The LSAT, Law School Admission, and Role The LSAT Plays in Law School Admission

– John Richardson, Toronto Canada

The LSAT  is required by almost every law school in the United States and Canada. (It is interesting that the law schools in Michigan, Illinois and Alabama have not required the LSAT in certain circumstances. It is unclear how this is consistent with the ABA
rules.)

Let’s begin with some sentiment  from the mainstream media:

“Yet it’s well-known among law school applicants that many Canadian schools sort their applications into piles by LSAT score and simply axe off those below a certain percentile. How many brilliant future lawyers are lost below that line, who, for one reason or another, simply can’t handle the LSAT?

It seems to me that there’s some room here for a Canadian law school to set itself apart by announcing a new, more holistic approach to admissions by waiving the LSAT requirement and perhaps doing something like having admissions interviews, which no Canadian law school does, instead, on top of using references and personal statements and extra-curriculars and undergraduate performance. If not for a whole
entering class, then perhaps schools could set aside a certain portion of first-year seats for applicants that do not require the LSAT, like the University of Michigan law school did in 2008. Continue reading →