Category Archives: News and Analysis

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Debt it Out: The Politics of Law School Student Loans

The issue of student loans recently came up in Congress as they considered whether or not to delay (or possibly get rid of) a rate increase on student loans from 3.4% to 6.8%. Both sides acted with their trademark maturity.

A rate increase when so many students are already struggling to make their minimum payments seems cruel, and yet who knows what our Congressmen are going to do. As it stands, though, the student loan debt crisis is definitely weighing negatively on the economy, as recent grads are unable to enter the career-force (I think I just created a new term). Without a large income or job security (such as it is, these days), these young people will start making the large purchases that drive our economy later in their lives. It’s an albatross around a generation’s neck, and it is affecting the entire country.
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May 8, 2012 - 6:38 pm - By Matt Shinners
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Law Schools to No Longer Require the LSAT? Not So Fast

The American Bar Association created a stir the other day, as it sometimes does, by releasing a statement discussing its new resolutions re: the LSAT. What did those resolutions say?

In short, the ABA is considering two alternatives to the current requirement that all law schools must require an entrance exam of some sort during the law school admissions process. The first proposal neuters the requirement to some degree, while the second removes it altogether.

This brings to mind two questions: 1) Are the LSAT’s days numbered? and 2) Is this a good thing?

So is the LSAT a goner? I don’t think so.
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May 2, 2012 - 6:35 pm - By Matt Shinners
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Everyone at Baylor Law Knows Each Other’s LSAT Score

Something pretty fun happened last week. Well, “pretty fun” for the casual observer, but “terrifying and frustrating” for people who had been accepted at a certain university. That’s because Baylor Law School accidentally released all the personal information of their admitted students to their admitted students. Everyone got an email with a spreadsheet attached, showing the names, addresses and phone numbers of their peers. Maybe they were trying to instill some camaraderie in their incoming class, hoping they’d start calling each other just to say hi?

Anyway, if that wasn’t bad enough, they also released the GPAs, LSAT scores, undergraduate schools, racial affiliations, and scholarship offers of the students as well.

So this sucks if you were admitted to Baylor.
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Apr 10, 2012 - 6:42 pm - By Colin Elzie
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LSAC and the ADA: A Harvard Law Grad Looks at the Facts

One of the most controversial issues surrounding the LSAT is special accommodations given to disabled test takers. Head to any law school-related message board and ask a question about how to apply for accommodations during an LSAT, and you’re guaranteed to start a flame war.

For quite some time, it’s been nearly impossible to get accommodated LSAT testing. Even students with a long history of accommodations (through other schooling and standardized testing) have been denied it by the LSAC. It was almost necessary to take them to court to have any chance of getting accommodations, claiming the policy violates the ADA.

So does the LSAC’s policy violate the ADA?
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Feb 15, 2012 - 6:31 pm - By Matt Shinners
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Flawed Logic: A Response to the New York Times’ David Segal

New York Times reporter David Segal has made somewhat of a splash over the past year talking about the state of legal education and how, to bluntly paraphrase, it sucks. You can check out what he has to say here and watch a short interview with him here.

If you don’t want to watch the video or wade through a 5-page New York Times article (though if you can’t make it through that, law school might be a rude awakening), the long and short of it is that he believes law schools, the ABA, and the US News and World Report rankings have created something of a self-interested scam with perverse incentives.

The ABA is both the professional organization representing lawyers, as well as the group that oversees accreditation of new schools (while technically the accreditation arm is an independent organization, many don’t believe in the separation).
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Feb 7, 2012 - 7:01 pm - By Matt Shinners
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These Go to Eleven.

Every three years or so, we survey our spring classroom students for the Blueprint score increase study. We do this to make sure that we’re doing a good job of teaching our students. After all, if your students aren’t improving their performance on the LSAT during the course, then you’ve failed as an LSAT prep company.

In spring 2008, our average practice exam score increase was 10 points. We were a smaller company then, with classes throughout California and an outpost in New York City. Since then, we’ve been adding locations and this spring expanded into five new cities – Boston, Washington DC, Philadelphia, Austin, and Phoenix (in addition to our extant California and New York classes).

The big question became: was it possible to become a national company and still maintain our massive score increase of 10 points? So many companies grow and lose all quality control. (You know what I mean, Starbucks – you actually served good coffee, once upon a time).

So what are the results?
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Jul 14, 2011 - 3:40 pm - By Jodi Triplett
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