The American Bar Association is creating a pathway for law schools to request an exemption from the organization’s standardized testing requirement.
The law school accreditor’s Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admission to the Bar voted to create a “variance” allowing individual law schools to apply for permission to bypass its current LSAT or GRE admissions requirement. If the application is accepted, that waiver would be valid for three to five years before the school would be required to reapply.
It’s the latest shift to result from a fierce, years-long debate within the ABA over whether the organization should allow law schools to make test scores optional for applicants. In 2022, the accreditor put forth a proposal to dispense with the LSAT requirement, but it was defeated in a vote by the ABA governing body.
The Law School Admissions Council, which develops the LSAT, said in a statement to Reuters that it supports the move as a way to let schools “experiment in a responsible way to expand access.”
