Suits, Ties, & Shifting Standards
Not long ago, I read about a ridiculous jury award in Corpus Christi, Texas. A drunk driver killed a family, and the bar that served the driver was held liable to the tune of $300B. Yes, you read that correctly. Three hundred billion dollars. For context: that is more than the annual GDP of Finland.
When I initially read this, I was outraged. How can the legal system function this way? Is there no limiting principle for these awards?
(No wonder liability insurance is so expensive).
Upon taking this question to LinkedIn, however, I was inundated with comments from a flood of private injury attorneys possessed with self-righteous indignation. “The limiting principle,” one of them insisted, “is the enlightened conscience of an impartial jury.”
A conscience ‘enlightened,’ of course, by an attorney who receives a 20-40% cut of any award or settlement. Impartial indeed. I was told repeatedly by this flock of attorneys that the $300B figure was entirely reasonable, and that I am a bad actor for questioning this outcome. Some even alluded to the possibility that I, Sam Louwrens, am on the payroll of some nebulous “them.” Could it be Big Insurance? Big Liquor Store? Big Drunk Driving? I plead the fifth.
Needless to say, my confidence in the legal system was obliterated, and I began to question how these people end up as lawyers in the first place. Is it really that hard?
That’s when a friend of mine in Law School told me about a little scandal that has the potential to fundamentally alter the future of legal representation in the United States. The kind of scandal that does everything other than remediate my rapidly dwindling respect for the legal profession.
Lowering the Bar?
Contributor: John Parker
This law school admissions cycle is the most chaotic and cutthroat in history. I would know, I’ve been in the midst of it for months now.
In the United States, law school applications live and die on two numbers: your undergraduate G.P.A. and your Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) score. Law schools and the admissions industry at large will often emphasize the importance of other recommendations such as the resume and admissions essay, but while these are often critical tiebreakers, they're mere sprinkles on the cake compared to the G.P.A. and LSAT.
In late 2023, one major ingredient in that cake changed.
The LSAT has traditionally consisted of 3 multiple choice sections: Analytical Reasoning (Logic Games), Logical Reasoning (Argumentative Analysis), and Reading Comprehension (exactly what it sounds like).
While the two latter sections boil down to high level applications of common-sense and verbal intelligence, Analytical Reasoning was special — the black sheep. Questions in this section required the use of diagrams to categorize and order variables according to a set of rules that were often modified.
That turned out to be a problem. In 2024, Logic Games were removed from the LSAT. Why? Enter: Angelo Binno. Binno, a then-28 year old blind man and Michigan Law hopeful, sued the LSAC for discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act, arguing that the necessity of diagrams to score well prevented blind people from becoming lawyers. While the other two sections could be completed easily with braille and the assistance of verbal readers, drawing a diagram could not. Binno had previously sued the American Bar Association on the same grounds, losing in the US Supreme Court due to lack of standing. But now, after an eight year suit, the LSAC caved, announcing they’d not only pay those discriminated against generously (score for Binno), but that they’d replace their Logic Games section with another iteration of Logical Reasoning starting in 2024; not just for the blind, but for everyone.
Of course, Binno was right, as anyone who has ever studied for the LSAT would tell you (the pronounced whiff of astroturf around the inciting incident notwithstanding). Whether having more blind lawyers is important or not, I’ll leave to you to decide — one way or another, the removal of Logic Games from the test had immediate consequences.
As of the time of writing this, applicants are up from last year by 19.7 percent, and applications are up by a titanic 23.5 percent, with the highest score bands of the LSAT seeing the highest percentage increases, ranging up to the 30s.
For the observant reader who’s been watching cultural trends around higher-Ed admissions over the last few years, the knee-jerk reaction is to chalk this up to a harbinger of the downfall of the legal profession (through relaxed standards, not increased blindness.) It wouldn’t be the first time the LSAC has traded excellence for inclusion; in 2014 the Council agreed to not flag tests that were taken with extra time bonuses for various disabilities (including anyone who could finagle a doctor’s signature for ‘ADHD’). These extra time bonuses are well known for being so blatantly unfair that they’re referred to as “hacks” by undergrads. This kind of tactic was especially impactful in the Logic Games section — The LSAC made that advantage invisible.
Like basement-dwellers hearing about a new gaming console release, legions of law-school hopefuls who liked their odds better in the new version of the test set up pup tents on the proverbial sidewalk to wait for their chance at passing an easier LSAT. I would know, I had my tent set up for months, having lacked sufficient speed in Logic Games to maximize my score in the section. Some of those like me, with verbal talent but a Logic Game Achilles Heel, benefitted from the change. Conversely, those who lacked the verbal aptitude for Reading Comprehension and Logical Reasoning instead found their success in Logic Games, which conventional wisdom and score increase statistics have recognized as ‘the most learnable’ part of the test. These applicants scrambled through the closing door in June before their preferred section was gone forever, leaving all those like them out in the cold for the foreseeable future.
Both kinds of applicants being able to take their preferred version of the test is certainly part of the increase in scores, but the increase in applications is going to inevitably have a bigger percentage impact on the lower population score bands than the higher ones as well. Meaning, ironically, many applicants who thought they were giving themselves an easier time likely hurt themselves by setting up shop in a more competitive cycle, unless they managed to increase their score by more than a few points. Spivey Consulting, a respected firm in the law school admissions space, estimated that competitiveness increased by 7% on net for this cycle as a result of the change. It’s not a huge number, but it makes a strong case that even with applicants being allowed to cater to their strengths, the quality of this class is higher, not lower, than those before as a result. Therefore, only the most lopsided of applicants really derived a significant admissions benefit. Admittedly I am one of them — I increased my score by 9 points as a result of the change.
One way or another, whether the class is more competitive or not, one thing is certain: Law Schools are raking in money.
With the increase in scores and applicants (Spivey Consulting predicts law schools will be increasing their seats by an estimated 5%), schools can afford to increase their seats without sacrificing their accepted student score medians. Typically, these factors are inversely related — more seats tends to mean lower scores. In light of the change, however, many Law Schools might even manage to raise their median scores too, increasing both their prestige and class size (any Dean’s dream come true). It’s free lunch for now, with admissions offices praying score normalization after this cycle won’t force them to backtrack too many seats next time around. Either way, for the next three years at least, they’re getting a tidy boost in profits.
So, does this mean our lawyers will be dumber going forward? Should I only hire suits with grey hair?
Yes and no. The reality is no one heard this announcement and decided to suddenly apply to Law School. Our upcoming pool of lawyers-in-training wasn’t diluted, just shuffled around and given more gold star stickers than normal. But because this gamesmanship is available for one-year-only, there’s no guarantee it gives us many clues to what the future will look like.
In the long term, when the surge of competition has abated, those like me with a weakness for the Logic Games section (and no “ADHD” get-out-of-jail-free cards) will outperform those that depended on it. The rest is debatable. Logic games are intimidating but learnable, so applications could easily stay higher or go lower than the previous baseline. Analytical skills are useful for a lawyer to have, but arguably not as important to perform under time pressure as reading comprehension or argument analysis is. I have my biases, others have theirs.
It may have been more compelling if I concluded that a serious ground shift in the legal field was coming — but in the spirit of honesty, it is my sense that all of this is a wash in the long run. Moving forward, these changes will at most enrich some law schools further and alter the flavor of young high prestige lawyers about as much as the label on a can of Lacroix alters its taste: ephemerally.
Everything else is just chatter.
BONUS: ARE YOU SMARTER than a LAW STUDENT in 2025?
Let's find out!
Here's a forbidden Logic Games question. Email me your answer - if you get it correct, maybe it's time to apply to the ol' Harvard Law.
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