When the economy looks grim, people go to law school.
That’s a reasonable hypothesis, anyway, as proffered by the likes of Reuters, Newsweek and the Wall Street Journal. Law School Admission Test (LSAT) takers rose from 121,600 in 2006 to a peak of 144,700 in 2010, according to the Law School Admission Council (LSAC). Test taking also spiked in popularity between 2020 and 2021, before falling.
But this year’s projected uptick in LSAT test takers may have a better explanation. The LSAT is easier now.
Really makes you think https://t.co/QwUWBqLPo0 pic.twitter.com/4hH9Aohc1o
— 𝖓𝖎𝖓𝖊 🕯 (@atlanticesque) October 20, 2025
The LSAC dropped the dreaded “logic games,” or analytical reasoning, portion of the test in August 2024.
That change, according to the council, was spurred by a lawsuit brought by two blind test takers.
They “asserted that the Analytical Reasoning section of the LSAT … disadvantaged blind test takers because they could not draw or use diagrams to solve these questions,” according to a statement from Susan L. Krinsky, executive vice president for operations and chief of staff at LSAC.
Those plaintiffs claimed in their lawsuit that LSAC violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by “fail[ing] to administer the [LSAT] in a manner accessible to prospective law students with disabilities.”
The LSAT more obviously violates the ADA in that it discriminates against the mentally impaired. As do all cognitive aptitude tests, and life.
“This concern was not shared by all blind test takers. Nevertheless, in order to address any concerns about diagramming, LSAC committed to research alternative methods for assessing analytical or deductive reasoning skills,” Krinsky writes.
The revamped test features “two scored Logical Reasoning (LR) sections, one scored Reading Comprehension (RC) section, plus one unscored section of either LR or RC that enables us to pilot items for future tests.”
Krinsky assures readers (and nervous law firms, probably) that the LSAT “will continue to assess prospective law students’ skills at analytical and deductive reasoning” via the logical reasoning portion of the test.
The new LSAT without Logic Games is top-loading scores at an alarming rate.
The following graph shows the percent increase in each scoring range compared to last year. The black line is the overall increase in applicants (20.3%): pic.twitter.com/F66Lh5UDIt
— Dave Killoran (@DaveKilloran) March 4, 2025
Krinsky points to research, conducted by an unidentified party, “confirm[ing] that substituting a second logical reasoning section for the logic games section had virtually no impact on overall scoring — analysis of over 200,000 test sessions found that the mean score changed by 1/100th of a point.”
Regardless, prospective law students were excited enough about the change to flock to the LSAT in droves.
“There was a 25% year-over-year increase in August and September 2024 LSAT test takers,” according to the University at Buffalo School of Law.
During the 2025 cycle, “LSAT scores edged upward, particularly in the 160–180 range,” the University at Buffalo School of Law claims. The highest possible LSAT score is 180. (RELATED: Prestigious Law School Journal Reportedly Finds Secret Way To Reward Race In Applications)
Some test takers are jubilant about the change, according to a Reuters profile. Even though, as Krinsky suggests, the new test is definitely probably no less rigorous than the previous version.
“Logic games made me lose my cool a little bit,” one law school hopeful told Reuters. That student claimed his score rose from 156 to 167 when logic games were removed from practice exams.
“Logic games are legitimately the hardest for a lot of students,” said Glen Stohr, an LSAT instructor, told Reuters. “But there could be a light bulb moment where they go from utter confusion to a sense of clarity and then confidence in relatively short order.”
Most of us would probably prefer an attorney capable of working through their logical confusion. Best of luck to the falsely accused.
Follow Natalie Sandoval on X: @NatSandovalDC
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