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Law School Rankings are a specific subset of College and university rankings that deal specifically with law schools. Like college and university rankings, Law School Rankings can be based on subjectively perceived "quality," on some combination of empirical statistics, or on surveys of educators, scholars, students, prospective students, or others. Such rankings are often consulted by prospective students as they choose which schools they will apply to or which school they will attend.

The most recognized ranking of Law Schools is the annual Top Graduate Schools version from US News & World Reports magazine. Beyond this popular and mainstream list, there are numerous other rankings of law schools, which include:

• Leiter Rankings
• Sullivan's Law School Job Placement Report
• Indiana University's "The Ranking Game"
• Thomas M. Cooley's "Judging the Law Schools"

Criticisms of Law School Rankings

The or ABA has consistently refused to support or participate in law school rankings. Likewise, the has similarly shown opposition to rankings. The has also voiced complaints; their executive director went so far as to say "these rankings are a misleading and deceptive, profit-generating commercial enterprise that compromises U.S. News and World Report's journalistic integrity." Among the criticisms of law school rankings is that they are arbirtary in the characteristics they measure and the value given to each one. Another complaint is that a prospective law student should take into account the "fit" and appropriateness of each school himself, and that there is thus not a "one size fits all" ranking. Others complain that common rankings shortchange schools due to geographical or demographical reasons. Some of the complaints are outlined in an ABA article. One critic has gone so far as to create a website, RankingUSNews.com, that sarcastically ranks US magazines. US News is placed alone in the "Third Tier."

As a response to the prevalence of law school rankings, the ABA and the LSAC publish an annual law school guide. This guide, which does not seek to rank or sort law schools by any criteria, instead seeks to provide the reader with a set of standard, important data on which to judge law schools. It contains information on all 190 ABA-Approved Law Schools. This reference, called The Official Guide to ABA-Approved Law Schools is provided free online and also in print for a small cost. A similar guide for Canadian Law Schools is also published by the Law School Admission Council and is called Official Guide to Canadian Law Schools. These guides seek to serve as an alternative to the US News Rankings and Law School Rankings in General.

Power and Importance of Law School Rankings

Despite these criticisms, Law School Rankings in general and those by US News in particular play a very dramatic role in the world of legal eduction. When a schools ranking drops, fewer admitted applicants accept spots at the school. Likewise, when a schools rises in the rankings, the school often accidentally overenrolls. When rankings drop, people get fired. This pressure has also resulted in various schools "gaming the rankings." Some law schools reject applicants whose high LSAT scores indicate that they'll probably go elsewhere anyway, in order to appear more selective. Other schools, in an attempt to increase the amount of money spent per student, increase tuition and return it to the students as financial aid.

The Rankings by US News and World Report

As is noted above, the most recognized rankings are those by US News and World Report. The Law School Rankings are organized into three main sections: The first is a "Top 100" that lists the top hundred schools in order from highest ranked to lowest ranked. After that, US News groups the remaining 80 accredited law schools into two roughly unranked groups called "Third Tier" and "Fourth Tier" (note that the Top 100 includes both the first and second "tier").

Methodology

Each school is assigned an overall rank, which is normalized so that it is out of 100. This rank takes into account Quality Assesment (measured by opinion surveys), Selectivity (measured by incoming student profiles and the acceptance rate), Placement Success (measured by bar passage and employment rates), Faculty Resources (measured by expenditures, library volumes, and student/faculty ratio). The magazine gives 40 percent to reputation, 25 percent to selectivity, 20 percent to placement success and 15 percent to faculty resources, thus combinging these factors into an overall score.

Other Rankings

The annual issue also includes special rankings of specific programs, including Clinical Training and Dispute Resolution. These are based more on opinion surveys.

The Idea of a "Top Fourteen"

The US News & World Reports rankings from the last 18 years have sparked the creation a specific class of schools called the "Top Fourteen." Throughout the history of these rankings, fourteen schools have variously claimed spots among the ten highest ranked. These same schools have been the only schools to earn this distinction, and have also always placed within the top 14. Since the top 10 change occassionaly and this top 14 has been remarkably consistent, this term has become popular in the world of law school admissions. It has been used in published books on Law School Admissions, by undergraduate university pre-law advisors , professional law school consultants, in newspaper articles on the subject , and on all popular law school discussion boards.

Top 14 Schools

The "Top 14" schools in the US News and World Report Rankings over the last 18 years are (in alphabetical order):

1. Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California, Berkeley, in Berkeley, CA.
2. Columbia Law School, Columbia University, in New York, NY.
3. Cornell Law School, Cornell University, in Ithaca, NY.
4. Duke Law School, Duke University, in Durham, NC.
5. Georgetown University Law Center, Georgetown University, in Washington, DC.
6. Harvard Law School, Harvard University, in Cambridge, MA.
7. New York University School of Law, New York University, New York, NY.
8. Northwestern University School of Law, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL.
9. Stanford Law School, Stanford University, in Palo Alto, CA.
10. University of Chicago Law School, University of Chicago, in Chicago, IL.
11. University of Michigan Law School, University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor, MI.
12. University of Pennsylvania Law School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.
13. University of Virginia School of Law, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA.
14. Yale Law School, Yale University, New Haven, CT.

Characteristics of the Top 14

These schools are characterized by: their competitive admissions standards, elite firm placement (each having national reach, with nearly identical financial remuneration), federal clerkship placement, and propensity to produce both academics and judges. Notably, all members of the current United States Supreme Court hail from at least one of these schools (though the current Justices actually only hail from a collection of four law schools - Harvard, Yale, Northwestern, and Columbia).

Origin of the Term "Top Fourteen

The reputation of many of these institutions is quite aged in the history of American jurisprudence - provoking the criticism that the position of these schools owes more to inertia than anything else. The term T14 first prominently began to be used as jargon in the legal world after the first several years of publication of the controversial U.S. News & World Report rankings of law schools. Since the inception of the annual rankings in 1989, none of these schools have ever been ranked outside of the top fourteen, and conversely, no outside institution has ever been inducted into their numbers. In addition, every school in the "top 14" has at one point been in the "top 10" at least once--and likewise no other school has ever earned this honor.

Effects of the Top Fourteen

With the increasing reliance by people in the legal realm on rankings of all sort, matriculation at one of these schools is often viewed by aspiring lawyers as a significant boost to one’s career development. One particular reason is that many prominent “big law” firms in major markets such as New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington, DC recruit heavily at all T14 schools in addition to the schools that are lower ranked within their region. In short, attendance at a T14 school can provide to graduates a certain amount of career flexibility within the higher earnings lawyer strata.

Alternatives to the US News Rankings

There are a number of alternative Law School Rankings that have been prepared, often in response to those by US News. The Internet Legal Research Group has compiled links and background on many of these rankings at their website.

Leiter Rankings

Brian Leiter, a law professor at University of Texas School of Law, has prepared a set of various rankings that he dubs Leiter's Law School Rankings. These various rankings judge schools on factors similar to those used by US News--like incoming student LSAT/GPA profiles--but also on faculty reputation and scholarly research. This, he notes, puts the focus "exclusively on the three factors central to a good legal education: the quality of the faculty, the quality of the student body, and the quality of teaching." Among the criticisms of the Leiter Rankings is that they include various lists of schools ranked by individual factors, but no attempt is made to create a combined or overall ranking.

Hylton Rankings

Another new set of rankings which has prompted attention recently is the Hylton Rankings. Using US News data "without the clutter", the survey measures only LSAT (converted median) and peer assessment (by law professors). It should be noted that the T14 schools, though ordered differently, remain the same peer set.

Cooley Rankings

The Cooley rankings are sometimes called the Brennan rankings, in reference to the President of Cooley Law School who is involved in their creation. Thomas M. Cooley Law School, a school consistently placed in the fourth tier by US News due to its low reputations scores and abysmal placement rates, struck back by creating its own set of rankings. The first edition of these rankings, called "Judging the Law Schools" was published in 1996 by Thomas E. Brennan, Sr., founder and president of the Cooley Law School. This online publication, now in its seventh edition, measures things such as library square footage and number of minority students, among dozens of other measures. This controversial list places Cooley above such prestigious law schools as Stanford and the University of Chicago. It is available on Cooley's website.

Law School 100

The Law School 100 refers to a website listing "America's Top Law Schools" from 1-100, supplemented with the remaining ABA-Approved schools listed alphabetically in a "second tier." This list is supposedly "based on qualitative, rather than quantitative, criteria." Despite this claim, however, the ad-riddled website hasn't been updated since 2004 and gives absolutely no description of its methodology or criteria. Given these shortcomings, these rankings have not achieved any degree of renown, popularity, or respect.

Gourman Report

Dr. Jack Gourman is credited with being the first ranker of law schools. He is a professor at California State University--Northridge. The Gourman Report, a print book published by Princeton Review, ranks undergraduate and graduates schools. The lastest edition to include law school rankings was published in 1997. Rankings Among the criticisms particular to the Gourman Report rankings is that it favors large, public universities and the use of an opaque methodology that prevents the reader from careful analysis.

Insider's Guide to Law Schools

External Links

1. US News Top 100 Law Schools (2007 version)
2. Leiter Rankings
3. Internet Legal Research Group's Index to Law School Rankings
4. Ranking US News (A collection of various criticisms of the US News Law School Rankings)
5. Law Review Articls (PDF) (A listing of various published articles on Law School Rankings, compiled by University of Texas-Austin Professor Brian Leiter)
6. Law School Rankings Symposium (Wbsite for national symposium on law school rankings, including copies of papers and abstracts).

References

1. "Dean's Speak Out" against rankings on the LSAC Website
2. ABA website s.v. "Rating of Law Schools"
3. See, for example, books by Richard Montauk, Anna Ivey, Robert H. Miller, and Susan Estrich
4. e.g. University of Dayton Prelaw Advising Website and an SUNY Binghamton press release
5. e.g. Loretta Deloggio and Anna Ivey
6. e.g. 2005 Washington Post Article
7. Search for the terms "t14", "top fourteen", or "top 14" at XOXOHTH, LawSchoolDiscussion, and 4LawSchool
8. Previous rankings can be found in back issues of the US News and World Report since 1989, or can be viewed together in a spreadsheet compilation
9. Biographies of Current Supreme Court Justices (PDF)
10. http://www.deloggio.com/usnews/usnews.htm
11. American Bar Association Website and "The Interplay between Law School Rankings, Reputations, and Resource Allocation"
12. Law Professors Blog
13. See the complete first edition of "Judging the Law Schools" at ILRG's Website.
14. "Deans Question Relevance of Law School Rankings in theWashington Daily
15. The Law School 100
16. US News Website "About the rankings"
17. College Confidential Description of Gourman Rankings