Paper and Pencil LSAT Ends Its 71-Year Run
What do you remember about the test? Here's what some legal educators recall about taking the LSAT, as the "old school" version ends its reign.
June 02, 2019 at 05:00 PM
5 minute read
Kellye Testy nearly forgot about the Law School Admission Test entirely.
It was 1987, and Testy, who leads the organization that designed and administers the LSAT, had just bought her first home, located in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains outside of Sacramento.
The house was a fixer-upper and Testy and some friends worked into the wee hours of the night, stripping dated wallpaper from the kitchen. But all day long, she had a nagging feeling that she was forgetting something. Around 2 a.m., a light bulb went off in her head.
“It dawns on me that the next morning, I'm supposed to take the LSAT in Sacramento at 8 a.m.,” Testy recalled more than three decades later. “Oops.”
She had to make a quick decision: Should she try to get some rest or do a last-minute cram session? She opted for a short nap then looked over the instructional booklet for the exam before hopping into her car for the 45-minute drive to the testing site. She arrived in the nick of time.
Aspiring lawyers have been running the LSAT gauntlet since 1948, when the exam was developed to help standardize the way law students are admitted. And for the past 71 years, the test has been delivered via paper and pencil. Not for long.
The final all-paper LSAT is being administered across the country on June 3. The Law School Admission Council announced last summer that it would move toward an all-digital version of the test, making it the final graduate-level entrance exam to move to computers. (The GRE—a recent competitor to the LSAT—has been delivered via computer for years.) The next administration of the LSAT, on July 15, will be a hybrid. Half of the test sites will use the paper version, half will be digital. (Takers won't know ahead of time which version they will get.) By September, all testing will take place on tablet computers. The LSAT is also in the midst of its expansion from four tests a year to 10.
To mark the occasion, we asked some legal educators for their LSAT recollections. A few, like Testy, had vivid memories of their testing experiences. But for many others, the exam left little impression beyond the agony of studying—or their devil-may-care attitude toward test prep.
Though Testy can recount the night before her LSAT in detail, she has long forgotten what score she achieved. All she knows is that it was good enough to earn herself a spot at Indiana University Maurer School of Law-Bloomington—the only campus to which she applied.
“It's not what you'd necessarily expect from the person who is now the head of the [Law School Admission Council],” said Testy, who noted that as a first-generation college student, she didn't have a clear understanding of the path into law school or the stakes of the exam.
Trevor Morrison, dean at New York University School of Law, can't recall much about taking the LSAT except for one unfortunate mishap.
“I spilled an entire thermos of coffee on myself about three minutes before the LSAT began,” he said. “Otherwise I have no memory of it!”
Similarly, University of Pennsylvania law dean Ted Ruger doesn't remember much of the exam itself. But the run-up to the LSAT has stuck with him.
“I do remember preparing for it, with phone book-sized books of past practice tests filled with logic questions involving fictional dinner tables where someone was wearing a red hat and sitting to the left of the person having fish, who was across from the dentist, and next to someone named Beatrice,” he said. “That certainly comes in handy now when I look at seating charts for alumni banquets and faculty dinners.”
Michael Hunter Schwartz, dean at the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law, is a little embarrassed about his cavalier attitude toward the LSAT in his younger days.
“I didn't grasp the significance of the whole thing,” he said. “I figured I'd do fine because I always did fine on standardized tests. I was happily oblivious.”
For Dave Killoran, who runs PowerScore Test Preparation, the move to the digital LSAT is a mixed bag. He says he won't miss the “terribly thin and cheap paper that the test was printed on,” nor the “arbitrary timing” of test proctors. But the inability to write directly on the exam will hurt some test takers, he said. (Going forward, LSAT takers will enter their answers into a tablet using a stylus, and the computers centralize the timing. Once the time for a given section ends, the exam content disappears from the tablet.)
The digital exam reduces the opportunity for cheating and proctor errors, said Jeff Thomas, director of pre-law programs at Kaplan Test Prep. And takers will no longer have to worry about bubbling in their answers incorrectly. But moving to tablets won't eliminate the environmental stressors that often hang up test takers. He's heard stories of marching bands playing outside of testing rooms (this tends to come up in the fall, when LSAT examinations coincide with campus homecoming festivities), and other logistical problems at venues.
And then there are the issues that are impossible to prepare for.
“I had one student last administration who walked in and saw his ex-girlfriend taking the test,” Thomas said. “They hadn't spoken since the breakup and she was three seats away, and he was freaked out. He ended up canceling his score because they were so freaked out by it. That kind of thing won't go away with the digital exam.”
NOT FOR REPRINT
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
You Might Like
View All
Florida Law Schools Are Seeing a Bump in Applications for 2025, After Recent Declines at Flagship Schools
3 minute read

Law School Applications are Up Across the Country. Law Deans Aren't Sure Why
6 minute read
Librarian's Termination Violated First Amendment Protections, Lawsuit Claims
3 minute readTrending Stories
- 1Parties’ Reservation of Rights Defeats Attempt to Enforce Settlement in Principle
- 2ACC CLO Survey Waves Warning Flags for Boards
- 3States Accuse Trump of Thwarting Court's Funding Restoration Order
- 4Microsoft Becomes Latest Tech Company to Face Claims of Stealing Marketing Commissions From Influencers
- 5Coral Gables Attorney Busted for Stalking Lawyer
Who Got The Work
J. Brugh Lower of Gibbons has entered an appearance for industrial equipment supplier Devco Corporation in a pending trademark infringement lawsuit. The suit, accusing the defendant of selling knock-off Graco products, was filed Dec. 18 in New Jersey District Court by Rivkin Radler on behalf of Graco Inc. and Graco Minnesota. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Zahid N. Quraishi, is 3:24-cv-11294, Graco Inc. et al v. Devco Corporation.
Who Got The Work
Rebecca Maller-Stein and Kent A. Yalowitz of Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer have entered their appearances for Hanaco Venture Capital and its executives, Lior Prosor and David Frankel, in a pending securities lawsuit. The action, filed on Dec. 24 in New York Southern District Court by Zell, Aron & Co. on behalf of Goldeneye Advisors, accuses the defendants of negligently and fraudulently managing the plaintiff's $1 million investment. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Vernon S. Broderick, is 1:24-cv-09918, Goldeneye Advisors, LLC v. Hanaco Venture Capital, Ltd. et al.
Who Got The Work
Attorneys from A&O Shearman has stepped in as defense counsel for Toronto-Dominion Bank and other defendants in a pending securities class action. The suit, filed Dec. 11 in New York Southern District Court by Bleichmar Fonti & Auld, accuses the defendants of concealing the bank's 'pervasive' deficiencies in regards to its compliance with the Bank Secrecy Act and the quality of its anti-money laundering controls. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian, is 1:24-cv-09445, Gonzalez v. The Toronto-Dominion Bank et al.
Who Got The Work
Crown Castle International, a Pennsylvania company providing shared communications infrastructure, has turned to Luke D. Wolf of Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani to fend off a pending breach-of-contract lawsuit. The court action, filed Nov. 25 in Michigan Eastern District Court by Hooper Hathaway PC on behalf of The Town Residences LLC, accuses Crown Castle of failing to transfer approximately $30,000 in utility payments from T-Mobile in breach of a roof-top lease and assignment agreement. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Susan K. Declercq, is 2:24-cv-13131, The Town Residences LLC v. T-Mobile US, Inc. et al.
Who Got The Work
Wilfred P. Coronato and Daniel M. Schwartz of McCarter & English have stepped in as defense counsel to Electrolux Home Products Inc. in a pending product liability lawsuit. The court action, filed Nov. 26 in New York Eastern District Court by Poulos Lopiccolo PC and Nagel Rice LLP on behalf of David Stern, alleges that the defendant's refrigerators’ drawers and shelving repeatedly break and fall apart within months after purchase. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Joan M. Azrack, is 2:24-cv-08204, Stern v. Electrolux Home Products, Inc.
Featured Firms
Law Offices of Gary Martin Hays & Associates, P.C.
(470) 294-1674
Law Offices of Mark E. Salomone
(857) 444-6468
Smith & Hassler
(713) 739-1250