Credential Assembly Service (CAS)
The Credential Assembly Service (CAS) is a service of LSAC, and serves as a kind of clearinghouse of information related to your application. CAS centralizes all your data, including your academic record, your LSAT score(s) and your letters of recommendation. In addition, access to online law school applications is included with your CAS registration. All schools encourage the online completion and transmission of applications, and most require it.
In short, while you can take the LSAT without registering for CAS, if you are applying to law school, you must register with CAS. (And registering for CAS is not the same thing as registering for an LSAC law student account—if you haven’t coughed up an additional fee, beyond the LSAT fee, you haven’t yet registered for CAS.) If you were granted a fee waiver for the LSAT, it will also apply to the CAS registration and a total of four CAS law school reports. Applications for the following year’s admission are generally available online by September 1st.
After registering, you are responsible for having all undergraduate schools send your official transcript to CAS. Even if you only took one course at another institution, you must have an official transcript sent, unless you took the classes through a UMass Domestic Exchange program. Courses which were transferred to UMass appear on your UMass transcript as credit earned but LSAC needs the grades as well. LSAC’s complete rules about requesting transcripts can be found here.
To request your UMass transcript, you must first print the Transcript Request Form from your LSAC account, and deliver it to the UMass Registrar’s Office. You must also fill out the UMass Registrar’s request form. You cannot simply request your transcript on SPIRE, as the LSAC Transcript Request Form must accompany your official transcript.
When you submit an application to a law school, the school will request a copy of your Law School Report from CAS. This is a compilation of all of the information that you forward to CAS. The report that is sent out includes:
- your year-by-year grade and academic credit summary
- copies of all your transcripts
- your GPA for each year and a cumulative GPA
- a description of your overall grade distribution
- the mean GPA of other students at your undergraduate school who have registered with CAS and your percentile rank among those students
- your LSAT scores, including cancellations and absences
- an average LSAT score if you have taken the test more than once
- a copy of your LSAT writing sample
- the mean LSAT score for students from your undergraduate school
Your GPA as computed by CAS may not be exactly the same as your UMass GPA. This is because LSAC handles certain grades differently. The most common difference for UMass students is when you retake a class—UMass does not include the first time you took the class in calculating your GPA. LSAC does include that first grade, so your GPA as reported by LSAC may be lower.
CAS also acts as a clearinghouse for letters of recommendation. Recommenders only have to send one original letter to CAS which will send them out to the law schools you apply to. Almost all law schools either require that you submit your letters of recommendation through CAS. CAS also provides an online evaluation service in addition to or instead of traditional letters of recommendation. You can find much more information on recommendations and evaluations on our recommendations page.
The CAS online application process is not always as user-friendly as you’d like it to be (but it does get a little better each year). Accordingly, it is strongly recommended that you consult LSAC’s Online Application FAQ page and CAS FAQ page before and during your application process. This will give you a detailed overview of the process, and greatly reduce your stress and confusion. Also, do not hesitate to call LSAC whenever you are having a problem—often, a phone call is the quickest way to a solution. For more information on the substance of your application, please visit our Applications pages. (Technical questions should always go to LSAC.)