Dean Allard Applauds Recommendation to ABA That Would Eliminate LSAT Requirement

Dean Nick Allard has issued a statement of support for the proposal put forward by the American Bar Association’s Standards Review Committee (SRC) of the Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar that would eliminate the longstanding requirement that law schools use the LSAT for admissions. The move is viewed as a way to attract highly talented and diverse candidates with an interest in pursuing a law degree.

“I applaud the Committee’s recommendation that Standard 503 of our regulations, which requires an admissions test for ABA-accredited law schools, be eliminated and that going forward there be no specific admissions test required for law schools to evaluate applicants,” he said.

Brooklyn Law School is one of 19 schools nationally that accept the GRE as an evaluation tool for admissions consideration. “I have no doubt that most law schools will continue to require tests of some kind and that the number of law schools accepting the GRE will continue to grow,” Allard pointed out.

Allard added that law, like most professions, has been forever altered by advances in technology and a more global economy, factors that have significantly broadened the universe of skills and backgrounds necessary for the legal services industry to be truly responsive to society’s changing needs. Law schools also are finding that individuals who are studying or working in the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) perform at high levels in law school. This rapidly changing landscape for legal education and for new lawyers has prompted questions of how a prospective student should prepare for law school, how law schools should evaluate their qualifications for admission, and how law schools should educate the next generation of lawyers for a rapidly changing profession.

“The new challenges that our next generation of lawyers will face require an approach to legal education that looks beyond the traditional backgrounds in the humanities or social sciences and encourages highly qualified students from diverse academic and work backgrounds who have the potential to excel in law school to apply and pursue a law degree,” he said. “The recommendation to eliminate the requirement that law schools use the LSAT for admissions is a step in the right direction.”