Law School News and LSAT Strategy

As a result of a lawsuit filed against the LSAT in 2019, the Law School Admissions Council (LSAC) agreed to retire the Logic Games section of the exam within five years. Taking full advantage of that timeframe, last October, LSAC announced that the section would be removed from the exam following the June 2024 administration of the test. Now, law school applicants targeting round 1 applications in 2024 are confronted with a unique option - take the exam with Logic Games or without.

In the wake of COVID-19 standardized testing cancellations worldwide, this week the LSAC announced that the in-person April LSAT has indeed been cancelled. This second consecutive LSAT cancellation has prompted the creation of an alternative LSAT-Flex exam that will be available only to LSAT candidates who had previously registered for either of the now-cancelled March or April exams. All April registrants will be automatically registered for the LSAT-Flex, unless they proactively choose a different LSAT date by April 15. Currently, the next three in-person LSAT exam administrations are scheduled for June 8, July 13, and August 29.

While the LSAT Logical Reasoning section may seem to have an infinite number of potential scenarios and prompts, the vast majority of the problems found in the section follow basic rules governing argumentation that date back to the time of the Roman Empire. The key to succeeding on this section is following some consistent basic steps that will allow you to understand first what the question is asking you to do, second what the conclusion of the argument is, and lastly to predict what the answer should do to appropriately address the question task. This skill is the subject of today’s video tutorial with our Director of Online Tutoring – Stefan Maisnier.

The Law School Admissions Council (LSAC) is a monolithic and conservative entity befitting a gatekeeper of legal academia. However, it’s beginning to be forced to change with the times in the face of some significant challenges. The number of LSATs administered annually has declined by more than a third this decade from 170,000+ at the end of the 2009-10 testing year to fewer than 110,000 during the 2016-17 testing year. Then came the news that, beginning with applications submitted in the fall of 2017, Harvard Law will accept the GRE as an acceptable alternative to the LSAT for incoming applicants.

This June, the LSAT announced that during the 2018-19 school year the number of LSATs will expand from four to six administrations annually. This is undoubtedly excellent news for test takers who will obviously appreciate the added scheduling flexibility. However, there is an even bigger benefit for prospective law students looking to improve upon a previous score – beginning with the September 2016 exam there will no longer be any limit on the number of LSATs a test taker can record over a two-year period. The Law School Admission Council has announced these changes as part of an ongoing effort to reduce the barriers to entry into law school.