Our goal is that we will be a top 20 law school, by every measure, from the moment we open our doors and from our first rankings.
— Dean Erwin Chemerinsky of UC Irvine School of Law. This quote seemed like standard puffery back in 2009, but I guess that wasn’t an idle threat. TaxProf Blog reports that UC Irvine cut its entering class by 29.4 percent in a pretty naked attempt to game the U.S. News Rankings. If there was ever an argument for the importance of the ATL Top 50 Law School Rankings, this is it.