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We have breaking and what amounts to record-setting news.
This opportunity to see your score and cancel or retake for free is available for the July 2019 LSAT.
We were lucky enough to get some great data on upcoming LSAT administration numbers, and we want to share it with you. We've got some analysis for you, a little bit of a teaser for next cycle, and great input from Dave Killoran of Powerscore, who aside from his obvious LSAT expertise has been closely tracking the shift to a digital LSAT. Without further ado: final June 2019 LSAT registrations are slightly below 24,000. Last year, 22,489 applicants took the June LSAT. As we currently only hav
With the upcoming shifts LSAC will be making to the LSAT, we wanted to lay out all of the dates the test is available along with the information we know about them.
The rules n 2018.
The short answer is... it doesn't matter that much.
A message from a law school 2L reflecting back on their LSAT process.
We wanted to help you sort out how to think about the GRE—so we took some of the most commonly asked questions to our friends, law school admissions deans.
Note: Since the time this blog was published, the landscape of law school admissions has developed a great deal with regards to the importance of work experience prior to law school. Check out this updated 2024 blog for more information and advice. This post was written by Tom Robinson, Spivey Consulting Group's newest Senior Consultant. Hi Everyone, I’m excited to be on the Spivey team and enjoyed working with clients in my first week with Spivey Consulting after spending my last three at Ha
In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Mike interviews Elizabeth Vargas, journalist and television news anchor, on her journey to learning how to cope healthily with lifelong anxiety and panic attacks, on overcoming professional setbacks, and on advice for young people facing the stresses of the LSAT, law school admissions, law school, and finding legal employment.
Elizabeth Vargas anchors “Elizabeth Vargas Reports” (weeknights, 7 p.m. ET), an hour-long weekday news program that debuted April 3, 2023 on NewsNation. Vargas has traveled the world covering breaking news stories, reporting in-depth investigations, and conducting newsmaker interviews. She previously hosted the hit newsmagazine show “20/20” on ABC for 15 years, served as Co-Anchor of ABC’s World News Tonight, and was a news anchor and frequent host of “Good Morning America.” She also hosted A&E Investigates, a series of documentaries that still air on Hulu.
In 2016, Vargas released her memoir, Between Breaths: A Memoir of Panic and Addiction, which spent several weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and won numerous awards. Vargas is a member of the board of directors for the non-profit Partnership to End Addiction and hosts “Heart of the Matter,” a podcast focused on addiction, recovery, and the stigma so many face in their effort to heal.
Vargas mentions and recommends writer Mary Karr's books, The Liars' Club and Lit, in this episode.
Mike also discusses our interview with Justin Ishbia, who was the last person admitted to Vanderbilt Law from the waitlist when he applied and now owns the Phoenix Suns.
You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. You can read a full transcript with timestamps below.
In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Spivey consultants Derek Meeker and Paula Gluzman catch up with two former applicants and aspiring environmental attorneys, Shasta Fields and Cameron Moody, with whom they worked years ago and who are both now law school graduates. They discuss their experiences in law school, reflections on their application processes now that they've graduated, and their advice for current and future applicants. Plus, where did their goals of working in environmental law take them?
Cameron is a recent graduate of UVA School of Law, where they participated in the Holistic Youth Defense Clinic, the Environmental Law and Community Engagement Clinic, the Virginia Environmental Law Journal, and the Public Interest Law Association, and they were awarded the Clinical Legal Education Association’s Outstanding Student Award for 2024-25. Shasta is a graduate of UCLA School of Law, where she served as President of the Environmental Law Society and was a member of the Order of the Coif, Journal of Environmental Law and Policy, Trial Advocacy Team, and Native American Law Student Association. Listen to the episode to learn about the work they're doing now!
You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.
In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Mike sits down with the original LSAT cheating scandal whistleblower, who we call “Travis” in this podcast, and Dave Killoran, Founder and CEO of PowerScore. They discuss Travis' investigation process, how he tried to sound the alarm, LSAC's response, why he came to Mike and Dave, and an analysis of what happened and what's next for the future of the test.
You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. You can read a full transcript of this episode with timestamps below.
In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Mike Spivey hosts Trey Cox, co-chair of Gibson Dunn's global litigation practice group, on his legal career (4:18, 31:27), law school selection (9:20), hiring philosophies (16:42), and advice for aspiring law students and lawyers.
Trey and Mike both recommend the book Brain Rules by John Medina, which you can learn more about here.
You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. You can read a full transcript of this episode with timestamps below.
The landscape of legal recruiting in law school has changed significantly over the past 5-7 years. What should prospective law students know about what's changed so rapidly, and how has it impacted how admissions officers make their decisions? What caused these changes (11:04), how do they impact 1Ls (16:15), and what are admissions officers increasingly valuing in the application review process in response to these changing trends and practices (25:07)? How can incoming students best prepare themselves for this new world of recruiting (39:54)?
In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Anna Hicks-Jaco sits down with Rob Cacace, long-time Georgetown Law career services professional and Spivey Consulting Pre-L Program Director, and Kristen Mercado, former UC Davis Law admissions dean and one of Spivey's newest consultants, to discuss these questions and more.
Here are two short documents from the National Association for Law Placement (NALP) that provide additional context for this discussion:
You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. You can read a full transcript of this episode with timestamps below.
In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Anna Hicks-Jaco interviews Natalie Blazer, Assistant Dean for Admissions and Chief Admissions Officer at the University of Virginia School of Law, on the upcoming 2025-2026 admissions cycle, how applicants should be thinking about and taking into account relevant current events, and advice for prospective law students preparing to submit their applications. They discuss predictions for the 2025-26 cycle (1:56), rising LSAT and GPA medians (20:22, 27:45), changes they've made to their application this year (12:30), the new student loan cap (30:26), how admissions offices are considering applicants writing about politics and protest in the current political climate (4:18), how they evaluate applicants who have been unable to get a job after graduating from college (7:36), whether writing about AI is overdone (36:34), advice for the “Why UVA” essay (13:05), and much more. As a brief disclaimer, Dean Blazer speaks for herself and often for UVA Law in this episode; her opinions do not reflect those of all admissions officers.
In addition to her work at UVA Law, Natalie has served as Director of J.D. Admissions at Georgetown University Law Center and was Associate Director of Admissions at Columbia Law School. She hosts the UVA Law podcast Admissible, which "offers insights into the world of law school admissions and a behind-the-scenes look at life as a law student through interviews with students, faculty, alumni and staff."
We've interviewed Natalie twice for Status Check before, and though we weren't able to get to all of the questions that Redditors requested we ask, we answered many of them in these past episodes:
Please note: At the time that we recorded this episode, we noted that August 2025 LSAT registrants were up 27% relative to August 2024 registrants but that that number would come down over the days of the test administration. Ultimately, August LSAT registrants landed at a 23.7% increase vs. last year.
You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. You can read a full transcript of this episode with timestamps below.
