How to Improve the Law School Rankings
Reader Comments
The LSAT SCORES ARE A JOKE
I graduated from undergrad in 1994 with a 3.8 gpa, I scored 146 and 148 on the LSAT, I applied to 14 law schools, I was denied entrance into any of them for two years in a row. I never applied again because of my disgust, not with my LSAT scores, but that so much emphasis is put on that test. A good friend of mine scored a 174 on the LSAT and flunked out of U. of Miss first semester, It is difficult to get into law school, but once in, guess what, nobody fails, the school doesn't want to hurt their rankings with failing students. Furthermore why not admit every applicant and have extremely challenging course work for the first semester. I looked at scores around the country and people with scores lower than mine were admitted, passed, and passed the bar. I wonder how they got admitted, maybe daddy knew the dean?, and anyway they were able to pass and pass the state bar. The law schools destroyed my dream of becoming an attorney and im sure im not alone, hopefully a law school graduate with some nerver will sue the LSDAS and a few law schools, I am white, but I can't believe that the ACLU has not sued them for discriminating against poor people that work hard in undergraduate school just for their dreams to be destroyed.
To eliminate bias, blind evaluation is needed
Clerkship data is essentially another way of surveying judges about their views on the relative quality of various schools. As the rankings already include such a survey, including clerkship data would be double counting.
A truly new meausre that might add accuracy to the rankings would be a school's performance in blind-graded legal skills competitions. The ABA sponsors negotiation and moot court competitions and several nationally regarded trial associations sponsor mock trials. In these competitions, students from various schools compete on an even plane because no one knows where they go to school. They are judged by practicing lawyers and judges on their mastery of real legal skills. Blind grading makes people focus on substance over pedigree and including such competitions in the rankings would give lower-ranked schools that are truly doing an outstanding job preparing students the opportunity to be recognized for their work. Regarding the mathematical complications this raises about which competitions to include, the National Parliamentary Tournament of Excellence has a well-tested formula that might be considered as a model. A running, three-year average of performance or similar measure could smooth out fluctuations to produce a measure more reflective of the school and its programs than of the individual students competing in any one year.
Law Placement _ABA differences
The new ABA book is out. There seems to be a strange reporting of employment
20 GW reports 97.1 ABA 96.2
21 BU reports 98.7 ABA 96.2
22 Emory reports 98.3 ABA 95.9
22 MN reports 97.5 ABA 97.7 -hmm
22 ND reports 97.3 ABA 95.3
25 W & L reports 92.4 ABA 92.7 - hmm
26 BC reports 97.6 ABA 95.5
27 Fordham reports 94.7 ABA 94.7 -hmm
27 IL reports 92.6 ABA 90.1
27 Iowa reports 92.8 ABA 89.9
30 W & M reports 96.3 ABA 95.0
Adding Pursuing graduate degrees gets yet another number - many higher than the US News number, adding .25 of unknown gets yet another number - help
do you use a different methodology from ABA 9 months out?
A fifth tier?
Now that there are 200 ABA law schools, USNWR should seriously consider adding a "fifth tier." It would be a way to stratify the law schools in a meaningful way. As the number of law schools grows, it becomes important to find more accurate ways of classifying them. A fifth tier would help that.
Subjective Mess
As a third tier law school student who recently participated in a Summer program sponsored by one of the higher ranked schools, I can tell you rankings are worthless. These students were neither more intelligent nor driven than any of my classmates at home. Frankly, I gathered that at best they were more pretentious regarding their quality of education but generally failed to demonstrate why. I'll stick with my tier III school that is regionally well respected and actually cares about educating the next generation of lawyers rather than a subjective number. ***I heard a rumor that a fake survey was sent out and judges ranked Princeton's "law school" as a top 10 school. Too bad they don't have a law school.***
I get the strong feeling that this judge's alma mater would benefit from having this taken into account - otherwise what's in it for him? As he stated - his willingness to hire law clerks from a particular school is dependent to a large extent on his past experience with the graduates of that law school. So essentially his mind is already made up.
If US News ever incorporates halfway decent employment statistics into their ranking (similar to NLJ's) then adding the clerkship data could be benefial.
What EVERYONE wants is to know what percentage of graduates get market paying gigs and clerkships. The current school reported data is misleading for those who don't know how unrepresentative it is and useless for those who do.
lawclerkaddict
There are two significant issues: magistrate judges, and staff attorneys. Some schools count both, some count only magistrate judges, and some count neither in their totals. Some (objectively) consider these "federal clerkships," some consider only magistrate judges, some consider neither. Some view them with varying levels of skepticism or prestige.
A qualification that you're collecting data for "Article III federal judicial clerkships," not simply "federal clerkships," would be important.
clerkship data
This is just another way of measuring reputation. Until USN gets rid of or minimizes the impact of subject rankings by reputation, the top schools will remaint the top schools forever. Once you get out of the top 20 reputation is a marginal measure.
Clerkship data flaw
The idea that judges are good at evaluating clerks is attractive but may support existing rankings. A study showed that judges who hire clerks from higher-prestige schools were less likely to have their opinions criticized or be reversed. Here's a link to the abstract. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1116343
There are limits to the accuracy of judges. The same study showed that judges who hire clerks from Yale Law are reversed more often.
Clerkship data
As another federal judge and a part-time law professor at one of the top 40 law schools, I think this suggestion is a good one that objectively measures the top products of the law schools. It is more meaningful than bar passage rates or overall employment rates. And it is does not suffer from the subjectivity and parochialism of ordinary ratings of reputation.
