Editorial to U.S. News & World Report Re Your Law School Rankings: Cut it Out!

Last Friday I participated in a day-long conference at Fordham Law School on "Professional Challenges in Large Firm Practices" and was invited by Professor Bruce Green, creator of the conference, to be a speaker on one of four panels, on "The Billable Hour." 

The quality of erudition across the panels and throughout the audience was impressive, and I once again am grateful that I live in the city I do for the overwhelming wealth of resources and events it provides and makes available..  But, chauvinism aside (because many of the panelists came from out of town), a fascinating discussion arose—not one remotely on the formal agenda—about the nefarious impact of US News & World Report's law school ranking survey.

Coincidentally, now we have The National Law Journal reporting on the lengths law schools will go to in order to juice their rankings.  Law schools have (reportedly) gone so far as to create computer models mimic-ing the US News ranking protocol in order to see how they could best improve their rankings, and the consequences of the name-brand competition, whether intended by US News or unintended, border on the vicious.  For example, because of nearly-exclusive emphasis of LSAT scores and undergraduate GPA's:

"There goes the Peace Corps, there goes a Ph.D., there goes work experience,"

says Jeffrey Stake, a law professor at Indiana University School of Law-Bloomington.

To me, the real question boils down to whether the US News scorecard doesn't drive law schools away from their fundamental mission of educating professionally impeccable and ethically rigorous future members of a noble profession.  The problem is that schools are distracted into gaming the system (can you say, "the AmLaw 100 and profits per partner?"):

"There are a lot of schools that spend huge amounts of time on this. We don't have any interest in gaming the system, but we certainly want to put ourselves in the best light that we can," said [Susanah Mead, the interim dean at Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis].

And the defense for US News?  "U.S. News & World Report is aware that "some of the schools have a numbers game," said Robert Morse, director of data research for the publication."

I'm sorry, but that's not good enough.  The sad, but utterly predictable, unintended consequence of the US News ranking is law schools' toeing the line on metrics they did not invent, should not subscribe to, and which debase and trivialize the educational experience of law students nationwide.

US News knows better than to pretend it could not have foreseen this, and the sensationalism it enjoys from it (knowing it's the only game in town) magnifies rather than excuses their ethical lapse.  They should suspend the rankings forthwith.