Most individuals consider the Regulation Faculty Admission Council because the nerds who write the LSAT. The parents that needed to be dragged kicking and screaming from forcing another generation to reply questions like “if Peter is taller than Nancy however shorter than Steve, what shade is Sally’s shirt?” However a newly filed antitrust class motion, seems to be past the LSAT and accuses the group of skimming charges prefer it’s working the one ATM in Vegas.
Again within the day, potential legislation college students took the LSAT after which bundled up their very own legislation college purposes. As of late, LSAC isn’t simply working the check, it’s helpfully working because the clearinghouse for everybody’s purposes. Ship in your supplies and choose your colleges and LSAC tackles the remaining.
Besides that course of is dear and, in accordance the the criticism filed within the Japanese District of Pennsylvania, a rent-seeking affair extracting money from potential legislation college students by advantage of being the one sport on the town.
“In 2025, greater than 60,000 aspiring legislation college students submitted greater than 500,000 purposes to legislation colleges,” the criticism begins. “Most paid utility charges to varsities that price as much as $105 per college.” However wait! This doesn’t embrace the “Credential Meeting Service,” LSAC’s utility clearinghouse. Earlier than the scholar even will get to the $105 for the varsity, they must shell out “a $215 necessary subscription payment and a $45 per report payment” to LSAC.
Which looks like rather a lot for one thing branded as mere “Meeting.” For a typical applicant making use of to 10 colleges, that’s over $600 straight to LSAC, earlier than a single admissions dean has the prospect to passive-aggressively reject you. At the least the varsity is theoretically charging to allow them to pay these admissions deans a number of multiples greater than the precise school. In contrast, $600 feels excessive for a glorified “ahead e mail” button. The truth is, undergraduate admissions run on an identical clearinghouse system that costs colleges a $2,500 flat payment per 12 months, about 4 bucks per utility and a $2.00 fee processing payment — the candidates solely pay the varsity’s personal payment.
That’s the form of apples to apples comparability that raises at the very least a couple of competitiveness questions. On the opposite aspect of equation, enterprise colleges don’t have any clearinghouse in any respect and whereas that will increase the prices related to every particular person college, essentially the most aggressive colleges are nonetheless solely charging round $250 with most coming in far, far decrease.
In line with its public tax filings, LSAC collected $93 million in Credential Meeting Service charges over simply the final three reported years. LSAC boasts round $250 million in internet property and a CEO making over $1 million a 12 months. It appears daring to pay hedge-fund cash to ahead a resume.
LSAC is a separate authorized entity from the Member Regulation Colleges. LSAC has conspired together with the Member Regulation Colleges to repair the value of those charges for its Regulation Faculty Software Platform. LSAC advantages from the supracompetitive income it earns from the price-fixed charges, utilizing that to construct up greater than $250 million in internet property, pay its executives lavishly for a nonprofit, and kickback cash to the Member Regulation Colleges.
Candidates have little selection as a result of LSAC runs the whole lot. And for the reason that colleges get LSAC’s back-end “Unite” admissions platform free of charge, they don’t have any incentive to buy round or move on financial savings. Everybody wins!
Besides, the criticism argues, the candidates.
(Grievance on the subsequent web page…)
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Regulation and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Be happy to email any ideas, questions, or feedback. Observe him on Twitter or Bluesky for those who’re eager about legislation, politics, and a wholesome dose of school sports activities information. Joe additionally serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
