ABA Journal - Law News Now

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1. Posted by CJT - 3 months, 6 days, 10 hours, 11 minutes ago

   They should.  When in doubt air on the side of inclusion and quit lying to incoming students.  Those schools that use their “part-time” programs as a vehicle to admit less qualified students only to turn around and say that they shouldn’t have to count them have been playing the system for years. 

   Hey guys I work for Law School X.  All our Mensa members are part of our “day division” which boasts an average score of 181 on the LSAT and a 4-point-infinity GPA.  Everyone else is in our “part time” division, those scores are a little lower (151 / 2.5) but don’t worry, they can still take daytime classes, and our school has shot to number 16 on US News Rankings.

2. Posted by CJT - 3 months, 6 days, 10 hours, 10 minutes ago

   and of course I meant “err.“  maybe i’m the idiot

3. Posted by JAH - 3 months, 6 days, 8 hours, 36 minutes ago

   Eliminate the rankings.  It encourages Deans to play games to manipulate the rankings at the expense of students and legal ed.

4. Posted by Matt - 3 months, 6 days, 7 hours, 59 minutes ago

   As a graduate of the evening division at Fordham Law, I support the change because it is more honest.  Due in part to the absence of evening divisions at NYU and Columbia, I think the evening students I graduated would do well in comparison to any group of law students anywhere.  Many of my fellow students had Ivy League degrees and other graduate degrees, and almost all were working full time at demanding jobs and some, like me, were also supporting a spouse and multiple children.  While in school, I worked for a time at ST&B as a law clerk.  It was enlightening to compare the relative immaturity of the young attorneys I met there during the day against the maturity, diligence and experience of my fellow students.

5. Posted by day student - 3 months, 3 days, 10 hours, 38 minutes ago

   Sadly Matt, the rankings in no way reflect the quality of the PERSON attending the law school, merely their stats. I went to Vandy law and they recently decided to follow Northwestern and go to a personal interview system to try to change this. I wish they’d copy Northwestern on something else -limiting the number of students straight out of college (Northwestern used to be as low as 14%, not sure what it is now but from what I remember they were the frontrunner in requiring real work experience like MBA programs). Ironically, I came straight out of college and felt that I had so much to learn from “non traditional” students who had valid life experience. I had worked in business while in college so I didn’t feel like such a witless boob but being part of a class that was mostly straight out of law school did feel like a continuation of the immaturity of college. I wish more law schools would rethink that strategy.

6. Posted by AJM - 3 months, 3 days, 9 hours, 40 minutes ago

   Including evening students may help some statistics. Some of the evening students at my school are already employed in well-paying full-time professional positions.  Like the day students, we were asked to send in an estimate of what we had earned during the previous summer so it could be included in the averages for “summer job” statistics given to incoming and prospective students. I did question this practice but do not know the outcome.

7. Posted by Chris - 3 months, 3 days, 9 hours, 20 minutes ago

   CJT, you’re being a little dramatic.  First off, 181 LSAT, I get your point but don’t be stupid.  The highest ranked school with an evening division is GULC and the students in their evening division have a hell of a lot better LSAT/GPA than 151/2.5.  Honestly, stop being a baby.  If you go to GULC currently then this might be an issue, but GULC is still a heavily recruited school and even with the updated ranking will still be heavily recruited (which is all that matters). 

   For everyone that is freaking out about this it is really only going to matter for schools that are currently ranked in the top 20 or so.  Not that schools at lower ranks won’t shuffle, but that really doesn’t matter that much.

8. Posted by AJM - 3 months, 3 days, 9 hours, 19 minutes ago

   Perhaps when evaluate law school statistics and rankings we should keep in mind this well-known bit of wisdom from Mark Twain (which he attributed to Benjamin Disraeli) :
   “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.“

9. Posted by TB - 3 months, 3 days, 1 hour, 55 minutes ago

   I understand the argument for including the undergraduate statistics of part-time students in rankings, however, I think this would do a great disservice to the law school community and the legal profession.  Although part-time students are often criticized for getting into law school through the “back door” of the evening program, we should remember that many students have taken time to work since receiving their undergraduate degrees.  Their undergraduate grades may no longer accurately reflect their ability to succeed in law school or as lawyers.  This is too often ignored in the law school and job application processes.  By including part-time student statistics in rankings, US News will encourage law schools to increase their own arbitrary standards for part-time students and exclude highly qualified, intelligent students from enrolling.  The profession will suffer if we discourage students with experience from beginning a new career in the law.  Although I disagree with the ranking system generally, I believe part-time students are at an even greater disadvantage in the application process and I do not believe changes should be made to widen this gap.

10. Posted by Dan - 3 months, 3 days, 1 hour, 4 minutes ago

    Why on earth do they consider undergrad gpa and LSAT scores in ranking law schools anyway?

    The name of the article is America’s BEST law schools, not America’s law schools that can attract the biggest overachievers to attend.

    What should matter in the rankings:
    - Student/Faculty ratio
    - other measures of quality of faculty
    - quality and participation in extracurriculars
    - real job placement rates
    - reputation (a little)
    - satisfaction survey of graduates at specific intervals after graduation

    and most of all COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS.  That the rankings have completely omitted this factor allows schools to simply BUY their way to the top, which attracts more, richer students, which continues the never ending cycle of upward tuition rates. 
    A simple metric (like # of years until the median grad has earned salary equal to the cost of their education and/or average indebtedness) would make the determination easy.

    USN≀is a joke until they acknowledge that law school is, as much as anything else, an INVESTMENT, and any investment REQUIRES a CBA.

11. Posted by Elise - 3 months, 2 days, 11 hours, 23 minutes ago

    Did you miss in your reporting the schools that have better LSAT scores and GPAs in their evening programs? I noticed you used the words “some schools” to draw away from this fact, but many schools actually have higher-ranking students with higher scores, higher-level degrees, etc. in their evening programs. So, maybe as a conclusion you could’ve added that schools like NCCU would move up in the rankings, which would’ve made the article more thoroughly reported because it would have examined all the implications involved in considering part-timers info. into the rankings.

12. Posted by cjt - 3 months, 1 day, 16 hours, 19 minutes ago

    Chris, perhaps you’re right.  My problem is not with evening students but rather the way that law schools manipulate their numbers.  Schools with evening students are traditionally known for putting their lower ranked applicants (along with those who request it regardless of numbers) into an “evening” program.  The problem is that these people will often take the same classes as the day students and simply not be counted in the US news rankings.  It’s more of a joke than anything else.  At least when schools are manipulating employment statistics, they have to give their grads jobs in the library or the campus dining hall before they count them as “employed.“