It’s time for the latest installment of What Would They Score on the LSAT, the Peabody-winning* series in which we speculate on what scores your favorite celebrities and fictional characters would get if they took the LSAT.
Today, I’d like to open up the vault and go back to a television classic: Seinfeld, the show about nothing. Seinfeld follows the wacky antics of four amoral New Yorkers – Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer. But then, if you don’t know that, Jerry might have a thing or two to say to you, because Seinfeld was the #1 show for 41 years* and has had a huge influence on television ever since.
Seinfeld did an episode about getting lost in a parking lot, and another about waiting for a table at a Chinese restaurant. What if they did an episode in which the gang takes the LSAT? Here’s how I think it would go down:
Jerry Seinfeld – Seinfeld LSAT Score: 143
Jerry is nothing if not detail-oriented. His inability to get past the small stuff is what makes him so charming and so annoying. From the position of the second button to the implications of the laundry cycle, nothing gets past the guy. This will help him on the LSAT considerably. He’ll overthink everything, so he won’t fall for any equivocations or subtle shifts in meaning. But he’ll lose track of time on each section, and by the end of the test, he’ll be so bored that he’ll just answer C on everything. Then spend his remaining time wondering why people always guess C. What’s the deal with that?
George Costanza – Seinfeld LSAT Score: Disqualified
George would try to cheat by employing an elaborate scheme involving the famed Caped Lawyer, the attorney who helped handle his father’s divorce case. He’d get the attention of the test proctors by refusing to take off his FitBit before entering the room (“I’m not giving up those steps!”) resulting in the discovery of the bluetooth earpiece taped beneath his sideburns.
Elaine Benes – Seinfeld LSAT Score: 172
Elaine is just as fixated on small, meaningless details as Jerry, which will serve her well in sniffing out logical fallacies and differentiating similarly-worded answer choices. She may also be the brainiest of the crew. Her IQ is 145, as we find out when George employs her to take an IQ test for him. The only thing that would keep her from getting a truly spectacular score? She’d get hung up on a questionably punctuated question on her last reading comprehension passage and not be able to move on, forfeiting the last three questions.
Cozmo Kramer – Seinfeld LSAT Score: 127
Kramer is brilliant at many things, but parsing legal argument is not one of them. He’d be baffled by the LSAT and by the oppressive rules enforced by the tests’ proctors. He’s used to coming and going as he pleases, not sitting still for four hours. I don’t think he’d fare well. Not convinced? Exhibit A.
*This is not strictly true.
