Dear [Name of Admissions Officer],

Thank you for taking the time to review and reconsider my application. It is an honor to have a place in the waitlist; and, because [School Name] is my top choice, it means much to me to have a chance at attending your institution. I am writing to inform you of important updates on my academic journey that I believe may be helpful in demonstrating a new perspective of my fit here at [School Name].

After having completed my final semester, I was fortunate enough to self-teach how to maintain the same level of straight As with less effort whilst maximizing efficiency. Prior to my application, I maintained my 4.0 GPA by studying until long nights and pouring many hours into my work. It wasn’t until I started to discover my own learning style and modifying my work environment to suit it that I realized that I could maintain the same academic proficiency whilst keeping a much healthier relationship with learning.

This newfound efficiency, and therefore free time, motivated me to pursue extra work with [Name.] Originally, I was hoping to learn under a law firm as an intern; however, [Name] had experience with law, consulting, banking, and finance which, in an unexpected manner, actually translated many soft skills into my field of study. In fact, this interdisciplinary experience shaped the way I view law; and, it has helped me develop a more whole perspective on how to treat clients in the future. [Name] mentioned that I had a proficiency learning under his private consulting practice; and, from the work that I’ve done, I managed to help secure a retainer client with his business. I’m hoping to take with me these marketing and client relationship experiences to [School Name], and learn even more to prepare myself for a world in [Law Discipline.]

It’s this newfound methodology in studying, relationship with learning, and experience in consulting that deepens my passion for learning Law at [School Name.] I am more excited now than ever before to see what is in store for me here, as I know that I still have much to learn at this age. And, [School Resource] and [School Club] is perhaps one of the best reasons for me to secure my decision in recognizing [School Name] as my top choice. For that, I am certain that, if I am fortunate enough to be accepted, I would certainly attend and withdraw all other considerations.

Thank you, once again, for taking the time to read my letter of continued interest.”
Example Letter of Continued Interest for Law School

Why You Should Get a Professional Editor to Review Your LOCI.

Law school is not easy to get into.

For example, Columbia’s law school only had an 11.8% acceptance rate while Harvard Law had a 10% acceptance rate.

You probably already know this. But, it’s especially hard for students to get accepted into the waitlist. It’s one thing to get rejected outright. However, getting waitlisted or deferred is in some ways like a second chance.

And, it’s not just in law school that second chances don’t always reveal themselves. It’s a general life dictum: second chances seldom happen.

So, what do you do when you’re given a waitlist? A second chance?

You take it.

But, some people don’t know how to take second chances. They accept it meekly, and do the minimum in their LOCI. And, that’s no way to treat a second chance. It’s ungrateful, let alone likely to be accepted.

When you’re given a second chance, there are no third ones. We’ll say that again.

There are no third chances.

So, that’s why, when you’ve both a moral responsibility as well as a responsibility to yourself to do everything you possibly can to write a letter of continued interest for law school that blows the rest of the competition out of the water.

It’s not easy to do that alone. In fact, you shouldn’t gamble on doing it alone.

The college admissions process for law school is not a gamble. It’s a calculated risk.

That’s why, to maximize your acceptance chances, you’ll need to work with the best college admissions essay and writing advisors.

Here at PenningPapers, we don’t just fix grammar or make slight changes. We call you and interview you to understand everything there is to know about you. Then, we use this comprehensive information to provide example law school LOCIs that we believe would help you get accepted. This is the most in-depth and comprehensive method of editing available for college apps services. And, if you would like to work with us, we’re only a click away.

If you are looking for help with your letter of continued interest for law school, feel free to contact us for a free consultation. We will respond within 24 hours!

How to Write a LOCI for Law School + Example