Information for Letters of Recommendation

• Applicants for admission to the bar must file two letters of recommendation with their application and not under separate cover.
• Recommendation letters should be written by someone who knows you well.
• Family members or relatives cannot write letters of recommendation.
• The attorney who signs your Petition may also write one of your letters of recommendation.
• The application will not be accepted without both letters of recommendation.

Author's Criteria: It is the obligation of each author to:

• Adequately represent pertinent information about the applicant.
• Assume it to be his/her duty to state the extent of their knowledge of the applicant.
• State specific facts, favorable or unfavorable, about the applicant, as they should be made known to the Board of Bar Examiners who are to decide on his or her fitness to be a member of the profession.

The letter must be:

• Addressed to the Board of Bar Examiners, 3 Pemberton Square, 7th Floor, Boston, MA 02018 .
• Typed on plain white paper (no textured paper), dated and current (within six months).
• Include complete address and contact information.
• Dated, current within six months and signed by the author.
• Letters of recommendation should NOT be identicle in content nor should they be written in memo form.
• Letters MUST have orginal signatures of the authors (no photocopies or electronic signatures).

Further Information:

Again, letters of recommendation must adequately represent the author's knowledge of pertinent information concerning the applicant. As an unsatisfactory example, two people highly recommended an applicant without disclosing criminal records involving moral turpitude known to them. Only by investigation by the Board of Bar Examiners were the full facts revealed, including information that there were circumstances tending to explain or mitigate the incidents in question. It would have been appropriate, of course, for such people to have made both the disclosure and the explanation.