LSAC Activity Update Error

Law School Applicants: If you elected to receive a monthly LSAC Activity Update via postal mail, you may notice a discrepancy regarding your letters of recommendation. Specifically, the key identifying each Letter ID might not match what appears in your LSDAS account online. See the comparison below for an example.

LSAC Activity Update (postal mail)

• L1 — Charles Fitzgerald
• L2 — Louise Dickens
• L3 — Janet Hemingway
• L4 — Bill Maugham

LSDAS (online)

• L1 — Janet Hemingway
• L2 — Bill Maugham
• L3 — Charles Fitzgerald
• L4 — Louise Dickens

If you chose to direct letters to law schools — for example, to send L4 to Harvard but not to Yale — this discrepancy might cause you concern. But I've spoken with several people at LSAC and confirmed that all LSDAS reports will match the letter assignments that you chose using the website. The monthly Activity Update is generated automatically using a separate software program, and the discrepancy is caused by a glitch in that program that assigns independent Letter IDs based on each letter's date of receipt.

LSAC is aware of the problem. However, since the problem doesn't affect the LSDAS reports, and since fewer applicants are choosing to receive the monthly updates anyway, LSAC doesn't consider this a priority. They probably won't fix it. Eventually, they expect to discontinue the postal mail option and the glitch will become moot; but I'm posting this notice in the meantime for applicants who might search Google looking for an explanation.