For New Cycle Applicants: What is LSAC CAS and CRS?

Selene Steelman

For those of you preparing to apply during the upcoming application cycle, you might be wondering about LSAC and the services they provide. This post will explain the difference between the LSAC Credential Assembly Service (CAS) and the LSAC Candidate Referral Service (CRS).

Information about the CAS can be found at https://www.lsac.org/applying-law-school/jd-application-process/credential-assembly-service-cas. The CAS Report is an electronic file with the candidate’s academic summary (GPAs, LSAT scores), LSAT essays, LORs, and any other application documents. Once you as the candidate provide one set of application documents to LSAC, they will assemble the information in the CAS Report and distribute them to your selected law schools. The CAS Report is sent electronically to the law schools you select and appears in their admissions database as a single PDF file. Candidates must purchase this service. You pay for each report that is sent to a law school.

The CRS is the way for law schools to find the prospective students they want: https://www.lsac.org/choosing-law-school/candidate-referral-service. The most common use of the CRS is for the school to get a list of registered candidates with attractive LSAT scores and send them fee waivers. Fee waivers waive the school’s application fee (the school’s administrative cost of processing an electronic application, often $50-100). This doesn’t however waive the cost of sending a CAS report to the law school. Schools may also do geographic searches to invite prospective candidates in the local area to prospective student open houses and programming events at the school. If a school wants to promote specific programming in, say, corporate law, they could do a search for candidates who indicate in the CRS that they are interested in corporate law. Candidates have a choice in opting in or out of this service. Opt in and you might get hit by waves of emails. This might be annoying. However, each point of outreach by a law school is a great opportunity for you the candidate to respond by connecting to someone in their admissions office (by email or phone or in person) and showing yourself to be a strong candidate: https://7sage.com/admissions/lesson/what-questions-should-you-ask-a-law-school-admissions-officer/.

Cookie Moon

My CAS shows my transcripts are received and processed, but there is no LSAC GPA. Anyone knows how long it will take and where can I find it?

Thank you!!

MissChanandler

@SCLawbae it could take up to a week or two. Mine only took a few days. You can find it under "academic summary"

cqas190517

They’re also known as a huge money pit that basically turns all your paperwork into PDF’s and charges you for the “privilege”, and meddles with your GPA to adapt it to a 4.3 scale for no good reason.

Cookie Moon

@MissChanandler said:
@SCLawbae it could take up to a week or two. Mine only took a few days. You can find it under "academic summary"

Thank you!! I will just patiently wait and see