The 2014 U.S. News Law School Rankings
The U.S. News law school rankings are out! ALL BOW TO OUR LIST MAKING OVERLORDS!
UPDATE (10:18 p.m.): Here are the full, official U.S. News 2014 Law School Rankings. I’m scanning through to find anything… interesting — any evidence that this year is different now that they’re looking at employment stats. Instead, I’m feeling a great big pile of “meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”
It feels an awful lot like U.S. News is trying to say that their rankings have been right “all along” instead of trying to deal with the realities of the legal job market in any significant way.
UPDATE (10:28 p.m.): I guess Washington (#20 last year, #28 this year) and UC Davis (#29 last year, #38 this year) took some tumbles. Are they getting out-competed on the West Coast?
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UPDATE (10:33 p.m.): And yes, I missed this earlier, but the University of Alabama moved from #29 up to #21. That’s fresh off their ludicrous #5 ranking in the National Jurist. Say what you will about Alabama Law School, but Nick Saban is still an awful human being — even though he has a hot daughter who allegedly beats up other girls.
UPDATE (10:44 p.m.): Bloomberg Law has a video interview with Bob Morse, U.S. News rankings guru. Check it out here.
UPDATE (10:51 p.m.): Two interesting notes from Bloomberg Law’s interview with Bob Morse:
1. He says that the employment stats made a bigger difference for schools ranked between say 50 to 150. And that things were better for big state schools in the Midwest and generally worse for the East Coast. I just took a quick look at Nebraska — they went from #89 to #61 this year. BIG TEN WINS!
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2. Morse says he’s not fully revealing the methodology this year because law schools will game the rankings and only report certain information if they determine it will help them. Honestly, you law school deans should generally be ashamed of yourselves that you can’t even be trusted to see the formula because too many of you cheat.
UPDATE (11:09 p.m.): Here’s the full Morse video. I half expected him to say at the end, “I know why law schools cry, but it’s something I can never do.”
UPDATE (11:13 p.m.): Here’s what Morse can say about how U.S. News looked at employment this year:
Placement success was calculated by assigning various weights to the number of grads employed in 22 of these different types of post-J.D. jobs and durations.
Full weight was given for graduates who had a full-time job lasting at least a year where bar passage was required or a J.D. degree was an advantage.
Less weight went to full-time, long-term jobs that were professional or nonprofessional and did not require bar passage, to pursuit of an additional advanced degree, and to positions whose start dates were deferred. The lowest weight applied to jobs categorized as both part-time and short-term.
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In the interview embedded above, Morse explains that he can’t release the specific “weights” for each category of job, because law school deans will game the system.
UPDATE (11:30 p.m.): Man, remember when it was an open question as to whether you should go to Brooklyn Law or Cardozo? Not this year. Last year Cardozo was ranked #56 while Brooklyn was #65. But this year, Cardozo is at #58, and Brooklyn sank like a rock to #80.
Man, what happened to Brooklyn, did they fail to put lamb’s blood on their door or something? U.S. News just hit ’em with locusts.
UPDATE (11:45 p.m.): And St. Johns is down from #79 last year to #98 this year. In related news, Kurt Russell just signed on to play the lead in the upcoming action movie “Escape From A New York Law School In The Outer Boroughs.”
UPDATE (11:51 p.m.): A tipster just tweeted at us that Illinois Law is still in free fall. Last year, the scandal-torn school fell to #35. This year they’re down all the way to #47. You know, when most of the people about to graduate from Illinois matriculated to law school, it was a solidly top-25 institution. Now, they’re graduating from a place that is barely in the top 50. That reminds me of the time I was the caretaker for the Overlook hotel and this (NSFW) happened.
UPDATE (3/12/2013, 12:01 a.m.): I’m browsing through bottom 100 schools. I don’t, at the moment, have anything nice to say about these programs. So I’ll just leave you with this: whatever problems and concerns you have with the U.S. News rankings, if you are paying more than $40,000 to go to something that can figure out how to charge you that much but can’t figure out how to be in at least the top half of the rankings, then something is seriously wrong with you. Honestly. You’ve decided to ignore objective information and make poor decisions. If they’re giving you a full scholarship or something, fine. But if you are actually paying or borrowing $40K for these places, you need to stop trying to figure out why “law school rankings are so stupid,” and start trying to figure out “what they’re trying to tell me.”
Earlier: Law School Making Excuses About Its Low Ranking Before U.S. News Is Even Released
A Sneak Peek at the 2014 U.S. News Law School Rankings
The U.S. News Law School Rankings Are Out! (2013)
