ELIE MYSTAL: I can’t help looking at these rankings without reference to the “anti-establishment” tensions that are rippling through our country. There are a great many people who seem motivated to support non-traditional powers for the simple virtue that they’re not part of the establishment.
Looking for the “non-establishment” law school is how people end up at NYLS. It’s tied for 111th this year, along with eleventy-thousand other law schools. NYLS is on the rise. I bet the new class at NYLS has a lot of thoughts about unfair advantages that accrue to the one percent, “rigged” systems, and how we need a market revolution in how we hire new law firm associates.
Hillary Clinton voters go to NYU. (Ed. note: Please, NYU Law Millennials, do not fill my inbox with “NYU 4 Bernie” emails. I can read an exit poll, I know how you are voting. I’m making what the scientists call “an analogy.” You Bernie people need to Feel The Chill sometimes.)
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Going to law school is a polite way of saying, “I want to be part of the system so badly I’m willing to take on three years of debt to get my establishment card punched.” Lawyers are the system’s T-Cells and exist to grind change to a halt. I know, I know, you plan to work for “justice.” But even lawyers who attack the system do so from within the confines of the system. Don’t believe me? Just write “The precedent here doesn’t matter because…” on your exam. Then tell me how many Cs you really want before you are ready to play by the rules.
It’s little wonder then that people who self-select to be part of the establishment consistently recognize the same group of schools as “the best.” Yale, Harvard, Stanford… you know the list. It’s the same list. It’s always the same list. When the ATL rankings come out next month, at the top it’s going to be the same list again.
Think about it — it doesn’t have to be this way. In the past few years, we’ve seen massive challenges to the legal education market. The legal hiring market is almost unrecognizable from 30 years ago. The S&P 500 has turned over hundreds of companies since U.S. News first published this list in 1987. But the top 14 law schools in the country have remained the top 14 aka “T14” law schools in the country over all of that time.
I don’t think that is a fault of the U.S. News listmakers. I think it’s a testament to the shocking lack of innovation that happens within legal education, and the resistance of students and employers to deviate from the established path. U.S. News, in its defense, does not “create” what we’re seeing. It is simply reflecting our choices back out to us. Students would rather go to Penn over Penn State, employers would rather hire from Penn over Penn State, and Penn State has done nothing in 30 years that would make any rational employer or student behave differently.
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The schools at the top have been at top since long before anybody bothered to take a picture of the summit. And they will continue to be at the top right up until a meteor comes to destroy legal education as we know it. There is no “Bernie Sanders of Law Schools.” There are just a bunch of schools that are trying to be the next Hillary Clinton.
In the words or our future Supreme OverMaster: “Sad!”
2017 Best Law School Rankings [U.S. News & World Report]
Earlier: The 2017 U.S. News Law School Rankings Leak: The Top 100
The 2017 U.S. News Law School Rankings Leak: The Top 50
BREAKING: The 2017 U.S. News Law School Rankings Leak!