Introduction
I've decided to build my own damn law school ratings system from the ground-up. This has been inspired by a number of things, but chiefly among them are these two:- The need for a broader amount of useful, helpful information for prospective law students.
- The complete inadequacy of current systems being used to compare law schools.
A "Ratings" System
The first problem of other systems, ranging from serious rankings like U.S. News and World Reports and Prof. Leiter's and completely frivolous ones like this thing running on allourideas.com is that a system premised on finding whether x > y does not accurately reflect the legal landscape.
As anyone who lives, works, or studies law knows, the difference between the 10th best USNWR school (schools like Michigan, Virginia, Northwestern) and the 50th best USNWR school (currently schools like Utah, SMU, Florida) is a much greater difference than that between those schools ranked 50th and the schools ranked around 90th (Marquette, Denver, UNLV).
Whereas a rankings system seems to presuppose a linear progression, the actual "value" of law degrees from different institutions seems exponential and top-heavy.
Furthermore, a "rankings" system conveys the message that the "best" schools, those at the top of the list, are always worth going to, while the ones at the bottom of the list are not. Neither of these assumptions has any theoretical basis. Indeed, it could be possible that any law school is a profitable enterprise; in such a situation, it would misleading to assert any school is in some hellish 4th tier. Likewise, an assumption that any law school - even one ranked 5th - is worth going to may be in error.
For these reasons, my system will use simple letter-grade ratings similar to how investment analysts may rate a company's securities or debt. I will use the standard American school letter grades with half-step increments (A, A-, B+, etc.).
The end-game here is to ultimately give every law school in America a simple letter grade representing how worthwhile it is to attend that particular institution under various circumstances. Schools will not be ranked on an x > y basis.
It seems to me that any rankings or ratings system should have the following characteristics:As anyone who lives, works, or studies law knows, the difference between the 10th best USNWR school (schools like Michigan, Virginia, Northwestern) and the 50th best USNWR school (currently schools like Utah, SMU, Florida) is a much greater difference than that between those schools ranked 50th and the schools ranked around 90th (Marquette, Denver, UNLV).
Whereas a rankings system seems to presuppose a linear progression, the actual "value" of law degrees from different institutions seems exponential and top-heavy.
Furthermore, a "rankings" system conveys the message that the "best" schools, those at the top of the list, are always worth going to, while the ones at the bottom of the list are not. Neither of these assumptions has any theoretical basis. Indeed, it could be possible that any law school is a profitable enterprise; in such a situation, it would misleading to assert any school is in some hellish 4th tier. Likewise, an assumption that any law school - even one ranked 5th - is worth going to may be in error.
For these reasons, my system will use simple letter-grade ratings similar to how investment analysts may rate a company's securities or debt. I will use the standard American school letter grades with half-step increments (A, A-, B+, etc.).
The end-game here is to ultimately give every law school in America a simple letter grade representing how worthwhile it is to attend that particular institution under various circumstances. Schools will not be ranked on an x > y basis.
How To Evaluate Law Schools?
- Accuracy - It should accurately reflect the existing field of legal education.
- Reliability - It should be open in its methodology and able to be reproduced consistently with similar results.
- Integrity - It should have sound reason for doing what it is doing and should be impervious to artificial manipulation by those whom it sets out to evaluate (here's looking at you, Villanova).
Frankly, I don't understand why they ever used it in the first place. After matriculation to law school, no one seriously cares about LSAT scores or undergraduate GPAs. Furthermore, even if it were some proxy for student body "quality" (and that assumption is fraught with error), you would be evaluating what students chose to attend the school rather than the school's value. Since prospective students have little first-hand knowledge of whether the school is "good" or "bad" prior to attending it, this is a rather stupid way of judging a school's quality.
Additionally, using LSAT scores as a heuristic for determining law school quality is obviously open to manipulation, which the law schools have had almost no qualms doing. Schools regularly offer scholarships to higher-scoring kids in an attempt to boost their USNWR rank. The very fact that UC-Irvine literally built a law school and claimed - after enrolling its first class - that it would have placed in the top 20 of a real-life law school rankings system is patently ridiculous.
In addition to the use of LSAT rankings, most law school rankings systems rely on self-reported data that is provided directly by the law schools with no auditing or means of ensuring the data has any sort of reliability. The criteria provided to the ABA is similarly unhelpful to prospective students because schools are allowed to include temporary jobs and non-legal work like minimum wage retail jobs. This distortion means the rankings cannot accurately reflect legal hiring or the demand for lawyer work.
Many law school rankings systems also feature completely irrelevant criteria, such as the number of citations a law schools' faculty has in the past year. Because law school is not a school of philosophy, it should not be judged on similar criteria as a liberal arts college. Law school is a professional training ground where the subjects are generally not esoteric, cutting edge areas of study, but rather areas requiring practical application of commonly-understood principles. I see next to no connection between a faculty's abilities to research and its ability to produce good practitioners of the law. Almost no one goes to a school because a certain professor teaches there. Furthermore, using such measures as a proxy for faculty quality is open to manipulation depending on which schools have the biggest pocketbooks or the most-read law reviews.
Finally, current ranking systems seem to live in an alternate reality; they do not factor in things like bimodal hiring that may shock some prospective law students upon first encountering them.
My own ranking system will try to address these problems on a number of fronts. Although it is impossible to work in certain numbers without data that I have no access to, I plan on using what available data is out there to develop a more usable system of evaluating schools.
More specific explanations of the system will follow in future parts.
Part 1: Introduction (this Page)
Part 2: Top-Line/"National" Employment
Part 3: Bottom-Line/"Local" Employment
Part 4: Saturation and Regional Considerations
Part 5: Applying Investment Principles
Part 6: Conclusion
One final note: if you take issue with any of my methodology, I encourage you, instead of merely sniping at mine, to start your own system.
J-Dog, I applaud your ambitious undertaking.
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