The Emperor Wears No Clothes: Should LSAT Accommodations Exist for Learning Disabilities? (Ep. 40)
The LSAT Simplified: A Hey Future Lawyer Podcast · Hey Future Lawyer
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Show Notes
Ben opens this episode by examining the rapid rise of LSAT accommodations and asking whether the emperor wears no clothes when people claim that extra time creates fairness. He uses recent research to show how time based accommodations change the nature of the LSAT and reduce its ability to predict first year law school performance.
He walks through findings that extended time LSAT scores tend to overpredict law school GPA and explains why this happens when timing pressure is removed from a skills based exam. Ben then connects these results to broader cultural trends in higher education, where diagnoses of ADHD, anxiety, and depression have accelerated and accommodations have become routine at elite universities.
From there he looks at how the same shift is appearing in the workplace, with younger employees expecting accommodations as a normal part of their environment. Across the episode he returns to one core question. If accommodations significantly alter the LSAT, should they exist for a test designed to measure reading skill, reasoning, and processing speed under constraint.
He closes by acknowledging the tension between the philosophical concerns and the practical reality. Even if accommodations change the test, they can meaningfully boost admissions results and scholarship outcomes, which means students must understand the incentives driving the system.
Links referenced Professor Derek T. Muller, Access to Democracy https://www.accessdemocracy.com/post/what-do-time-accommodations-do-to-the-predictive-value-of-lsat-scores-for-legal-education
The Atlantic, “Accommodations in Higher Education” https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2024/12/college-student-accommodations-rise-disability/678803
Tannenbaum Helpern, “The ADA Generation’s Impact on Employee Requests for Accommodations and Leave Based on Disabilities” https://www.thsh.com/resources/the-ada-generations-impact-on-employee-requests-for-accommodations-and-leave-based-on-disabilities
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