I'd like to be the First to say that CWRU's ranking will be blowing in the wind. And in the end, it will be like the story of the hurricane, where Dean Simson is the man the authorities will come to blame.

Hey Dean Simson, Alberto Gonzales is looking for a job. As demonstrated by Berkeley's jump in the rankings, it pays to employ a thug attorney like John Yoo, fugitive war criminal.

Of course there's no difference between Cornell and Case Western. Cornell is a joke of a school.

"I taught at Cornell. Ever heard of it? I tenured in four years, I never wrote once, I was drunk the whole time, and I sang in the a capella group, 'Here Comes Treble'"

Huh? What's his point? Does Dylan have a JD from Case Western?

Bob Dylan is also hawkin cars on TV these days... triumphing over "superficial appearances and fads"?

"I've taught at [twelfth-ranked] Cornell. I've taught here. I don't see a difference."

Yeah I hear Case Western crushes Cornell in the cross-admit battle...oh wait thats right, no one at Case even got onto Cornell's wait list.

LOL @ 5:11

Lat - good choice on the Dylan reference. Not only does Gary Simson vaguely resemble Bob Dylan, he does a mean Dylan impersonation. If you ask him nicely, he'll pull out his guitar and sing "Hurricane" like a pro.

I went to CWRU Law School. The school blows!

At Cornell, Simson was known for inviting his first-year Con Law classes to his home first semester on a Sunday for light snacks and drinks and to meet his family. This all sounds very nice, until you learn that the highlight of the afternoon was watching him sit down with guitar in hand and sing . . . Bob Dylan songs!

Case is lucky to have him.

5:33 I go to Case, but I didn't apply to Cornell. I did however make it on to the UVa and UPenn wait lists. And there are a lot of students with LSATs in the high 160's attending Case, like myself.

I was unaware that Cornell had a law school. Seriously. I had no idea. I know that they have mean hotel management and veternary schools. I thought they left law to the big boys.

6:13,

Riiiiggghhhttt.

Case Law Alum Gary Shall said it best last year "We’ll see where the Case Western Reserve law school is a year or two from now under Dean Simson’s watch. I’m afraid it won’t be pretty. "

http://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20070723/FREE/307230041/

Not pretty indeed.

So, after chasing away his best asset and fundraiser Amos Guiora, and big donors: http://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20070611/FREE/306110028
And by big donors those would be the multi-million dollar "name the library after me" and "name a lecture after me" kind.

Simson's solution is to:

1) hide the actual piss poor numbers in a part-time program because that's not measured by US News.

2) increase "merit-based scholarships to attract more top students." Which apparently he will fund with the same stuff he and Dylan are smoking.

3) decrease class sizes, which will help him fund his brilliant plans through the "law of fantasy economics" where less tuition in will yield more scholarships out.

Perhaps Gary should dust off his resume because he's clearly going to need it.

Please do not use my likeness again on your website.

Kind Regards,

Derek Zoolander

To 6:19, I decided to go to Case since I don't want to be an attorney. I'll be the first to admit that patent law is not practicing law. It is a different profession with it's own pluses, minuses, and a nice paycheck. I could have paid 35K a year for the opportunity. Instead I'm at Case with little debt. My first post was only to point out that we aren't all drooling down our chins. Not to mention that most of the people in T2's posted in the top 20% of the LSAT anyway.

This Site It Is A-Suckin'

I'm so sick of all this hand-wringing. What's the point of rankings if they don't change? Get over it, crybabies. Besides, if so many people are upset about their fall in the rankings, doesn't that inherently mean there are an equal number of schools elated at their meteoric rise?

7:32

Top 20% of the LSAT! I'm impressed!

Much of me wants to say that CW and Simson deserve each other - thorough mediocrity with arrogant pretensions of grandeur.

But then, I don't have any reason to hate CW. Simson, on the other hand, certainly did the "officious close-minded prick" act astonishingly well.

ET!

I know people who attended Case, and a few who teach / taught there. I can say, without hesitation, that Simpson is a hack. Case will not be rebounding in the rankings while Simpson is there, period.

I had Simson at Cornell. He's a really nice guy, but weirdly obsessed with Bob Dylan.

the negativity in the comments on this site is concerning.

simson was a great teacher at cornell and, i'm sure, a terrific dean at CW. his dylan tributes are also tops. i wish you all have the pleasure of meeting him one day.

btw, when you guys become real lawyers i'll see you over at the Wall Street Journal Law Blog.

9:22 - You're right about the stories at the WSJ Law Blog but not the comments. Most of them are as juvenile as the stuff here. The kids are everywhere these days. I think real lawyers are getting over the blog phenomenon. Blogs did make one contribution though - they reminded everyone of why there used to be barriers to "publishing."

6:14, thank you for making your ignorance known to the world. Though no surprise that someone who can't even spell "veterinary" wouldn't be aware of the Ivy League law schools. Don't worry, I'm sure you would have gotten the "short" letter anyway.

9:19, don't worry, as the economy has turned worse so has this site turned into a breeding ground for spiteful little trolls, jealous of those who actually have made it into BigLaw

Simson was a great prof. Hope he's still doing his impersonations at the student benefits.

"I've taught at [twelfth-ranked] Cornell. I've taught here. I don't see a difference."

To Simson's credit, neither do employers.

6:13 - I wouldn't be bragging about being waitlisted at UPenn State. What are they like 77th?

9:21- Isn't time to move past that particular over done immature joke?

Everyone knows T2 schools, like UPenn, are solid programs. Just look at the evidence cited by 7:32 above: "most of the people in T2's posted in the top 20% of the LSAT anyway."

That means that, like, 80% of the other test takers did worse. This should finally end the discussion. UPenn, like other T2s, is a fine school. Also, I hear they have a solid football program too.

I went to Cornell 1L year and then transferred with Simpson to Case - best decision of my life. Now I work at Wachtell (support staff isn't a bad job).

The problem with tier 2 schools is that the market is completely over saturated with lawyers thanks to the ABA, not necessarily that their students are dumb. They may be making a dumb economic decision by going to a tier 2 school, but what does any student know about personal finance.

The UPenn state jokes are getting old. In truth, everyone referrers to the real Penn State as Dickerson still, considering that it has not moved to State College.

11:09 - there's something really petty about correcting spelling, don't you think? Especially when it's clearly a typo and/or intentional. In any case, the post you were responding to was clearly a flame. Although I'd have to say that I was genuinely not aware that there was a Cornell Law School until I actually started applying to law schools.

Why is everyone here so stuck up and mean? Anyone who knows Dean Simson wouldn't say a bad word about him. I went to Cornell, and I didn't have him as a professor, but I knew him pretty well because he was always around chatting with students and loved to pull out his guitar and sing Dylan (sometimes with his 12-year-old daughter who would play her violin along with him).

Every post I ever read about Cornell people are knocking it. I loved my time there. And my friends and I have jobs at Simpson Thacher, Davis Polk, Cravath, Debevoise, Latham, etc. None of us had any trouble getting interviews or jobs. My firm (a top firm) asks me every year how they can attract more Cornell Law grads.

Seriously, what is wrong with people? I also went to Cornell and had Dean Simson as a professor. He is known for loving Bob Dylan and probably sent the article to his students as something of an inside joke. Moreover, he really cares about his students and is a tremendously kind man - he certainly doesn't deserve to be bashed for standing up for the students at Case. What is he supposed to do, draw a negative comparison between the two schools?

Finally, ditto to 4:30 - I also loved Cornell and know that a lot of my classmates felt the same way. It is one thing to speak from experience but trash-talking a school you didn't attend is ignorant. My top Biglaw firm also makes efforts every year to get more Cornell grads - I am told we tend to be more "well-adjusted" than most.

For all the Cornellians, why did you go there instead of, say, G-Town, or perhaps a comparable, cheaper public like UT Austin? Just wondering. Applying to law schools now and I'm considering UMich, Gtown and the like.

6:36 on April 15th:
I read both of those links. I think it is unfortunate that Green decided to pull funding as a result of "possible faltering" of the terrorism program at the law school. While I am very proud of Case for its international law program, I hope that donors will be realistic about the limits of such a program. Terrorism law may be "sexy" but there is not really a large market for lawyers in global security or terrorism. If you look at Case's website, the employment statistics don't have a category for such types of employment.
11.3 percent worked in government and 8.6 percent worked in public interest. Even assuming that terrorism/global security jobs were included in half of those numbers, that is still, at the very most, 10% of the students. I think the percentage may be less. Frankly, I only know of one student who has a real international law job and who will probably continue to work in that field in the future.
Again, it is great that Case has a strong international law program. And I don't think one should decrease support for those programs. Probably all law students should take at least one international law course. But international law is important because business and therefore corporate law is increasingly globalized. There actually isn't that much of a market for "international" lawyers or "terrorism" lawyers.
I don't think establishing a Social Justice center takes away from terrorism law. I do, however, think it would be much more beneficial for a larger number of students. In particular, I believe Simson wants to establish a better LRAP program for students working in public interest.

weak