1. Use rankings to create a consensus. Sources rarely have the exact same rankings as each other, and therefore trying to determine the “top 5” schools can be frustrating.  However, it’s best to compile these different sources of rankings to form a consensus regarding the top schools.  For example, if your target program is consistently listed in the top 15, regardless of its individual ranking among different sources, you should feel confident that it is regarded as a top school by industry professionals and future employers.  You may not be able to pinpoint the ultimate “number one” school, but you will be able to distinguish between the different tiers of schools.

2. Consider individual rankings. Law school applicants should assess schools based on how they will help them gain what they want from their law school experiences.  Therefore we urge you to ask yourself—what matters most to you in a law school?  Some applicants may value strict adherence to the Socratic method more than the amount or size of libraries, whereas other applicants may want a large number of diverse student organizations or a strong joint-degree program.  Looking at the individual criteria from which rankings are calculated may help you judge law schools based on the specific factors that matter most to you.  For example, if you are interested in public service, then perhaps you should consider applying to a law school with a strong program in this field, even if it receives lower scores in other areas—especially if these areas are not a main concern for you.

3.  Think about where you want to go after law school. In addition to considering what you want to get out of your law school experience, you should think about how law school will help you pursue your future career.  Therefore, some important rankings to consider may be the number of clerkships students gain at a particular law school, or how many recruiters from different fields visit specific campuses.  These rankings may be especially important if you need to follow a specific career path to achieve your career goals.

In addition to studying rankings, we encourage law school applicants to do further research in understanding the comparable merits of law schools, such as perusing admissions information, talking to professors and students, and visiting campuses. Furthermore, we encourage applicants to check out our Clear Admit Law School Guides, which offer detailed profiles of the leading law schools.  Best of luck to those researching law schools!

1. Use rankings to create a consensus. Sources rarely have the exact same rankings as each other, and therefore trying to determine the “top 5” schools can be frustrating.  However, it’s best to compile these different sources of rankings to form a consensus regarding the top schools.  For example, if your target program is consistently listed in the top 15, regardless of its individual ranking among different sources, you should feel confident that it is regarded as a top school by industry professionals and future employers.  You may not be able to pinpoint the ultimate “number one” school, but you will be able to distinguish between the different tiers of schools.

2. Consider individual rankings. Law school applicants should assess schools based on how they will help them gain what they want from their law school experiences.  Therefore we urge you to ask yourself—what matters most to you in a law school?  Some applicants may value strict adherence to the Socratic method more than the amount or size of libraries, whereas other applicants may want a large number of diverse student organizations or a strong joint-degree program.  Looking at the individual criteria from which rankings are calculated may help you judge law schools based on the specific factors that matter most to you.  For example, if you are interested in public service, then perhaps you should consider applying to a law school with a strong program in this field, even if it receives lower scores in other areas—especially if these areas are not a main concern for you.

3.  Think about where you want to go after law school. In addition to considering what you want to get out of your law school experience, you should think about how law school will help you pursue your future career.  Therefore, some important rankings to consider may be the number of clerkships students gain at a particular law school, or how many recruiters from different fields visit specific campuses.  These rankings may be especially important if you need to follow a specific career path to achieve your career goals.

In addition to studying rankings, we encourage law school applicants to do further research in understanding the comparable merits of law schools, such as perusing admissions information, talking to professors and students, and visiting campuses. Furthermore, we encourage applicants to check out our Clear Admit Law School Guides, which offer detailed profiles of the leading law schools.  Best of luck to those researching law schools!

Under the existing formula, US News does not assume that law schools are equipped to report at-graduation employment data due to logistical difficulties in collecting the information, though schools are requested to submit that information if possible for use in calculating a more accurate ranking.  For those schools that do not report their at-graduation data, US News has, up until this point, subtracted about 30 percentage points from the figure stating the percentage of students employed nine months after graduation – a figure that law school career services offices have traditionally been more enthusiastic about reporting — in order to come up with a figure to use in determining the school’s rank.  The trouble is Morse is confident that law schools are much more aware of their actual at-graduation percentage, and have chosen not to report their data for the last couple of years because the figure derived using US News’s formula is higher than their actual at-graduation data suggests.  As a result, law schools that engage in this practice may be ranked higher than they would otherwise be if US News penalized non-reporting schools.

Morse declined to reveal exactly how US News will change their formula for calculating at-graduation employment, but did mention that the change would be “significant . . . in order to create an incentive for more law schools to report their actual at- graduation employment rate data.”

The three professors named “Most Influential” in the Legal Education field are Lawrence Lessig and Elizabeth Warren from Harvard Law School and David Van Zandt from Northwestern University School of Law.  Lawrence Lessig, known for his work in constitution law and institutional ethics, is the director of the Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics at Harvard Law.  Elizabeth Warren’s research interests include bankruptcy and commercial law, with a focus on financially distressed companies as well as women, the elderly, and the working poor in bankruptcy.  David Van Zandt became dean of Northwestern Law in 1995 and has recently been implementing strategic proposals from his “Plan 2008: Preparing Great Leaders for the Changing World,” which included creating an accelerated two-year J.D. program.

The official rankings match the leaked version we reported before, as Yale Law School has retained the top position, followed by Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, U. Chicago, New York University, UC Berkeley, U. Pennsylvania, U. Michigan, U. Virginia, Duke, Northwestern, Cornell and Georgetown rounding out the coveted Top 14 spots.  UCLA and U. Texas-Austin tied for No. 15.

In addition to the rankings movement we covered earlier, the official version has ranked law schools according to ten different subject-focused specialties.  Here are the specialties and the schools occupying the respective top spots:

-          Clinical Training – Georgetown University
-          Dispute Resolution – Pepperdine University
-          Environmental Law – Vermont Law School
-          Healthcare Law – St. Louis University
-          Intellectual Property Law – UC Berkeley
-          Legal Writing – Mercer University
-          Part-Time Law – Georgetown University
-          Tax Law – New York University
-          Trial Advocacy – Stetson University

The publication’s 2010 rankings also include further rankings on diversity, cost, debt levels and financial aid.  Cornell Law and Michigan Law were named the priciest private and public law schools, respectively, while graduates of Thomas Jefferson School of Law are faced with the highest debt burden.  California’s Chapman University and the University of Iowa were listed as the private and public law programs, respectively, that award the most financial aid.  Lastly, Florida A&M University topped the publication’s unique diversity index.

Be sure to check back with the Law Blog as schools, publications and law school watchers everywhere digest and react to the — official — 2010 rankings.

1.    Yale
2.    Harvard
3.    Stanford
4.    Columbia
5.    Chicago (moved up 1 spot from last year)
6.    NYU (moved down 1 spot from last year)
7.    UC Berkeley (moved down 1 spot from last year)
8.    UPenn (moved up 1 spot from last year)
9.    Michigan
10.    Virginia
11.    Duke
12.    Northwestern
13.    Cornell
14.    Georgetown

Beyond the Top 14 schools, Emory, Boston University and Minnesota may have been bumped down two spots (from tied at 20 in 2009 to tied at 22 this year) to make room for George Washington University’s rapid ascent (from 28 in 2009 to 20 this year), which can largely be attributed to changes GW made in the way it organizes and reports its data.

We will be keeping a close eye on this story as it develops, and will pass along the official US News rankings when they are released tomorrow!  Be sure to check back for more rankings coverage from the Clear Admit team!

Writing in the “Morse Code” blog last Thursday, rankings developer Robert Morse posited an entry that wondered about the rankings’ law school reputation question and another that wondered if the methodology is too simple.

Morse said “U.S. News believes that using a five-point scale is appropriate for the level of knowledge that respondents at each law school have about other schools,” and that the publication’s use of one-decimal point data produces “a great deal of granularity in the final academic reputation results.”

Additionally, he defended the methodology by referring to the rankings’ basis on 12 factors, which Morse said results in “enough varied indicators of academic quality to produce rankings that accurately show the comparable standing of one law school versus other law schools.”

Morse’s defense comes as the publication gets set to release its latest graduate school rankings.  Along with other fields, the law school rankings are due out Thursday.

The article, “What Makes a Great Library,” and the rankings system use the most recent ABA data and consider the law libraries based on various differently-weighed categories, including the number of available volumes and titles, the school’s number of students per librarian and the library’s total hours open.  The number of volumes and titles makes up 50 percent of the score, stressing the figure’s relative importance.

Behind Iowa Law in the top five are: Yale Law School, Indiana University-Bloomington Maurer School of Law, the University of Pennsylvania Law School and Louisiana State University’s Paul M. Herbert Law Center.

The article also says that while law students may use different, digital sources now in their studies, the central role of a library to a law school education has not substantially changed.

“The objectives (of the law library) are the same,” said Arthur Bonfield, the head of Iowa Law’s library.  “The means of satisfying those objectives, though, have changed.”

The National Jurist previously conducted law library rankings in 2000 and 2004.  In 2004, Iowa Law also had the top library, while Yale Law and Indiana-Bloomington Law held flipped positions.

Yale was followed in the rankings, which tabulate scholarly citations over a five year period, by Harvard Law School and the University of Chicago Law School in the top three. Rounding out the top ten are: Stanford, New York University, Columbia, U. California-Berkeley, Northwestern, U. California-Irvine and Vanderbilt.

The study’s methodology is based off of the number of citations from January 2005 to mid-January 2010, and is primarily restricted to tenured faculty, excluding, for example, judges who still teach periodically at these leading law schools.

The full rankings list extends to the top 25 scholarly programs. Of these remaining law schools, Leiter writes that Florida State University College of Law had a “particularly notable” placement, coming in at No. 23.

Leiter also said he hopes to have the entire study online by mid-April. The full study will also feature specialty rankings in such areas as Tax, Law & Economics, Legal History and International Law.

The study in question, put forth by two professors at the University of Iowa College of Law and Northwestern University School of Law, is entitled, “Rankings and Diversity” (PDF).  It contends that rankings systems – with U.S. News at the forefront – place pressure on law schools to boost the measured statistics.  “…Efforts to improve these (selectivity) statistics can threaten various forms of diversity,” the study says.

Morse responds to the study by first saying that the publication does not know how to compare diversity across different populations.  “How should law schools be compared in ethnically diverse states like California and Florida,” the entry asks, “with those in far less diverse states like Maine and Kansas?”  Morse does say U.S. News would be willing to work with educators to develop “such fair diversity yardsticks.”

Secondly, Morse says the rankings system’s use of median LSAT scores, rather than averages, allows schools to admit students with more varied scores and should reduce the statistic-targeting.