What is LSAC?

The Law School Admission Council (LSAC) is a nonprofit corporation that provides unique, state-of-the-art products and services to ease the admission process for law schools and their applicants worldwide.

Okay…so what does it actually do?
 

The LSAT

First and foremost, LSAC administers the LSAT test. In order to register for the exam, you’ll have to create an account and pay the $200 registration fee to LSAC. In this sense, LSAC is to the LSAT what the College Board is to the SAT, what ETS is to the GRE, and what GMAC is to the GMAT. After you’ve taken the exam, you’ll be able to view all your scores and your writing sample through your LSAC account.
 

Credential Assembly Service

You’ll also use your LSAC account to register for the Credential Assembly Service (CAS). The CAS allows you to submit all your application materials (letters of recommendation, scores, transcripts, etc…) to LSAC rather than submitting them separately with each application. Once LSAC has all your materials, they’ll organize them into a law school report to be sent to all the schools to which you apply. All ABA-approved law schools and many non-ABA-approved schools require the use of the CAS in their applications. Registration for CAS costs $170, but that fee only covers the creation of your law school report. It does not cover the actual sending of your report to law schools, for which there is an additional $30 fee per school. If you haven’t already noticed, applying to law school is pricey, primarily because of LSAC’s obligatory role in the process.
 

Other Offerings

For most applicants, the LSAT and the CAS are pretty much the extent of the interactions they’ll have with LSAC. However, LSAC does offer a variety of other services to both applicants and law schools.

One of the more interesting offerings for applicants is the Candidate Referral Service (CRS). If you authorize the release of your information through your LSAC account, the CRS allows law schools and their affiliates to contact you for recruiting purposes. This is probably something you want to do, since you may receive scholarship offers or, at the very least, helpful information about schools that were previously off your radar.

Some of the other offerings LSAC provides are regional law school forums to connect applicants with representatives from member law schools, diversity initiatives, test prep materials, and law school guides. Additionally, LSAC “provides essential software and information for admission offices and applicants, conducts educational conferences for law school professionals and prelaw advisors, sponsors and publishes research, [and] funds diversity and other outreach grant programs.”
 

Prep Materials

All in all, LSAC is a pretty vast organization with a suite of products and services that can help law school applicants. While it may frustrate many of you to have to pay for products that you would otherwise decline (like CAS or law school reports), there’s no denying that LSAC has at least one highly valuable product:

Official LSAT Prep, an online library of over 70+ previously-administered LSAT exams that you can practice with.

Magoosh LSAT Prep is also integrated with Official LSAT Prep from LSAC, and you can check out our plans here.