The LSAT’s Secret Benefit: Developing Critical Thinking Skills

The LSAT Is The Most Important Factor In Your Law School Application

Most serious pre-law students know that the LSAT is the single biggest factor affecting (1) your success in getting acceptance offers from law schools, and (2) the potential size of law school merit-based scholarships that can exceed $200,000. In that sense, the LSAT can be thought of as a “means to an end”: your LSAT score is important as a means to getting into law school and saving a lot of money.

The Erosion of “Critical Thinking” Skills

But there is another, much less publicized, benefit of preparing seriously for the LSAT: developing critical thinking skills. I cannot turn on the TV any more without hearing someone say a variation of: “we have lost our ability to think critically in this country.”

While that may be an exaggeration, there is no question of the immense value of critical legal thinking skills. I developed and taught an undergraduate course at UC Irvine called “Logical Reasoning and the Law” – the entire premise of the course was (1) to develop and understand how to think logically and critically, and then (2) to evaluate major U.S. Supreme Court decisions through an apolitical lens focusing purely on critically analyzing arguments being made by the majority and dissent. The purpose of that course was to do exactly what LSAT Prep does: to develop the ability to think critically and analyze problems logically.

LSAT Prep: Developing Critical Thinking Skills

All of that brings me back to the LSAT. I have never seen any test – or any other activity, for that matter – that is more purely focused on the development of “critical legal thinking” skills than the LSAT. The Logical Reasoning section, in particular (comprising 2/3 of your LSAT score), tests a student’s ability to critically analyze arguments and language.

So, while it is true that preparing seriously for the LSAT does serve as a “means to an end,” it also will help you develop an absolutely priceless skill: the ability in your everyday life to analyze arguments and language more critically and precisely