Do LSAT scores determine success in your first year (1L year) in Law School?

Test preparation companies and the LSAC (Law School Admissions Council) point to a remarkable statistic when people question the effectiveness of the LSAT. That stat? High performance on the LSAT correlates strongly with success in the first year (Year 1L) of law school.

Of course, as Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli once said, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, bloody lies, and statistics.” But let’s assume this statistic is true. (I have no reason to doubt it and haven’t found any alternatives online.) Does this mean that your LSAT score is your destiny in your first year of law school?

To answer this question, let’s take a look at what the LSAT tests, and then look at law school to see what the connection might be.

The LSAT (according to the LSAC website) uses three types of questions: reading comprehension, analytical reasoning questions, and logical reasoning questions. But for test takers, two distinct types of questions stand out: reading comprehension and “logic games” (which are essentially math puzzles).

Reading comprehension assesses how quickly you can read and understand unfamiliar information. This skill translates directly into the first year of law school because the first year involves high-volume reading in an unfamiliar field. The legal language can be arcane, and professors often pick out historical, poorly written, and overturned cases in the first few months of class. Navigating through this material takes time, and good reading skills can keep this time to a minimum. Also, good readers often write well, which is a key skill in law school.

Logic games test how well you can follow a series of rules and you learn to take a test. These skills translate to law school, but much more loosely. Following the rules of the black letter is key to legal analysis. And learning the tricks for exams gives you a competitive advantage over your classmates. But the rules and strategies of logic games are very different from the legal rules and strategies.

So even though these skills transfer, it seems strange that there is a strong correlation between the LSAT and 1L success. Why would students who enter as better readers and who can learn how to do math puzzles necessarily do better than other smart students, such as top college writers? After all, no one knows the rules before their 1L classes, and the tricks of law school exams are different from the LSAT. Also, most law school tests are essay-based exams, not the multiple-choice format found on the LSAT.

I think the best explanation for this strong correlation is that success on the LSAT correlates with a strong test strategy. If teachers taught legal rules and exam strategies, success would come down to rule memorization and writing ability. But first-year teachers don’t teach that way. Instead, teachers teach through the method of jurisprudence.

The case law method, like any other, has pros and cons. Because the law is taught through cases, some rules are more memorable because they are tied to a story. But often the black print rules are buried and never made clear to students. Therefore, the ability to learn the material on one’s own while using sound test-taking strategies becomes paramount. For example, students who searched for bar exam material would be on the right track.

In my view, LSAT success correlates strongly with 1L success because freshmen aren’t taught test strategy. Instead, students are busy trying to figure out the hidden rules within each case, instead of focusing on test taking as a learnable skill. Therefore, students who do poorly on the LSAT should learn the subject efficiently. Y work on practice problems/mock tests to quickly improve your test-taking ability. With that preparation, this strong correlation does not have to be fate.