Law School Waitlist Letters (LOCI): What Each School's Own Waitlist Page Says to Send

Law School Waitlist Letters (LOCI): What Each School's Own Waitlist Page Says to Send

The document most applicants call a letter of continued interest, or LOCI, is not one genre with one set of rules. It is a different document at every school, because the schools publish different instructions for it. Of the 21 law schools checked on September 5, 2026, eleven publish written instructions for the letter or for the written updates that stand in for it, seven publish no waitlist-letter instruction on the admissions pages we could read, and three would not serve their pages to us that day. Among the eleven that do publish, Harvard says "You should not email your letter of continued interest" and Cornell says "Please do not email LOCI's," while Duke, Emory, Penn and Notre Dame all give you an email address to send it to. Harvard tells you to wait until late April; Chicago sets a May 1 portal deadline. Chicago says "Please refrain from sending these additional letters" of recommendation; Northwestern invites them. Generic waitlist-letter advice written for undergraduate admissions cannot tell you any of that, and following it will put your letter in the wrong mailbox at three of the schools below.

This page puts each school's own sentence next to the others. When you have a draft, the law school waitlist letter rubric reads it against the instruction you paste in rather than a generic standard; the law school personal statement review covers the rest of the law shelf, and the law school essays hub collects it.

How to read the table

Every cell was read on September 5, 2026 from the page linked in the school's name. Cells say what the school publishes, not what we infer:

• A quoted phrase is the school's own wording, reproduced from that page. The full sentences are in the "What each school says" list below the table.
• "No published waitlist instruction (checked September 5, 2026)" means the school's admissions pages carry a waitlist section or a waitlist reference but no instruction about sending a letter. It does not mean the school refuses one.
• "Page not retrieved (checked September 5, 2026)" means the school's server refused our requests that day, directly and through a public text proxy. We do not publish a rule we could not read. Three schools are in that state: Virginia, Michigan and Baylor.

Nothing here is a prediction about any school's decision, and none of these pages tells you what a letter will do for you.

What 21 law schools publish about the waitlist letter

What each school says, in full

• Harvard. Quoted: "We strongly suggest that you provide a letter of continued interest that outlines the motivation for your interest in Harvard Law School. We are unlikely to move forward with your waitlist candidacy if you do not submit a letter of continued interest." · "This is the time to let us know why HLS is the best place for you to pursue your legal education. If HLS is your first choice for the fall, it is helpful to share that in your letter. You might also include any relevant academic, professional, and/or personal updates since the Admissions Committee last reviewed your application." · "You should submit this letter once you have finalized your initial plans for the fall. For most applicants, it is most effective to wait until late April to draft and submit your LOCI."
• Chicago. Quoted: "Submit your Letter of Continued Interest: If you would like to share additional information with the Admissions Committee, please submit your Letter of Continued Interest via the Applicant Status Portal by May 1, 2026. Letters will only be accepted via the ASO portal." · "We understand you may want to send additional information to the Admissions Committee, like new letters of recommendation. We have limited abilities to review this information. Please refrain from sending these additional letters." · From the waitlist FAQ: "you may submit a letter of continued interest discussing the reasons why you are interested in studying at UChicago Law and how our curriculum and academic environment will help you achieve your personal and professional goals."
• Columbia. Quoted: "Applicants can use the Status Portal to update their addresses or submit updated resumes and letters of continued interest." · "if you submit a letter through the Applicant Status Portal, please do not email/mail the same letter to our office and vice versa. However, applicants may subsequently submit non-duplicative letters of continued interest or other relevant documents through the portal or by email."
• Cornell. Quoted: "though not required, you may submit letters of continued interest (LOCI) for the admissions committee's consideration. Please do not email LOCI's. Instead, please upload your LOCIs via your applicant online status page."
• Duke. Quoted: "You can send any additional information for your file, whether specific substantive updates (to your resume or transcript, for instance) or general expressions of interest, by email to admissions@law.duke.edu. If you are on the waiting list later into the summer, it's not a bad idea to check in periodically (weekly isn't necessary but every 3-4 weeks isn't out of line)." · "We are particularly interested in people who seem enthusiastic about Duke and eager to enroll... Even if you don't have specific information to add to your file, it's worthwhile to check in with us periodically so we know you're still interested."
• Emory. Quoted: "You may submit letters of continued interest (LOCI) to jdadmission@emory.edu. It is most helpful for us to know about your continued interest just before we are most likely to make waitlist offers, which is around the time of our first and second deposit deadlines, April 30 and May 30." · "If you're sending an updated resume, please highlight what is different from the previous version you submitted."
• Northwestern. Quoted, listing what waitlisted applicants may submit through the Additional Application Material Submission Form: "Letter of continuing interest · Updated resume with new accomplishments · Notice of any job promotions, honors, or other accolades you have received since submitting your application." Via LSAC: "Additional letters of recommendation (Please note: your CAS report will hold a total of four letters.)" Northwestern also runs "two waitlist video interview questions, along with our two written essay questions."
• Notre Dame. Quoted: "In addition to submitting the Waitlist Response Form, we also recommend that you email a letter of continued interest (LOCI) to bulletin@nd.edu. Please submit your LOCI as a PDF file." · "A LOCI can include your motivation for law as a career, your level of interest in Notre Dame for your legal education, as well as any specific interests, and/or any new or significant information that speaks to your potential." · "You may submit a Letter of Continued Interest by uploading a PDF through the LSAC Applicant Status Online portal under the Documents section or by emailing it as a PDF attachment... It is not necessary to submit your LOCI to both." · "Other than keeping the Admissions Office updated on recent contact information, test scores, and transcripts, all updates are optional and at the applicants' discretion. The number of updates that a student submits will not alter their consideration from the waitlist."
• NYU. Quoted: "Reply to the waitlist notification email and confirm that you wish to stay on our active waitlist. Send any additional information that you think may be helpful including all 2025-2026 grades and graduation honors." · "candidates may utilize the self-service portal on their application status checker to provide any relevant application updates, including resume updates... Please note that the Committee on Admissions does not accept letters of recommendation for waitlist candidates."
• Penn. Quoted: "You are welcome to continue to provide updates to your admission file or to write a statement of continuing interest, but please exercise sound judgment and professionalism in the type and amount of correspondence that you send. Emailing (contactadmissions@law.upenn.edu) information to the Admissions Office is the best method of communication."
• Texas. Quoted: "You may send substantive updates to your application or resume, or a letters of continued interest directly to your profile using the Applicant Status Online portal." · "In general, most of the wait list activity occurs between May 1 and July 15 with some activity after that date leading into our Orientation in August... We will send monthly updates so that students are informed of their status and of our timeline."

The four instructions that conflict

Channel. Harvard, Chicago and Cornell each name one route and close the other in writing. Duke, Emory and Penn publish an email address. Columbia and Notre Dame accept either but tell you not to use both for the same document. Texas and Northwestern name a form. At Harvard the rule is stated as policy: "all application updates must be submitted via the status checker."

Cadence. Duke publishes an interval - "every 3-4 weeks isn't out of line" - and invites a check-in with no news. Notre Dame publishes the opposite position in the same season: "The number of updates that a student submits will not alter their consideration from the waitlist." Penn asks for judgement about "the type and amount of correspondence." Chicago builds in exactly two letters, one before May 1 and one after the deposit deadline. There is no cross-school cadence, so a fixed schedule copied from a general guide will be wrong somewhere on a list of five schools.

Timing. Harvard asks you to wait - "we do not begin reviewing any LOCI until the last week of April" - while Chicago sets a deadline at May 1 and Emory points at April 30 and May 30. Notre Dame's own page names two windows, "early-to-mid April" and "late-April," for the same letter.

Extra recommenders. Chicago asks applicants to refrain. NYU does not accept them for waitlist candidates. Northwestern invites them and publishes the ceiling: four letters on the CAS report. The same act is discouraged, refused and welcomed depending on the school.

What the letter has to do, in the schools' own words

Every requirement below is quoted from one of the pages in the table. Nothing here is our own advice about strategy, and none of it is a claim about outcomes.

Carry something the reader has not already read. Harvard asks for "updates since the Admissions Committee last reviewed your application." Notre Dame asks for "new or significant information." Northwestern's list is concrete: promotions, honors, "other accolades you have received since submitting your application." NYU asks for "all 2025-2026 grades and graduation honors." Emory applies the same test to an attachment: "highlight what is different from the previous version." The common element is a comparison to the file as it already stands, so a paragraph that re-tells your personal statement fails the test each of these schools published.

State your level of interest at the strength that is actually true. Harvard's sentence is conditional on its face: "If HLS is your first choice for the fall, it is helpful to share that in your letter." Duke says it is "particularly interested in people who seem enthusiastic about Duke and eager to enroll." Notre Dame asks for "your level of interest in Notre Dame." Chicago asks how "our curriculum and academic environment will help you achieve your personal and professional goals." None of the four asks for an unconditional promise, and none of them tells you what to promise. A letter that says one thing about your commitment and something else two paragraphs later is inconsistent on its own terms, and the same office reads whatever you send next.

Be a letter, and be one page. Harvard is the only school in the set that publishes formatting: "styled as a letter, addressed to our Admissions Committee, with the date included at the top," limited to "one page," at "no less than 11 point." No other school here publishes a length. Where a school publishes nothing, Harvard's is the only stated law-school limit on record in this set, and the schools that publish nothing publish nothing - not permission for more.

Do what the school's page says about the envelope. Read the school's waitlist page before you send: which route, whether a second letter is expected, whether a new recommender is welcomed or refused, whether a duplicate will be discarded. Northwestern's waitlist also asks for two written essay answers and two recorded video answers alongside the letter, so at that school the letter is not the whole submission.

Answer the school's own form first. Harvard, Notre Dame, Emory, Northwestern, Cornell, Duke and Chicago all run a response or confirmation step that is separate from the letter, and several attach a consequence to missing it. Emory: "If you do not submit the form within two weeks of that email, we will presume you have made other plans and will withdraw your application." Chicago: "If you fail to do so, you will be automatically removed from our waitlist."

What the pages say about this cycle right now

No school in this set dated a change to its waitlist-letter instructions, so there is no wording change to report. Two schools do publish dated, in-cycle status notes on the same pages that carry the instructions, and both were live on September 5, 2026:

• Chicago heads its waitlist page: "UPDATE - August 12, 2026: In the short-term, we do not expect significant movement on our waitlist. However, the summer can be unpredictable, and we will keep a waitlist through orientation in case the need to turn to it arises." Directly under it: "Please do not submit any additional letters of recommendation or any other materials at this time."
• Duke publishes a running log. Its last entry: "July 27: After several offers of admission in a few small batches in recent weeks, we have reached our target class size... we are keeping the waitlist active in the event a few more seats open up in the coming weeks... We will provide a final update when we close the waitlist in late August."

Both are cycle-specific and will be replaced. The instructions above them are the stable part, and they are what to check again on the day you write.

Before you send

Read the school's own waitlist page the week you write, paste its instructions above your draft, and check the letter against them rather than against a general template. When the draft is ready, the law school waitlist letter rubric reviews it against the instruction you paste in - what is new since the file was read, whether the school-specific case is sourced to something you actually did, whether the commitment sentence is consistent with the rest of the letter, and whether the submission follows the school's stated channel, length and cadence. For the rest of the law shelf, the law school personal statement review covers statements, addenda and why-school essays, and the law school essays hub indexes them.

Each school's authorship, AI and assistance rules are its own, they differ, and several of them are not published on the waitlist page at all. Read the rules that apply to you before using any review, and submit only your own writing.

Sources

All pages read on September 5, 2026.

• Harvard Law School - Application Toolkit: The Waitlist
• University of Chicago Law School - Waitlist Process 2026 and Waitlist FAQ
• Columbia Law School - Application Information Update
• Cornell Law School - JD FAQ
• Duke Law School - Waitlist
• Emory University School of Law - JD FAQs
• Northwestern Pritzker School of Law - FAQs for Applicants on the Waitlist
• Notre Dame Law School - For Waitlisted Students
• NYU School of Law - JD Waitlist Information
• University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School - JD FAQs
• University of Texas School of Law - Admissions FAQs
• Berkeley Law - After You've Applied
• Georgetown Law - JD Admissions FAQ
• Stanford Law School - JD Application Process
• Yale Law School - Application Process
• UCLA School of Law - First-Year JD Applicants
• Vanderbilt Law School - JD Admissions
• WashU Law - Waitlist Update session
• University of Virginia School of Law, University of Michigan Law School and Baylor Law School: pages refused our requests on September 5, 2026, directly and through a public text proxy, so no rule is stated for them here.