New York Law Journal: Law Schools, April 27 2009

The Rankings

cause society expects so much of our graduates, a high level of scrutiny is justified. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s accounting in her majority opinion in Grutter v. Bollinger comes to mind:

What Frims Want

“…universities, and in particular, law schools, represent the training ground for a large number of our Nation’s leaders.… Individuals with law degrees occupy roughly half the state governorships, more than half the seats in the United States Senate, and more than a third of the seats in the United States House of Representatives.… The pattern is even more striking when it comes to highly selective law schools. A handful of these schools accounts for 25 of the 100 United States Senators, 74 United States Courts of Appeals judges, and near-

ly 200 of the more than 600 United States District Court judges.” Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306, 332 (2003).

In the March 20, 2009, issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education two separate references captured the same broad sentiment. First, in an article about Professor John C. Yoo’s “torture memos” (internal memos used by the Bush administration to support interrogation techniques

“Law professors, after all, are charged with preparing the next generation of professionals to live their lives according to our ethical canon.” David Glenn, “Torture Memos vs. Academic Freedom,” at p. A- 12.

Later, in an article about cheating and online “essay mills,” Professor Stephen I. Vladeck of American University’s law school, upon learning that one of his students had

The real question is whether the clearly
sensible goal of holding law schools to high
standards is being met or frustrated.

that many experts classify as torture under international law), Berkeley’s law dean, Christopher Edley, said:

ordered a paper for his class, made the point that a law school “has a particular obligation not to tolerate this kind of stuff.”

Thomas Bartlett, “ Cheating Goes Global as Essay Mills Multiply,” at p. A- 1.

Holding law schools to high standards makes sense, and few of us in legal education would argue otherwise. The real question, though, is the connection between this goal and the criteria used in the most influential rankings.

In particular, I want to focus on the cluster of data used in the U.S. News ranking scheme to evaluate student selectivity. I question whether rankings supporters, particularly practicing lawyers, understand how these criteria operate in the real world of law school admissions.