The Government Accountability Office has released a new report on the rising cost of legal education. Who is to blame? Not the ABA. Not university presidents using their law schools as cash cows.

According to the GAO, the U.S. News law school rankings put law school deans in a “resource intensive” competition to rise up the U.S. News list. The two key slides from the 44-page GAO report (PDF) are below:

The GAO makes a provocative argument. Let’s discuss it after the jump.

Ed. note: Find the latest match-ups here.

GQ.com had a charming feature story this week: The Top 25 Douchiest Colleges. This is one of the few times that Kash’s alma mater - Duke (#2) - managed to beat Lat and Elie’s undergrad institution, Harvard (#4). Duke would have taken the top spot on the list but the GQ editors gave Brown that honor, saying:

Duke’s probably number one. But we’d rather not rank Duke number one at anything.

Since we didn’t have a Back-to-School feature planned, we’ve decided to riff off of this one. We’d like to invite you to help us determine the #1 Douchiest law school.

This will not be based solely on our editorial discretion. We’re taking the top 16 law schools from U.S. News & World Report and putting them into brackets, ATL March Madness style. We’ll let you vote on which is douchiest.

Check out the brackets and vote on the first eight match-ups after the jump.

This year’s U.S. News Law School Rankings saw Loyola Law School (L.A.) drop from #63 to #71. Despite the back-and-forth between Above the Law and Loyola Law dean Victor Gold, the drop had nothing to do with us.

Apparently, the drop didn’t have anything to do with any legitimate factor. Brian Leiter is on the case:

This really takes the cake for carelessness on the part of U.S. News. Loyola Law School in Los Angeles dropped from 63 to 71 in the overall U.S. News ranking this past spring, and for one primary reason: its reputation score among academics dropped from 2.6 to 2.3. But that kind of drop is extraordinary: the academic reputation scores move .1 in either direction all the time, without rhyme or reason, but only once in the last eight years did another school’s peer reputation score drop that much….

So with only a 1 in 1,000 chance of this kind of movement, what else might explain the precipitous drop in academic reputation? Unfortunately, the explanation seems to be clear: U.S. News unilaterally changed the school’s name on the survey: from “Loyola Law School” to “Loyola Marymount University.” Loyola was the only school whose name was changed on last year’s survey.

This is the story that Dean Gold is going with too. More details after the jump.

If you enjoyed making crucial decisions on where to receive your undergraduate and post graduate education based on a list in a magazine, you are going to love what is coming next. The WSJ Law Blog reports that U.S. News & World Report will be getting into the business of ranking law firms.

US News & World Report, in connection with the folks who bring you the Best Lawyers survey, have announced that they’ll soon be, yes, ranking the best law firms….

We checked in with a spokesperson at Best Lawyers, who told us that it’s actually going to be two surveys — the best law firms and the best law firms to work for. The best law firms survey, at least, will be based partly on a survey sent to lawyers, general counsel and others, and partly on hard data. They’re still apparently working on nailing down the criteria they plan to use.

Will these new rankings be useful? Will they provide critical information to law school graduates trying to make the best choice about where to start their career? Who cares!

My milk shake brings all the boys to the yard,
and they’re like, its better than yours,
damn right its better than yours.

More details on how U.S. News intends to make sure lawyers carry a huge chips on their shoulders for all their livelong days, after the jump.

We know how much everybody loves rankings. By now, everybody has had time to digest the new law school pecking order — even George Washington Law School students.

But true prestige whoring begins much earlier than law school. U.S. News has just released (hat tip: Tax Prof Blog) a list of the top 400 colleges and universities in the world.

I’m not sure how useful these rankings are, to anybody, anywhere, ever. But I’m sure they will make some people feel good about themselves — and other people mercilessly attack the schools that are more highly ranked than their alma maters.

Of course, U.S. News just did this eight months ago. We posted about it and everything. How many different ways can this magazine come up with to slobber all over Harvard and Yale?

In any event, this time U.S. News is ranking the top 400 universities, instead of the top 200.

After the jump, take a look at the top 10.

My mother always said that if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.

Wait a minute. She never said that. Instead, my mother said: “Using spellcheck instead of committing to learn the basic rules of phonics is really going to come back and bite you in the ass one day.”

With that in mind (the nice thing, not the phonics thing), I bring you the Fourth Tier Law schools — according to the U.S. News law school rankings. Check out the full list of fourth tier law schools here.

When we discussed the third tier, many commenters argued that going to one of those schools and graduating in the top of your class still allows you to access many of the glories of Biglaw, without crushing educational debt.

Does that argument hold up for fourth tier schools?

Let’s take a look at goals after the jump.

Well, here we are. The third-tier law schools. We’ve given students and alumni at the top 100 law schools a chance to sound off on the good (and bad) about their law schools. Hopefully prospective students will take note.

We won’t list all the the third-tier schools, but you can refresh your memory here.

Some might ask: in this market, what kind of jobs can you expect to get with a degree from a third-tier law school? The economy is so bad right now for lots of lawyers. Does it get worse without the most sterling credentials? Or are the kinds of jobs these students historically have taken still available in this market?

If you really applied yourself, could you become a Supreme Court clerk? Justice Scalia doesn’t think so.

Let’s get into the discussion, after the jump.

Even though U.S. News blithely skips from tier 1 to tier 3, we are definitely in the tier 2 part of the law school rankings. You’ll have to do some digging here to find the school that is the right fit for you.

Here is the next batch:

77. Chicago - Kent; Rutgers - Camden; Seattle; Seton Hall; University of Denver; University of New Mexico; Oregon; Richmond;
85. Santa Clara; SUNY - Buffalo
87. DePaul; Indiana - Indianapolis; Loyola - Chicago; Marquette; Rutgers - Newark; St. John’s; South Carolina
94. Catholic University; Northeastern; St. Louis; Arkansas - Fayetteville
98. University of Louisville; University of San Francisco
100. Gonzaga

Does anybody have any fun facts about these law schools?

More after the jump.

Our review of the most recent U.S. News law school rankings now moves out of the top 50. Some of these schools have regional significance. Others are second or third choices for students who didn’t do quite as well on the LSAT as they might have liked. But we don’t think any of these schools are “J.D. mills.” To refresh your memory, here is the next batch of rankings:

51. University of Florida (Levin)
52. FSU; Cincinnati; Connecticut
55. ASU (O’Connor); Case Western Reserve; Pepperdine; Kentucky
59. University of Houston; Tennessee-Knoxville
61. Brooklyn Law School; Lewis & Clark College; San Diego; Villanova
65. Baylor; Georgia State; Penn St. (Dickinson); Temple; Kansas; Missouri
71. Loyola (L.A.); Miami; Oklahoma; Pitt
75. LSU; UNLV

There are a lot of good basketball programs here. But are there meaningful distinctions to be made about their law programs?

We get into it after the jump.

People who care about the U.S. News law school rankings are starting to worry about how U.S. News handles its “employed on graduation” statistic. On Friday, the issue boiled over at Wake Forest School of Law.

Today, Paul Caron of TaxProf Blog asks if some schools actually hurt their rankings, simply by being honest:

Several readers noted the curious fact that 64 law schools did not supply U.S. News with the percentage of its Class of 2007 that was employed at graduation; this component counts 4% in the methodology used in the 2010 Law School Rankings….

A more interesting question is why 24 law schools reported employed at graduation numbers more than 30% lower than their employed at nine months number:

TaxProf provides more details after the jump.

We’ve done quite a few stories now on law students losing control of their sense of discretion as graduation approaches.

We’ve got another one, this time from Wake Forest School of Law, we think. The student who sent it claims not to have sent it. We’ve spoken to school officials who are looking into this as a possible hacker situation.

But regardless of who sent it, this email does include a tale that many commenters have been worried about. With all the schools trying to help out deferred or unemployed graduates, how will the employment statistics be reported to U.S. News? Somebody (who may or may not be affiliated with Wake Forest) has this hypothesis:

As I was working in the Career Services office last week I heard [Redacted], talking to the others in the office how relieved she was that they were to place several students from last year’s class that had not found a job yet with one at the law school so as to not adversely affect our rankings. It seems as of the total number of unemployed students is so large that if we did the honorable thing and properly and accurately reported our actual data to the ABA and the US News magazine that our ranking would have dropped out of the top 50 law schools. In other words, we would have become a second tier law school. She was happy they could “fix” the problem by hiring former students in some capacity at the law school so our “numbers” looked good. As I sit studying for exam and the more I think of her comments, that madder I get.

“Fix” the problem, bullshit, they just hid the problem. The real problem is the lack of ability in this office. We have discussed this every year with the dean at our “town meeting”, and yet the office remains unchanged and they remain employed despite abysmal results. Well its time for a change in this office. Any bets what the “true” unemployment statistics for our class will be given the economy?

Wake Forest is ranked 40th in the latest U.S. News law school rankings. And while this person is clearly worried about the school’s rankings, the person also wants to hold Wake to a higher ethical standard.

Wake Forest Dean Blake Morant responds after the jump.

Let’s keep rolling through the U.S. News law school rankings. Last time, we learned a couple of interesting things about Emory: ATL has a lot of readers who are alumni of Emory, and the school generates a lot of hate from other law schools in Georgia. Who knew?

While still first-tier schools, the next batch of schools probably have more regional appeal than national pizzazz. Here’s the list:

30. Fordham
30. Alabama
30. UNC
30. University of Washington
30. Washington & Lee
35. THE Ohio State University
35. UC - Davis
35. UGA
35. University of Wisconsin
39. UC - Hastings
40. Wake Forest
41. BYU
41. George Mason
43. University of Arizona
43. University of Maryland
45. American University
45. Tulane
45. Colorado - Boulder
45. Utah
49. SMU
49. Cardozo

Man, that’s a lot of “ties.” It’s like U.S. News is trying very hard to tell prospective students “the only difference between Fordham and Alabama is whether you want to practice in NYC or Birmingham.” But based on Monday’s thread, apparently Washington & Lee is the best law school in the country (that nobody’s ever heard of).

After the jump, is Cardozo happy with its top 50 ranking, or is it coming for Fordham?

We are continuing our march through the latest U.S. News law school rankings. So far we’ve learned that students who go to law school in warm weather climates believe their quality of life is much better than what is experienced by students who attend law schools in the Northeast and Chicago. We’ve also learned that the anti-GULC contingent of our readers are vocal and relentless.

The next batch of schools includes some rising stars and one major fade. To refresh your memory:

17. Vanderbilt
18. USC (Gould)
19. Washington (St. Louis)
20. Boston University
20. Emory
20. Minnesota
23. Indiana
23. Illinois
23. Notre Dame
26. Boston College
26. Iowa
28. William & Mary
28. George Washington

Boston University continues its rankings pwnage of Boston College. When are the educationally inclined Jesuits going to bring out the big guns (rulers?) and apply it to the law school? Meanwhile, is Notre Dame really no longer the best law school in Indiana?

After the jump, it’s George Washington University Law School time.

The 2010 U.S. News law school rankings leaked over the weekend were not fake. Bob Morse — the rankings guru — essentially confirmed the results to the Wall Street Journal today, ahead of the magazine’s official release tomorrow.

Here’s the official list of the top 20 law schools:

1. Yale
2. Harvard
3. Stanford
4. Columbia
5. NYU
6. (Tie) Berkeley, University of Chicago
8. Penn
9. Michigan
10. (Tie) Duke, Northwestern, UVA
13. Cornell
14. Georgetown
15. (Tie) UCLA, Texas
17. Vanderbilt
18. USC
19. Wash U
20. (Tie) Boston University, Emory, Minnesota

As many of you have already pointed out, one school in particular experienced a precipitous drop out of the top 20. George Washington’s surprising fall, after the jump.

Every year, somebody claims to have obtained a leaked copy of the U.S. News and World Report Law School Rankings. Every year, there are numerous hoaxes and fakes. This year is no different. But over the weekend, we saw one version of the leaked rankings at least had the air of legitimacy.

The official rankings are due out Thursday, but the Critical Badger claims to have the rankings now.

In this version, the top 14 law schools remain the top 14 law schools. Here’s another version from Top Law Schools.

We reached out to the people at U.S. News to see if these rankings were the real rankings. They offered “no comment.”

After the jump, are these real?

Prestige-whore Christmas will be a little late this year. On Friday, TaxProf Blog pointed out:

Robert Morse, Director of Data Research at U.S. News & World Report, announced yesterday that the new law school rankings will be published online on April 23, 2009, the latest date since the annual rankings began in 1990.

Over at The Faculty Lounge, the news was perplexing:

Now that’s a little strange, because I’d think that a lot of law students would already have made their choice of school by then.

Why the delay? According to the U.S. News announcement, it takes more time to count part-time:

The law school rankings will be getting an upgrade. We plan to publish our first-ever ranking of part-time J.D. law programs. This new ranking will evaluate the part-time law programs at 87 American Bar Association fully accredited law schools that are fully accredited by the American Bar Association. We defined a part-time J.D. program as a law school that has a separate admission process for part-time law students and has at least 20 part-time students enrolled. As we have annually since 1990, we’ll also publish updated law school rankings, which will cover all law schools.

When U.S. News announced that they were looking at part-time programs, Brian Leiter noted the questionable choice:

Leiter notes that the proposed change could harm the mission of legal education:

“For many, probably most, part-time programs serve older, working students, who might not have time for fancy LSAT prep courses, but who bring levels of dedication, seriousness, and pertinent experience that enrich legal education and the legal profession.”

But given the horrendous job market, the new debate is whether the rankings still mean anything, or if it is more important than ever?

Of course, this all assumes you can get a loan to go to law school in the first place. Good luck with that.

New U.S. News Rankings to be Released April 23 [TaxProf Blog]
The Grad School Rankings Are Coming Soon [U.S. News]
LSAC says: Applications up, applicants flat [Legal Writing Prof Blog]
US News 2010 Law School Rankings Coming Soon to a Bookstore Near You [The Faculty Lounge]

Earlier: The Rankings Versus The Cash

I know it’s not exactly “legal” news, but U.S. News and World Report just released their rankings of the top 200 Colleges and Universities in the World.

Thanks to Paul Caron at TaxProf Blog, I’m bringing the information to you instead of enjoying the company of my wife, or friends, or dog, or PS3.

Here are the T-14 top 10 schools on the list:

1. Harvard

2. Yale

3. Cambridge [Harvard’s on here twice. WooHoo!]

4. Oxford

5. Cal Tech

6. Imperial College London

7. University College London

8. University of Chicago

9. MIT

10. Columbia

The highest ranked non-U.S., non-U.K. school on the list is the 16th ranked Australian National University. University of Tokyo clocks in at 19, and McGill is 20th.

To be honest, I have no earthly idea how you compare Boston University (ranked 46) against Trinity College Dublin (ranked 49th), but that’s why the U.S. News people get the big bucks I guess (assuming of course that U.S. News still pays people).

U.S. News Top 200 Colleges & Universities in the World [TaxProf Blog]
World’s Best Colleges and Universities: Top 200 [U.S. News]

Earlier: Top Law Schools Based On Top Lawyers
Princeton Review Ranks Law Schools Too

While we have been focusing on associate layoffs, law schools continue to ruin the U.S. News Law School Rankings.

Yesterday we learned that Alabama Law School is offering people $20 worth of iTunes cash to simply apply to Alabama. How does this impact that U.S. News rankings? Because the magazine counts acceptance rate as part of its methodology. The more students you turn away, the better your school looks.

Meanwhile, TaxProf Blog reports on a dangerous precedent being set at Baylor University. Baylor is now paying students to retake the SAT. This strategy could also be used to game the LSAT now that the ABA requires schools to report the highest LSAT score students receive. We know how “competitive” those Baylor kids are but getting an improved test score through cash incentives after you’ve already matriculated looks a lot like cheating.

We have also extensively covered the raft of silly programs that obviate the need for the LSAT altogether, so long as the student hits a desired GPA benchmark.

Putting it all together after the jump.

In the interest of completeness, here are a few quick postscripts to stories that we previously covered in these pages, but didn’t get around to mentioning during the craziness of last week. They come from the National Law Journal and/or the WSJ Law Blog.

1. Judge Robert Somma: The cross-dressing former bankruptcy judge (at right), who resigned from the bench after a drunk driving arrest, has joined the bankruptcy practice of Posternak Blankstein & Lund, a midsize firm based in Boston, as senior counsel. [National Law Journal; WSJ Law Blog]

2. American Justice School of Law: This defunct Kentucky law school, which in 2007 was hit with a class action filed by some of its students, has filed for bankruptcy. [National Law Journal; WSJ Law Blog]

3. L’Affaire Kozinski: The panel of federal judges from the Third Circuit investigating Ninth Circuit Chief Judge Alex Kozinski (at right) has retained Robert Heim, head of litigation at Dechert, to oversee the probe (which will be staffed by lawyers from Dechert and Morgan Lewis & Bockius). [National Law Journal; WSJ Law Blog]

4. University of Michigan’s Wolverine Scholars Program: Sarah Zearfoss, dean of admissions at UM Law, has defended the program against allegations that it’s an attempt to game the U.S. News rankings. She pointed out that the program is small, likely to result in the admission of just five to ten students (out of a class of 360), and that very few UM undergrads (about 200) would even be eligible for it. [WSJ Law Blog]

Honestly, we are not trying to pile on Michigan. We know how obsessed some of their students are with their U.S. News law school ranking. But perhaps the law school administration has taken things too far in their attempt to make Michigan the “champions of the west.”

From TaxProf Blog:

Michigan’s new Wolverine Scholars Program — in which [University of] Michigan undergrads with a minimum 3.80 GPA are admitted to Michigan Law School if they agree to not take the LSAT. The rankings benefit is that there is no LSAT score to report to U.S. News, while the minimum 3.80 GPA will boost Michigan’s median 3.64 GPA, which counts 10% in U.S. News’ methodology.

Look Michigan, if you are going to try to rig something, at least have the decency to do it under the cover of darkness.

To a UM college student with a 3.8, the Wolverine Scholars Program looks like an interesting example of game theory. But to the rest of us, it looks a straight bribe. It’s like Michigan Law School is saying: “Please, please, please don’t take the LSAT. Because if you get a 167 we probably have to accept you anyway. And if you get a 175 you will better deal us for a lobster dinner.”

The Big Ten strikes back, after the jump.