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Research Library

All reports in ¾«¶«Ó°Òµâ€™s Research Library are available upon request. Executive summaries are available below for the latest LSAT Technical Reports and other research published within the last 10 years.

Looking for older reports? Consult the Research Archive

Current Research:

This report focuses on first-year law school enrollment from 2021 through 2025, highlighting who is enrolling in law school, where they enrolled, and how rates of enrollment of racially and ethnically minoritized students varied across law schools.
As predictive validity is an important component in the overall evaluation of test validity, ¾«¶«Ó°Òµ has carried out predictive validity studies, also called LSAT Correlation Studies, since the test was first administered.
This report provides insight into how students with disabilities in the 2024-2025 1L class navigated the law school application process.
This report provides important insights that law schools and stakeholders can use to support student retention and development in law school and beyond.
What funding sources did the 2024 1L class use to pay for law school? How much debt do they expect to have when they graduate?
This report focuses on the 2024 1L class, examining who is enrolling in law school, where they enrolled, and how they made their enrollment decision.
This report focuses on first-year law school enrollment from 2021 through 2024, highlighting who is enrolling in law school, where they enrolled, and how rates of enrollment of racially and ethnically minoritized students varied across law schools.
Based on survey responses from 2023 law school matriculants, this report provides nuanced information about factors that affect law school decision-making processes for students with disabilities.
This report focuses on the 2023 1L class, examining who is enrolling in law school, where they enrolled, and how they made their enrollment decision.
An in-depth look at how law schools are supporting LGBTQ+ individuals through their legal education journey.
Based on survey responses from 2022 law school matriculants, this report provides nuanced information about factors that affect law school decision-making processes for students with disabilities.
The ¾«¶«Ó°Òµ Research team has issued a first-of-its-kind report offering a highly nuanced perspective on how law schools support LGBTQ+ students.
By Elizabeth Bodamer and Debra Langer

A Foundation of Validity

Beginning with the very first notion of a standardized test for admission to law school, validity was a primary focus. In his May 17, 1945 letter to the College Entrance Examination Board (CEEB) suggesting the development of such a test, Frank H. Bowles, Director of Admissions at Columbia University, stated the seven criteria listed below.

A closer look at available data suggests that an admission process without the LSAT could leave well-qualified candidates out in the cold.
By Gregory Camilli
Data shows that justice-impacted individuals face a particularly difficult path to legal education. Is it time to talk about reform?
The most recent correlation study of LSAT results shows that LSAT scores are far superior to UGPA in predicting 1L success.

Since the inception of the Law School Admission Test (LSAT), the Law School Admission Council (¾«¶«Ó°Òµ) has sought to evaluate and ensure its validity for use in the law school admission process. As predictive validity is an important component in the overall evaluation of test validity, ¾«¶«Ó°Òµ has carried out predictive validity studies, also called LSAT Correlation Studies, since the test was first administered.

Contextual Information for Holistic Evaluation in Law School Admission

The figure below shows the progression of undergraduate yearly grade-point average (GPA) for law school applicants across 4 years of undergraduate study divided into quintiles based on individual Law School Admission Test (LSAT) scores.

The goal of the Law School Admission Council (¾«¶«Ó°Òµ) Skills Analysis Study is to identify the skills that law school faculty consider important for success in required law school courses. If certain tasks are required of all or most law school required courses, the skills involved in those tasks can be inferred to be essential to success in law school.

When faced with multiple scores from repeat test takers, users of standardized assessments typically employ three score types — most recent, highest, and average scores — in order to summarize an individual’s related performance. This study examined the validity of these three score types for Law School Admission Test (LSAT) scores in terms of predicting first-year averages...