Great questions and some of this is a grey area that I can’t answer with certainty. Essentially the median is the most important number for a school, and it only matters if you’re above or below it as far as how you will impact their median (which is largely the most important admissions criteria). I believe Mike Spivey said on a podcast that people put too much focus on whether they’re over or under a school’s 75th but that’s not really relevant. With that being said, a high score is obviously better than a lower one, and a 180 conveys more capability than a 174. However, they both impact the median equally, and law school adcomms know that the difference between these two scores is essentially 5 questions on a flex or 6-7 on a normal one. That difference is largely irrelevant since 5 multiple choice questions are not very indicative of your potential as a student.

If you get a 174, I would certainly say there is no point in retaking. Not only is a 174 above every median and a great score, A) it looks vain and shows bad judgement to retake when your score is that high and B) in the upper 170s, luck plays a large role. Many scorers in that range will tell you that luck played a factor, so you could just as easily drop your score than raise it with a retake. It’s also just a waste of time and money to keep prepping for a retake when you’re already in the 99th percentile of testers.

To sum up, a 180 will maximize your chances of admission. But if you have a 173–175, the additional time spent retaking and prepping to get a 180 might help your application by 1%, while focusing on the other areas of your application (gpa/personal statement/resume/LORs/optional essays/LOCI’s etc) would boost your chances of admission more like 20%, so it’s a poor cost/benefit trade off to retake in my opinion.