Law School Admissions Data: Every Source Compared (ABA 509, LSAC, LSD and School Profiles)

The Four Sources at a Glance

Source	Who reports it	What it measures	Best for
ABA Standard 509 reports	Each ABA-approved school, to the ABA	Applications, offers, enrolled class, LSAT and GPA percentiles, tuition, grants, attrition, transfers	Any school-level number you will cite
ABA employment and bar passage reports	Each school, to the ABA	Graduate jobs and first-time bar passage	Outcomes for earlier graduating classes
LSAC volume reports	LSAC	National applicants and applications during the cycle	How competitive this year is
LSD.law	Applicants themselves	Individual outcomes with LSAT, GPA and dates	Timing and texture, not statistics
School class profiles	Each school, on its own site	Medians and class facts, in the school's own terms	Detail the 509 does not carry

ABA 509 Reports: the Official Record

Every ABA-approved school must publish a Standard 509 Information Report, and the ABA posts each school's report for every year from 2011 to 2025. Because the fields and definitions are fixed, a 509 number at one school means the same thing at every other. For the class that entered in fall 2025, 196 schools reported 517,127 applications between them. Our guide to reading a 509 report walks through each section.

Two limits: the LSAT and GPA percentiles describe students who enrolled rather than everyone admitted, and the figures are submitted by the schools themselves.

LSAC Volume Data: the Cycle in Real Time

The Law School Admission Council runs the application system, so it sees volume before anyone else. Its Volume Summary tracks applicants and applications against the prior year while a cycle is open. In the 2026 cycle, LSAC counted 82,487 applicants and 579,839 applications, about seven applications per person (LSAC). LSAC's figures are national; they do not tell you any one school's acceptance rate.

Self-Reported Outcomes: LSD.law

LSD.law (Law School Data) lets applicants post their own LSAT, GPA and results, and describes its archive as self-reported outcomes going back to 2003. Its applicant search is genuinely useful for questions official data cannot answer: when a school tends to release decisions, or what happened to people with numbers like yours last year. But every entry is self-reported, unverified and posted by people who chose to share, which tilts the sample toward strong applicants. Treat it as color around the official figures, not a substitute for them.

School Class Profiles

Many schools publish a class profile on their admissions pages. These sometimes add detail the 509 lacks, such as undergraduate majors or work experience, and for schools outside the ABA system, such as Canadian law schools, they are often the only source. Read the definitions carefully: a profile may report an average where the 509 reports a median, or describe admitted students rather than enrolled ones. Our Canadian law school LSAT guide quotes each school's own figures in its own terms.

"Law School Data Assembly Service" Is Not a Dataset

The phrase sounds like a database, but it is the old name for LSAC's Credential Assembly Service, which gathers your transcripts, LSAT results and letters and sends a report to each school you apply to. It is part of applying, not a source of admissions statistics.

Compare your numbers with every school's 509.

Enter your LSAT and GPA and AdmitBase sorts every ABA school into reaches, targets and safeties using the official percentiles. No account needed to see your top matches.

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Putting Them Together

Building a list: start from 509 percentiles; that is the only comparable school-by-school measure.
Judging this cycle: check LSAC's volume against last year. More applicants chasing roughly the same number of seats raises every school's bar.
Timing and scholarships: self-reported outcomes help, provided you remember who is doing the reporting.
Citing a number: use the 509, give the year, and link the report.

Building something with law school data?

AdmitBase compiles the 509 reports into one multi-year dataset, every figure linked to its source, for advising offices, test-prep and ed-tech companies, and researchers.

See AdmitBase data access →

Frequently Asked Questions

Where can I find law school admissions data?

The official source is the ABA's Standard 509 Information Reports at abarequireddisclosures.org, which give every ABA-approved school's applications, offers, enrolled class and LSAT and GPA percentiles each year. LSAC publishes national applicant and application counts during each cycle, and many schools publish class profiles on their own sites.

Is there a law school admissions database or dataset?

The ABA's site will generate an all-school compilation for any section of the 509 report for a single year. AdmitBase compiles those reports into one multi-year dataset, with each figure linked to its source, and licenses it to organisations.

Is LSD.law data reliable?

It is useful but unverified. Outcomes on LSD.law are reported by applicants themselves, so they skew toward people who choose to post and cannot be checked. Use it for timing and anecdote, and use the ABA's 509 figures for any number you need to rely on.

What is the Law School Data Assembly Service?

It is the old name for LSAC's Credential Assembly Service (CAS), which collects your transcripts, LSAT score and letters and sends a report to each law school you apply to. It is part of the application process, not a source of admissions statistics.

How current is law school admissions data?

Each school's 509 report covers the class that entered in the fall of the report year, so the 2025 reports describe fall 2025 entrants. LSAC's volume figures are current while a cycle is under way.