Law School Archives | Restoring Liberty

A panel of the American Bar Association voted Friday to make the Law School Admissions Test optional, a win for critics who said the standardized test hampered diversity efforts.

The panel’s decision comes amid debate on whether the exam harms or helps with diversity in law schools. Nearly 60 law school deans in September signed a letter that claimed getting rid of the requirement would actually hurt the goal of diversifying law schools by leaning harder on individual GPAs or other factors that could be tinged with bias.

“We believe that removal of the testing requirement could actually increase the very disparities proponents seek to reduce by increasing the influence of bias in the review process,” Kristen Theis-Alvarez, assistant dean of admissions and financial aid at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, said in the letter.

The Southern University Law Center, a historically black university in Louisiana, will still use the LSAT to analyze candidates, according to the university’s chancellor, John Pierre, who said he agreed with the panel. However, schools should make their own decisions, Pierre added. (Read more from “American Bar Association Panel Makes LSAT Optional for Law School Admittance” HERE)

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We’ve known for a while that more people are taking the LSAT — we’re talking a double-digit increase. But exactly why has largely remained a source of speculation and anecdotal reports that the surprising results of the 2016 election were motivating people to go to law school. Now we have the hard data to support that hypothesis.

Kaplan Test Prep conducted a survey of over 500 pre-law students and the results confirm the suspicions of many in the industry: the Trump Bump is real. Thirty-two percent of respondents said politics were a motivating factor in deciding to apply. The comments offered show that changes in policy by the Trump administration have prompted some to consider a career in the law:

“I work with refugees and new government policies have directly impacted and impeded my ability to do my job. I am interested in a law degree in order to have a new way to fight for human rights and defend those in need.”

. . .

And even those who had already thought about going to law school before credit the 2016 election with solidifying the decision and potentially changing their career path:

“I wanted to be a lawyer and attend law school before the 2016 election, but the results solidified to me why it was so important to gain a legal education. Prior to that election, I had never considered being a politician; however, I am now considering pursuing a career in politics after my legal education.”

(Read more from “Over 30 Percent of Applicants Want to Go to Law School Because of Trump” HERE)

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