Community-Centered Insights: Using Data to Support and Drive Impact

By Elizabeth Bodamer

Today, the legal profession does not reflect the U.S. population and more than ever millions go without civil legal help . Inequality persists from early education to and through law school. How do we intervene? Advancing equity and opening access requires a collective effort that starts long before law school and continues beyond the bar exam. 

Advancing access to legal education requires a data-informed and community-wide effort. A variety of stakeholders and resources, such as prelaw advisors, admission professionals, pathway programs, and law schools, must come together to support access, equity, and fairness in the journey from prelaw through practice.

LSAC is committed to unlocking vital data to provide the entire legal education community the ability to confront challenges in the most effective manner, work toward concrete outcomes, and learn what works and what does not.

To this end, LSAC’s research team is launching an annual LSAC Knowledge Report series and other future reports to help inform the legal community and positively impact the pathway from prelaw to practice in ways that are data-informed and community-centered.

Today, we are publishing the first report in this series. The initial 2024 LSAC Knowledge Report focuses on the voices of test takers as they embark on the journey to law school, based on surveys of more than 17,000 LSAT test takers during the just-completed 2023-2024 LSAT testing cycle. The insights in this report are particularly noteworthy as they are the first group of test takers since the June 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision on race and admission.

The voices of future law applicants provide numerous insights for how to better support and promote their aspirations by centering on what drives them and what they need both to get to law school and to flourish in law school.

Specifically, the report finds that 2023-2024 test takers are driven to do good, to uplift their communities, and to advocate for social justice. They know that they and people like them should be in law school.

At the same time, they are aware of barriers such as cost that can realistically prevent them from going to law school — an awareness acutely felt by those who have less access to resources. Further, test takers from marginalized[1] communities are aware that they and people like them are often not welcomed, often not valued, and often underestimated in law school.

Join us to learn more about aspiring lawyers as they embark their application journey by downloading the full report. These insights (and future insights) will help us all as we work together to support the next generation of legal leaders along the prelaw to practice pathway.

[1] The term “marginalized” refers to populations that have been treated as less important than the dominant population in terms of access, power, and other aspects of social processes.