Should Ethics Be Considered in US News Law School Rankings?

Dave
Feb 20, 2009 6:54 AM CST

I have a better idea.  How about doing away with these silly magazine rankings altogehter.  They mean nothing in the real world, and are not a true measure of the individual.  They reflect money and the school’s manipulation of the criteria used to create them. 

The law school I attended was near the lower end of the general tier.  They hired a new dean.  He has made it his mission to be a tier two school. 

To do so, he has shrunk the incoming classes to the point where the night program is mostly non-existent, and raised the qualified LSAT scores so high that many no longer have a shot at a seat.

While my school used to enjoy the fine and robust program, now the offerings are no longer as diverse, as they cannot support the smaller class sizes with a great deal of offerings outside the traditional criteria.  At the same time, the faculty for the most part has remained the same. 

The proof is in the pudding as they say, and unfortunately, the school hasn’t produced better lawyers, but only raised tuition rates (due to smaller class sizes) and the school’s rankings through management of this illusive criteria. 

One can buy the best “rated” education in the market, it does not guarantee a better lawyer.  It only guarantees pomp and circumstance in their first few months of employment.  After that, the true effort of the individual comes to the surface.  Those that rise are from all points on the list, it has nothing to do with rankings.

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df
Feb 20, 2009 3:56 PM CST

Unless you somehow come up with a Constitutional limitation on free speech to prevent law school rankings, they’ll remain. Maybe a different publication or methodology will take over, but there will always be a market for comparisons.

So long as people go to, and firms hire preferentially from, “higher-ranked” law schools, there will be a market force encouraging lawschools to try to improve their rankings (until eventually everyone is above average…[grin]).

Given all that, anything that is intended to make the rankings “fairer” gets a good ranking from me.

As for the alleged indoctrination post, if there’s a problem it’s with quality of teaching not political leanings. Some of my best law professors, though they had e.g. a left-wing approach to the law, taught the law well, raised counterpoints, were open to questions, etc. and I learned a lot more from them because they got me thinking. Of course I had bad professors, but that had to do with them being bad not their political leanings.

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