Friday, June 9, 2017
Eight Of The Twelve Law Schools With The Highest Unemployment Rates Are In California
Law.com, Where the Law Jobs Are: The 2016 Edition:
We’ve delved into the ABA’s trove of jobs data to determine which schools had ... the highest unemployment rates. ... The charts are based on data submitted to the ABA by the law schools.
June 9, 2017 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (6)
Friday, June 2, 2017
Caron Presents Faculty Scholarship Assessment: A (Very) New Dean's Perspective Today At Texas A&M
Paul L. Caron (Dean, Pepperdine) presents Faculty Scholarship Assessment: A (Very) New Dean's Perspective at Texas A&M today as part of its Conference for Associate Deans:
I describe how existing measures of faculty scholarly output (publications) and influence (law review citations, Google Scholar citations (H-Index and M-Index), and SSRN downloads) can be used to (1) compare a law school faculty's scholarly productivity to its peers and to assess individual faculty contributions in these areas; and (2) value scholarly productivity of both junior and senior faculty. I then offer some thoughts on what these existing ranking metrics leave out in quantifying faculty contributions to law school success, especially at faith-based schools.
My co-panelists are:
- John August (Dean of Faculties and Associate Provost, Texas A&M)
- Gary Lucas (Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Assessment, Strategic Analysis, and Reporting, Texas A&M)
- Gregory Sisk (Laghi Distinguished Chair in Law, University of St. Thomas (Minnesota))
June 2, 2017 in Conferences, Law School Rankings, Legal Education, Scholarship | Permalink | Comments (1)
Sunday, May 28, 2017
New York Times College Rankings
New York Times Sunday Review, Top Colleges Doing the Most for the American Dream:
Welcome to the third annual College Access Index. It's a New York Times ranking of colleges — those with a five-year graduation rate of at least 75 percent — based on their commitment to economic diversity. The ranking is based on a combination of the number of lower-and middle-income students that a college enrolls and the price it charges these students. The top of the ranking is dominated by campuses in the University of California system, while the most diverse private colleges include Amherst, Pomona, Harvard and Vassar. Notably, a college's endowment does not determine its commitment to economic diversity. There are wealthy colleges and much less wealthy ones at both the top and bottom of the ranking.
New York Times Sunday Review, The Assault on Colleges — and the American Dream:
The country’s most powerful engine of upward mobility is under assault.
Public colleges have an unmatched record of lofting their students into the middle class and beyond. For decades, they have enrolled teenagers and adults from modest backgrounds, people who are often the first member of their family to attend college, and changed their trajectories.
Over the last several years, however, most states have cut their spending on higher education, some drastically. Many public universities have responded by enrolling fewer poor and middle-class students — and replacing them with affluent students who can afford the tuition. ...
The decline of economic diversity at top public colleges is the clearest pattern in The Times’s third annual ranking of leading colleges — the roughly 170 nationwide with a five-year graduation rate of at least 75 percent. (Yes, you can be disappointed that so few colleges clear that bar.)
May 28, 2017 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (10)
Tuesday, May 23, 2017
2016-17 Moot Court Rankings
1. South Texas
2. Oklahoma
3. St. Mary's
4. Stetson
5. Georgetown
6. SMU
7. Chicago-Kent
8. Texas Tech
9. Michigan State
10. UC-Hastings
11. Pepperdine
12. McGeorge
12. Wake Forest
14. Ohio State
15. Mississippi College
May 23, 2017 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (2)
Wednesday, May 17, 2017
Law School Rankings By Federal Judicial Clerkships
Derek Muller (Pepperdine), Visualizing Law School Federal Judicial Clerkship Placement, 2014-2016:
The release of the latest ABA employment data offers an opportunity to update the three-year federal judicial clerkship placement rates. Here is the clerkship placement rate for the Classes of 2014, 2015, and 2016. Methodology and observations below the interactive visualization. The "placement" is the three-year total placement; the "percentage" is the three-year placement divided by the three-year graduating class total.
Here are the California Law School rankings:
Here are the Top 10 law schools nationally:
May 17, 2017 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (2)
Tuesday, May 16, 2017
Non-Elite B-Schools Urge 'Just Say No' Approach To Rankings
Wall Street Journal, Business Schools Take a Stand Against Academic Rankings:
Business-school deans and research faculty at more than 20 universities are taking a stand against the academic rankings published by media outlets such as Bloomberg Businessweek, Nikkei Inc.’s Financial Times and the Economist Group.
Rather than “acquiesce to methods of comparison we know to be fundamentally misleading,” the administrators are urging their peers at other schools to stop participating in a process they say rates programs on an overly narrow set of criteria.
The plea, issued by deans and faculty from institutions including University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business, University of Iowa’s Tippie College of Business and the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, comes in the form of a research paper to be published in the May edition of the Decision Sciences Journal [On Academic Rankings, Unacceptable Methods, and the Social Obligations of Business Schools].
May 16, 2017 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (0)
Saturday, May 13, 2017
Law School Rankings By Full-Time, Long-Term Bar-Passage Required (Excluding School-Funded) Jobs (CORRECTED)
Following up on my previous posts:
- ABA Releases Class of 2016 Employment Data: 7% Drop In Law Grads Lead To Placement Rate Increase, Numerical Decrease In Long-Term J.D.-Required/Advantage Jobs (May 11, 2017)
- Comparing Class Of 2016 Employment Outcomes With Class Of 2015 And Class of 2014 (May 12, 2017)
Matt Leichter, Class of 2016 Employment Report (CORRECTED):
May 13, 2017 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (2)
Friday, May 12, 2017
Alum Donates $1.5m To University Of Florida To Fuel Law School's Rise In U.S. News Rankings From 48 To 35
Following up on my previous posts:
- After Topping Florida State Law School Again With #48 U.S. News Ranking, University Of Florida's New Dean Sets Sights On #35 Ranking Within 3-5 Years (Mar. 21, 2016)
- Laura Rosenbury Stakes Her Deanship On Raising Florida's Ranking To #35 (Oct. 12, 2016)
- Florida Law School Rankings War Intensifies: UF Marches Toward Top 35, FSU Says It Is Best Law School In State And Aims For Top 4 National Public Law School (With Michigan, UC-Berkeley & Virginia) (Mar. 15, 2017)
Daily Business Review, Hugh Culverhouse Jr. Pledges $1.5M to UF Levin College of Law:
University of Florida Levin College of Law alumnus Hugh Culverhouse Jr. has pledged $1.5 million to be used by the school for incoming student scholarships if the law school's community raises an additional $1.5 million by Aug. 14, the first day of classes.
Culverhouse, a Coral Gables-based lawyer who graduated from the law school in 1974, said he was inspired to create the Culverhouse Challenge by the school's leap from 48 to 41 in the most recent U.S. News national rankings of law schools. It was the highest ranked law school in Florida, followed by the law schools at Florida State University (48), University of Miami (77), Stetson (96) and Florida International University (100). Six more Florida law schools were not ranked.
May 12, 2017 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tuesday, May 9, 2017
2017 Princeton Review's Best 381 Colleges
The Princeton Review has released The Best 381 Colleges — 2017 Edition. According to the press release, the book contains 62 rankings based on surveys completed by 143,000 students at the 381 schools (375 per school) (methodology here), including these categories:
- Best (Sarah Lawrence) classroom experience
- Best (Wellesley), worst (New Jersey Institute of Technology) professors
- Most (U.S. Military Academy), least U.S. Merchant Marine Academy) accessible professors
- Best (Virginia Tech) quality of life
- Most (Rice), least (Montana Tech) happy students
- Students love (Virginia Tech) their school
- Most (Rhodes), least (University of Dallas) beautiful campus
- Best (Elon), worst (Hanover) run school
- Most liberal (Sarah Lawrence), most conservative (BYU) students
- Most (Thomas Aquinas), least (Reed) religious
- Students study the most (U.S. Military Academy), least (Trinity College Dublin)
- Most (Vassar), least (SUNY-Purchase) financial aid
May 9, 2017 in Book Club, Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (2)
Tuesday, April 11, 2017
Henderson: U.S. News Eliminates The Rankings Advantage Of The GRE, But Harvard Has Started A 'Quant' Arms Race For Diverse Students Who Will Thrive In A Transformed, Tech-Driven, Disrupted Legal Profession
The Legal Whiteboard: The GRE and the Revised US News Ranking Methodology, by William Henderson (Indiana):
When I initially learned that Harvard Law would start accepting the GRE as an alternative to the LSAT, I viewed it through the prism of the US News & World Report ranking and concluded that it was a very good thing for Harvard and all of legal education. Aggressive rankings management has led to tremendous over-reliance on the LSAT. By using on the GRE, I reasoned, Harvard would have sufficient test score information to assess a candidate's intellectual capacity while also obtaining the freedom to use other admissions methods to explore the larger and more diverse universe of candidates who are destined to become great leaders and lawyers.
My thinking is crudely sketched out in the diagram below.
If Harvard Law was trying to get around U.S. News rankings formula, the USN chief strategy officer, Bob Morse, saw it coming. ...
April 11, 2017 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (3)
Sunday, April 9, 2017
2017 Religious Law School Rankings
The Most Devout Law Schools, preLaw, Spring 2017, at 42:
April 9, 2017 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (0)
Friday, March 17, 2017
2018 U.S News Law School Rankings: Average Student Debt
Following up on my posts (links below) on the 2018 U.S. News Law School Rankings: Matt Leichter, Only 13 Law Schools Didn't Report 2016 Graduate Debt to U.S. News:
Each year U.S. News & World Report lists law schools by the average indebtedness of their graduates. Importantly, the figures exclude accrued interest, which can be quite considerable. However, these numbers are probably the best estimate of the cost of attendance at a particular law school presented in a comparable form. The ABA does not publicize graduate debt in the 509 information reports, making U.S. News an unfortunately necessary source.
Here are the 25 law schools with the highest amount of average law school debt (among those students with law school debt).
March 17, 2017 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (3)
Thursday, March 16, 2017
Muller: Law Professors Are Tough Graders (Of Other Law Schools)
Derek Muller (Pepperdine), Do Law Professors Generally Think Most Other Law Schools Are Pretty Awful?:
The U.S. News & World Report ("USNWR") law school rankings include a number of illuminating bits of information and some weaknesses, as I displayed yesterday. But a cursory look at Paul Caron's display of the peer reputation scores displays, perhaps, a startling truth: law professors generally think most other law schools are pretty awful. (I qualify that with "other" because I think most law professors generally think their own schools are probably pretty good.) ...
One might expect to see a fairly ordinary distribution between 5 and 1, perhaps a bell curve with a bulk of schools in the range of 3 in the middle. But it turns out law professors think little of other schools.
March 16, 2017 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (8)
March Madness Law School Bracket
Here is the March Madness Law School Bracket, with outcomes determined by the 2018 U.S. News Law School Rankings (using academic peer reputation and student quality as tiebreakers). The Final Four are Michigan (8), Virginia (8), Northwestern (10), and UCLA (15), with Virginia beating Michigan in the championship game, based on student quality.
March 16, 2017 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (0)
Wednesday, March 15, 2017
Law School Rankings By Student Quality (LSAT And UGPA)
Christopher J. Ryan Jr. (Vanderbilt) & Brian L. Frye (Kentucky), A De Gustibus Approach to Ranking Law Schools:
The U.S. News & World Report “Best Law Schools Rankings” define the market for legal education. Law schools compete to improve their standing in the rankings and fear any decline. But the U.S. News rankings incite contention, because they rely on factors that are poor proxies for quality like peer reputation and expenditures per student. While many alternative law school rankings exist, none have challenged the market dominance of the U.S. News rankings. Presumably the U.S. News rankings benefit from a first-mover advantage, other rankings fail to provide a clearly superior alternative, or some combination of the two.
March 15, 2017 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (6)
2018 U.S. News Tax Rankings
Here are the new 2018 U.S. News Tax Rankings, along with last year's rankings:
2018 Rank |
Tax Program |
2017 Rank |
1 |
NYU |
1 |
2 |
Georgetown |
2 |
3 |
Florida |
3 |
4 |
Northwestern |
4 |
5 |
Virginia. |
6 |
6 |
Loyola-L.A. |
5 |
7 |
UCLA |
9 |
8 |
Boston University |
8 |
8 |
Harvard |
7 |
10 |
Columbia |
9 |
11 |
San Diego |
12 |
12 |
Miami |
12 |
12 |
Texas |
15 |
14 |
Michigan |
9 |
15 |
USC |
12 |
16 |
Duke |
18 |
16 |
Pennsylvania |
18 |
18 |
Yale |
20 |
19 |
Chicago |
22 |
20 |
Boston College |
17 |
20 |
Villanova |
24 |
20 |
U. Washington |
16 |
23 |
Indiana |
20 |
23 |
Stanford |
24 |
25 |
Denver |
n/r |
26 |
Washington U. |
n/r |
The biggest upward moves:
- +4: Villanova (#20)
- +3 Texas (#12), Chicago (#19)
- +2: UCLA (#7), Duke (#16), Pennsylvania (#16), Yale (#18)
- Denver (#25) and U. Washington (#26) were unranked last year
The biggest downward moves:
- -5: Michigan (#14)
- -4: U. Washington (#20)
- -3: USC (#12), Boston College (#20), Indiana (#23)
- Florida State (#23 last year) is unranked this year
Here are the rankings of the graduate tax programs, along with last year's rankings.
March 15, 2017 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education, Tax | Permalink | Comments (1)
Florida Law School Rankings War Intensifies: UF Marches Toward Top 35, FSU Says It Is Best Law School In State And Aims For Top 4 National Public Law School (With Michigan, UC-Berkeley & Virginia)
Following up on last year's post, Laura Rosenbury Stakes Her Deanship On Raising Florida's Ranking To #35; Amidst Claims Of Sexism, Her Regime Comes Under Fire, With The Graduate Tax Program Its Flashpoint: Florida Dean Laura Rosenbury is already halfway toward her goal of being a Top 35 law school with a 7-point improvement in its U.S. News ranking, to #41.
University of Florida Press Release, UF Law Jumps Seven Spots in U.S. News Rankings:
The University of Florida Levin College of Law climbed seven spots in the latest U.S. News & World Report rankings of the nation’s best law schools, placing at No. 41 overall. This rise is the largest year-to-year increase in over 20 years and is the second largest improvement of any law school ranked in the top 50. The Graduate Tax Program held its spot as the No. 1 program among public law schools and No. 3 overall. ...
March 15, 2017 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education, Tax | Permalink | Comments (4)
Pepperdine Is #1 In ADR, #5 In Practical Training
For the twelfth time in thirteen years, Pepperdine Law School's Straus Institute has been ranked the #1 dispute resolution program in the country by U.S. News & World Report. Congratulations to Tom Stipanowich and his faculty and staff colleagues for this well deserved recognition of the amazing academic programs and training and conferences they offer.
In addition, Pepperdine has been named the fifth best law school for practical training by The National Jurist (Spring 2017):
March 15, 2017 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (1)
Tuesday, March 14, 2017
Winners And Losers In The 2018 U.S. News Law School Rankings ... Should It Matter?
Following up on this morning's post, 2018 U.S. News Law School Peer Reputation Rankings (And Overall Rankings): National Law Journal, U.S. News Law School Rankings Are Good News for Northwestern, Bummer for Berkeley:
After flirting with the top 10 on the U.S. News & World Report’s annual law school rankings for most of the past decade, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law has finally broken through.
March 14, 2017 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (1)
2018 U.S. News Law School Peer Reputation Rankings (And Overall Rankings)
Continuing a TaxProf Blog tradition (see links below for 2009-2017), here is the full list of the 197 law schools ranked by academic peer reputation, as well as their overall rank, in the new 2018 U.S. News Law School Rankings (methodology here):
Peer Rank |
Peer Score |
School |
Overall Rank |
1 |
4.8 |
Yale |
1 |
1 |
4.8 |
Stanford |
2 |
1 |
4.8 |
Harvard |
3 |
4 |
4.6 |
Chicago |
4 |
4 |
4.6 |
Columbia |
5 |
6 |
4.5 |
NYU |
6 |
7 |
4.4 |
Michigan |
8 |
7 |
4.4 |
Virginia |
8 |
7 |
4.4 |
UC-Berkeley |
12 |
10 |
4.3 |
Penn |
7 |
11 |
4.2 |
Duke |
10 |
11 |
4.2 |
Northwestern |
10 |
11 |
4.2 |
Cornell |
13 |
14 |
4.1 |
Texas |
14 |
14 |
4.1 |
Georgetown |
15 |
16 |
3.9 |
UCLA |
15 |
16 |
3.9 |
Vanderbilt |
17 |
18 |
3.6 |
Washington U. |
18 |
18 |
3.6 |
Emory |
22 |
20 |
3.5 |
USC |
19 |
20 |
3.5 |
Notre Dame |
20 |
20 |
3.5 |
Minnesota |
23 |
20 |
3.5 |
North Carolina |
39 |
24 |
3.4 |
Iowa |
20 |
24 |
3.4 |
Boston University |
23 |
24 |
3.4 |
Geo. Washington |
30 |
24 |
3.4 |
Wisconsin |
30 |
24 |
3.4 |
UC-Davis |
39 |
29 |
3.3 |
Boston College |
26 |
29 |
3.3 |
UC-Irvine |
28 |
29 |
3.3 |
Indiana-Bloom. |
30 |
29 |
3.3 |
Ohio State |
30 |
29 |
3.3 |
Fordham |
36 |
29 |
3.3 |
Illinois |
44 |
35 |
3.2 |
Arizona State |
25 |
35 |
3.2 |
Alabama |
26 |
35 |
3.2 |
Georgia |
30 |
35 |
3.2 |
U. Washington |
30 |
35 |
3.2 |
Colorado |
36 |
35 |
3.2 |
William & Mary |
41 |
41 |
3.1 |
Wash. & Lee |
28 |
41 |
3.1 |
Wake Forest |
36 |
41 |
3.1 |
Florida |
41 |
41 |
3.1 |
Arizona |
48 |
41 |
3.1 |
Tulane |
50 |
41 |
3.1 |
UC-Hastings |
54 |
47 |
3.0 |
Florida State |
48 |
47 |
3.0 |
Maryland |
48 |
49 |
2.9 |
Utah |
44 |
49 |
2.9 |
BYU |
46 |
51 |
2.8 |
Connecticut |
54 |
51 |
2.8 |
American |
86 |
51 |
2.8 |
Oregon |
86 |
54 |
2.7 |
George Mason |
41 |
54 |
2.7 |
Temple |
53 |
54 |
2.7 |
Houston |
54 |
54 |
2.7 |
Tennessee |
57 |
54 |
2.7 |
Cardozo |
65 |
54 |
2.7 |
Kansas |
65 |
54 |
2.7 |
Denver |
76 |
54 |
2.7 |
Miami |
77 |
54 |
2.7 |
San Diego |
77 |
63 |
2.6 |
SMU |
46 |
63 |
2.6 |
Kentucky |
57 |
63 |
2.6 |
Case Western |
62 |
63 |
2.6 |
Georgia State |
65 |
63 |
2.6 |
Loyola-L.A. |
65 |
63 |
2.6 |
Missouri |
65 |
63 |
2.6 |
Pepperdine |
72 |
63 |
2.6 |
Pittsburgh |
82 |
71 |
2.5 |
Nebraska |
57 |
71 |
2.5 |
Richmond |
57 |
71 |
2.5 |
Rutgers |
62 |
71 |
2.5 |
UNLV |
62 |
71 |
2.5 |
Oklahoma |
72 |
71 |
2.5 |
Loyola-Chicago |
82 |
71 |
2.5 |
Brooklyn |
88 |
71 |
2.5 |
Indiana-Indy |
88 |
71 |
2.5 |
Hawaii |
100 |
80 |
2.4 |
Baylor |
51 |
80 |
2.4 |
Seton Hall |
57 |
80 |
2.4 |
Northeastern |
65 |
80 |
2.4 |
Cincinnati |
72 |
80 |
2.4 |
Arkansas-Fay. |
77 |
80 |
2.4 |
Villanova |
77 |
80 |
2.4 |
South Carolina |
88 |
80 |
2.4 |
Chicago-Kent |
92 |
80 |
2.4 |
Lewis & Clark |
100 |
80 |
2.4 |
Howard |
120 |
80 |
2.4 |
Seattle |
120 |
80 |
2.4 |
Santa Clara |
132 |
92 |
2.3 |
New Mexico |
77 |
92 |
2.3 |
Penn State Univ. |
82 |
92 |
2.3 |
St. Louis |
88 |
92 |
2.3 |
Louisville |
92 |
92 |
2.3 |
Syracuse |
92 |
92 |
2.3 |
Michigan State |
96 |
92 |
2.3 |
Marquette |
100 |
92 |
2.3 |
Hofstra |
118 |
92 |
2.3 |
DePaul |
120 |
92 |
2.3 |
Maine |
139 |
102 |
2.2 |
St. John's |
72 |
102 |
2.2 |
Texas A&M |
92 |
102 |
2.2 |
LSU |
96 |
102 |
2.2 |
West Virginia |
96 |
102 |
2.2 |
Catholic |
106 |
102 |
2.2 |
SUNY-Buffalo |
106 |
102 |
2.2 |
Mississippi |
109 |
102 |
2.2 |
UMKC |
112 |
102 |
2.2 |
CUNY |
127 |
102 |
2.2 |
Arkansas-L.R. |
134 |
102 |
2.2 |
Vermont |
134 |
113 |
2.1 |
Stetson |
96 |
113 |
2.1 |
Idaho |
109 |
113 |
2.1 |
Gonzaga |
112 |
113 |
2.1 |
Baltimore |
112 |
113 |
2.1 |
Drexel |
112 |
113 |
2.1 |
Wyoming |
112 |
113 |
2.1 |
Montana |
120 |
113 |
2.1 |
Loyola-N.O. |
142 |
121 |
2.0 |
Penn State-Dick. |
65 |
121 |
2.0 |
Tulsa |
82 |
121 |
2.0 |
New Hampshire |
100 |
121 |
2.0 |
Albany |
109 |
121 |
2.0 |
Creighton |
120 |
121 |
2.0 |
Mercer |
134 |
121 |
2.0 |
Suffolk |
140 |
121 |
2.0 |
North Dakota |
142 |
121 |
2.0 |
Willamette |
142 |
130 |
2.0 |
San Francisco |
Tier 2 |
130 |
1.9 |
Wayne State |
100 |
130 |
1.9 |
Drake |
106 |
130 |
1.9 |
New York Law S. |
112 |
130 |
1.9 |
Texas Tech |
118 |
130 |
1.9 |
Pace |
120 |
130 |
1.9 |
Quinnipiac |
127 |
130 |
1.9 |
Washburn |
127 |
130 |
1.9 |
Chapman |
134 |
130 |
1.9 |
Memphis |
140 |
130 |
1.9 |
McGeorge |
142 |
130 |
1.9 |
South Dakota |
142 |
130 |
1.9 |
Southwestern |
Tier 2 |
143 |
1.8 |
Florida Int'l |
100 |
143 |
1.8 |
St. Thomas (MN) |
120 |
143 |
1.8 |
Cleveland State |
127 |
143 |
1.8 |
Duquesne |
127 |
143 |
1.8 |
Toledo |
132 |
143 |
1.8 |
Akron |
134 |
149 |
1.7 |
Samford |
147 |
149 |
1.7 |
N. Illinois |
148 |
149 |
1.7 |
Dayton |
Tier 2 |
149 |
1.7 |
J. Marshall (IL) |
Tier 2 |
149 |
1.7 |
Mitchell-Hamline |
Tier 2 |
149 |
1.7 |
Roger Williams |
Tier 2 |
149 |
1.7 |
S. Illinois |
Tier 2 |
149 |
1.7 |
Widener (DE) |
Tier 2 |
157 |
1.6 |
Widener (PA) |
148 |
157 |
1.6 |
Cal-Western |
Tier 2 |
157 |
1.6 |
Elon |
Tier 2 |
157 |
1.6 |
Golden Gate |
Tier 2 |
157 |
1.6 |
N. Kentucky |
Tier 2 |
157 |
1.6 |
Nova |
Tier 2 |
157 |
1.6 |
South Texas |
Tier 2 |
157 |
1.6 |
St.Mary's |
Tier 2 |
157 |
1.6 |
Valparaiso |
Tier 2 |
166 |
1.5 |
Campbell |
Tier 2 |
166 |
1.5 |
Capital |
Tier 2 |
166 |
1.5 |
Detroit Mercy |
Tier 2 |
166 |
1.5 |
Dist. of Columbia |
Tier 2 |
166 |
1.5 |
Mississippi C. |
Tier 2 |
166 |
1.5 |
New England |
Tier 2 |
166 |
1.5 |
NC Central |
Tier 2 |
166 |
1.5 |
Ohio Northern |
Tier 2 |
166 |
1.5 |
Oklahoma City |
Tier 2 |
166 |
1.5 |
Texas Southern |
Tier 2 |
166 |
1.5 |
Touro |
Tier 2 |
166 |
1.5 |
U Mass. |
Tier 2 |
178 |
1.4 |
Florida A&M |
Tier 2 |
178 |
1.4 |
J. Marshall (GA) |
Tier 2 |
178 |
1.4 |
Southern |
Tier 2 |
178 |
1.4 |
St. Thomas (FL) |
Tier 2 |
178 |
1.4 |
W. New England |
Tier 2 |
178 |
1.4 |
Whittier |
Tier 2 |
184 |
1.3 |
Belmont |
Tier 2 |
184 |
1.3 |
Faulkner |
Tier 2 |
184 |
1.3 |
Charleston |
Tier 2 |
184 |
1.3 |
T. Jefferson |
Tier 2 |
188 |
1.2 |
Appalachian |
Tier 2 |
188 |
1.2 |
Ave Maria |
Tier 2 |
188 |
1.2 |
Barry |
Tier 2 |
188 |
1.2 |
Florida Coastal |
Tier 2 |
188 |
1.2 |
La Verne |
Tier 2 |
188 |
1.2 |
Liberty |
Tier 2 |
188 |
1.2 |
Regent |
Tier 2 |
188 |
1.2 |
W. Mich. Cooley |
Tier 2 |
188 |
1.1 |
Western State |
Tier 2 |
197 |
1.1 |
Ariz. Summit |
Tier 2 |
Prior years' rankings:
March 14, 2017 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (2)
Thursday, March 9, 2017
Seto: Associates Promoted To Partner in 2016 — The Top California Schools
TaxProf Blog op-ed: Associates Promoted to Partner in 2016: Top California Schools, by Theodore P. Seto (Loyola-L.A.):
According to the National Law Journal, the top 50 US law schools, ranked by the number of law firm associates promoted to partner nationally in 2016, included eight California schools:
Rank |
School |
Number |
15 |
UCLA |
20 |
22 |
UC-Hastings |
16 |
22 |
USC |
16 |
30 |
Santa Clara |
14 |
30 |
UC-Berkeley |
14 |
34 |
Loyola-L.A. |
13 |
36 |
Pepperdine |
12 |
42 |
Southwestern |
11 |
March 9, 2017 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (2)
Tuesday, March 7, 2017
NLJ: Law School Rankings By Graduates In BigLaw Jobs
National Law Journal, The 2017 Go-To Law Schools:
New associate hiring ticked up slightly in 2016, with the country’s largest 100 law firms bringing on 3,521 new law school graduates. Among the 50 law schools most popular with those employers, 24 percent of last year’s graduates landed associate jobs—up one percent over the previous year.
March 7, 2017 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (4)
Tuesday, February 21, 2017
2018 U.S. News Law School Rankings
Robert Morse (Chief Data Strategist, U.S. News & World Report) announced today that the new 2018 law school rankings will be released online on Tuesday, March 14 and in hard copy on Tuesday, April 11. Here is my coverage of the current 2017 law school rankings:
- 2017 U.S. News Law School Rankings Leak: The Top 50 100 (Mar. 10, 2016)
- 2017 U.S. News Peer Reputation Rankings (v. Overall Rankings) (Mar. 16, 2016)
- 2017 U.S. News Tax Rankings (Mar. 17, 2016)
- 2017 U.S News Law School Rankings: Average Student Debt (Mar. 18, 2016)
- After Topping Florida State Law School Again With #48 U.S. News Ranking, University Of Florida's New Dean Sets Sights On #35 Ranking Within 3-5 Years (Mar. 21, 2016)
- Texas A&M Law School Shrinks Entering Class By 42% (To 140), Vaults 38 Spots (To 111) In U.S. News Rankings (Mar. 21, 2016)
- U.S. News Data: Law School Costs, Starting Salaries For Grads (Mar. 21, 2016)
- The Best Law Schools For Practical Training (Mar. 23, 2016)
- NYU B-School Did Not Provide GMAT Scores To U.S. News, Falls From #11 To #20 In Rankings (Mar. 28, 2016)
- Map Of The Top 50 Law Schools: 1/3 Are West Of The Mississippi River (Mar. 28, 2016)
- Law School Rankings By Influential Judicial Alumni Measured By H-Index: Michigan Is #1 (Mar. 30, 2016)
- The Most Diverse Law Schools (Apr. 8, 2016)
- 2016 Religious Law School Rankings (Apr. 10, 2016)
- Law School Rankings By Employment Outcomes: New York And D.C./Maryland/Virginia (Apr. 17, 2016)
- Princeton Review's Best 173 Law Schools (2016 Edition) (Apr. 18, 2016)
- Law School Rankings By Employment Outcomes: California (Apr. 19, 2016)
- Law School Rankings: Graduates Who Made Partner In AmLaw 100 In 2015 (Apr. 25, 2016)
- Law School Rankings By Employment Outcomes: Florida, Texas (Apr. 28, 2016)
- After U.S. News Stopped Giving Full Weight To Law School-Funded Jobs, 52% Of Those Jobs Disappeared (May 3, 2016)
- Law School Rankings: Federal Judicial Clerkships (May 4, 2016)
- 2015-16 Moot Court Rankings (May 10, 2016)
- Above The Law Top 50 Law School Rankings (May 24, 2016)
- Penn State Law Faculty 'Discontent' Amidst Failed Dean Search, Two Year 'Downward Descent (From #51) Into Rankings Oblivion (#86)' (May 27, 2016)
- The 69 Most-Cited Law Faculties (And The Most-Cited Tax Faculty At Those Schools) (June 1, 2016)
- U.S. News Law School Rankings: Yield (June 1, 2016)
- Pay To Play Hits Law School 'Rankings' (June 7, 2016)
- Law Grad Employment Rose At 158 Law Schools Over Past Five Years (July 8, 2016)
- U.S. News: Law Schools With The Lowest Debt, Highest Rank—BYU, Georgia State, Nebraska, Tennessee (July 25, 2016)
- Business Insider: The 50 Best Law Schools In America (July 27, 2016)
- Chodorow: A Derivative Market For U.S. News Rankings (Aug. 16, 2016)
- Rankings Of 117 Private Law Schools By Tuition Increases Since 2010 (Aug. 16, 2016)
- How Prestige And Rankings Can Help Law Schools Avoid The Same Fate As The 12% Of Dental Schools That Closed In 1986-1997 (Aug. 21, 2016)
- Law Faculty Rankings By Judicial Citations (Aug. 26, 2016)
- Average Private Law School Tuition Discount: 28% (55% W&L, 54% WashU, 53% Case) (Sept. 12, 2016)
- A Tale Of Two (Los Angeles) Law Schools: Enrollment, Student Quality, And Rankings (Sept. 19, 2016)
- The Best (Columbia, NYU) And Worst (Pace, Seton Hall, Hofstra) New York Law Schools For BigLaw Jobs (Sept. 29, 2016)
- WSJ Should Publish Law School Rankings To Supplant U.S. News, Focusing On Student Outputs (Not Inputs), Quantitative Measures Of Faculty Research (Not Reputation Surveys) (Oct. 5, 2016)
- Princeton Review's Best 172 Law Schools (2017 Edition) (Oct. 7, 20216)
- Focus On Reputation/Selectivity Over Earnings/Outcomes Will Render U.S. News Rankings An Anachronism (Oct. 23, 2016)
- Weapons Of Math Destruction: How U.S. News' 'Craven' Decision To Eschew Affordability In Its Rankings Increases Inequality (Oct. 24, 2016)
- Law School Student Debt Rankings (Nov. 23, 2016)
- Law School Rankings By Job Placement (Dec. 1, 2016)
February 21, 2017 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (0)
Thursday, February 16, 2017
ADR And International Law Curriculum Rankings (Pepperdine Earns A+, A- Grades)
ADR Curricular Leaders, 20 preLaw 48 (Winter 2017):
Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) specialty programs aren't easy to come by, but the 86 schools that do offer the specialty provide a wide range of options. We graded all schools on curricular offerings, and three earned an A+ — Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University; University of Missouri School of Law; and Pepperdine University School of Law. Their offerings include workplace conflict resolution training for the Los Angeles Police Department, participating in a dispute resolution journal and dispute resolution skills competitions. ...
February 16, 2017 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (1)
Sunday, February 12, 2017
Pepperdine Law School Dean’s Bible Study: Celebrating 37 Years
Pepperdine Law School Surf Report, Dean’s Bible Study: Celebrating 37 Years:
The Dean’s Bible Study began some 37 years ago, a humble beginning to what is now a cherished and celebrated staple at Pepperdine Law. It first began meeting in the 1980s and has been in continuous existence for most of the life of the law school. Every Wednesday evening, rain, shine, or looming exams, students flood over to the residence of Professor and Director of Global Programs Jim Gash and his wife Joline. Gash spoke about the student organized and student led gathering:
“My wife and I are privileged to provide the venue and some snacks. Each week, we sing a few songs, pray together, and get to hear from a student, professor, administrator, or other guest about a topic related to the speaker’s journey of faith. One goal with this gathering is to provide a sense of community for those looking to integrate their faith into their law school studies and career.
February 12, 2017 in Law School Rankings | Permalink | Comments (0)
Saturday, February 11, 2017
This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts
- Tax Court Upholds President Trump's Authority To Fire Judges
- As Law Prof, Gorsuch Banned Laptops, Garnered Respect
- WSJ: Taming IRS Imperialism
- ABA 'Overwhelmingly' Rejects 75% Bar Passage Requirement
- Graetz: Business Tax Reforms In The House GOP Blueprint
- Katherine Magbanua's Murder Trial In Killing Of Dan Markel Is Delayed As Two Inmates Say Alleged Hit Man Sigfredo Garcia Implicated Charlie And Donna Adelson
- Charlotte Law Students Skewer Administration; Terminated Faculty Lawyer Up
- Pratt Presents The IRS's Startling Attempt To Deny Medical Expense Deduction For Cost Of Male-To-Female Transition Today At Pepperdine
- NY Times: The Crisis At Charlotte Law School
- LSSSE: Law School Merit Scholarship Policies — Engines Of Inequity
February 11, 2017 in About This Blog, Law School Rankings, Tax, Weekly Top 10 TaxProf Blog Posts | Permalink | Comments (0)
Thursday, February 9, 2017
The Top 20 Moot Court Programs (2010-2016)
Best Schools for Mott Court, National Jurist (Winter 2017):
Every year, the [University of Houston Law Center's Blakely Advocacy Institute] identifies the top schools using a scoring method that assesses the quality of the competition a school participated in, the size of the competitions, and the school's performance in those competitions. The institute then invites the top 16 from the prior year to participate in what it calls "the best of the best" — the Andrews Kurth Moot Court National Championship. Last year, Georgetown University Law Center won the competition.
February 9, 2017 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (0)
Wednesday, January 25, 2017
2017 SoFi Return on Education Law School Rankings
SoFi, 2017 Law School Rankings: Return on Education:
By analyzing more than 60,000 student loan refinancing applications over a 3-year period from Janu-ary 2014 to December 2016, SoFi has updated its Return on Education (ROED) Law School Rankings grounded in verified income and debt — not just reported figures. This represents the most objective, factually accurate and defensible data that can't be found or replicated anywhere else.
Graduating from law school can have a positive impact on lifetime earnings, but given the high cost of tuition and steep interest rates on graduate student loans, the ROED can vary significantly by school. Through SoFi's analysis, find out how the top JD programs — and those with the worst payoff — stack up when it comes to average salary and student debt load for graduates who are 3 years out of school.
Quartz, Charted: The American Law Schools Most—And Least—Worth Your Money:
January 25, 2017 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (4)
Wednesday, January 18, 2017
Law Schools Have Shed 1,460 Full-Time Faculty (16.1%) Since 2010
Matt Leichter has published the 2016 edition of his Which Law Schools Are Shedding Full-Time Faculty? Law schools have shed 1,460 full-time faculty (16.1%) since 2010, and 261 full-time faculty (3.3%) since last year.
149 law schools have shed full-time faculty since 2010, with 20 law schools shedding 20 or more full-time faculty:
FULL-TIME FACULTY (FALL) | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
RANK | SCHOOL | ’10 | ’15 | ’16 | ANNUAL CHANGE | NET CHANGE |
1. | WMU Cooley | 101 | 44 | 41 | -3 | -60 |
2. | American | 104 | 91 | 52 | -39 | -52 |
3. | John Marshall (Chicago) | 75 | 45 | 27 | -18 | -48 |
4. | Florida Coastal | 69 | 37 | 24 | -13 | -45 |
5. | George Washington | 106 | 70 | 69 | -1 | -37 |
6. | St. Louis | 65 | 45 | 34 | -11 | -31 |
7. | Catholic | 56 | 32 | 27 | -5 | -29 |
8. | Seton Hall | 59 | 37 | 32 | -5 | -27 |
8. | Vermont | 55 | 27 | 28 | +1 | -27 |
8. | Seattle | 66 | 47 | 39 | -8 | -27 |
11. | Widener (Delaware) | 50 | 31 | 24 | -7 | -26 |
11. | New York Law School | 71 | 48 | 45 | -3 | -26 |
13. | McGeorge | 63 | 34 | 39 | +5 | -24 |
14. | Pace | 47 | 30 | 25 | -5 | -22 |
14. | Cleveland State | 39 | 19 | 17 | -2 | -22 |
16. | Santa Clara | 65 | 45 | 44 | -1 | -21 |
16. | DePaul | 56 | 32 | 35 | +3 | -21 |
16. | Hofstra | 60 | 34 | 39 | +5 | -21 |
19. | Nova | 60 | 48 | 40 | -8 | -20 |
19. | New England | 40 | 26 | 20 | -6 | -20 |
January 18, 2017 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (6)
Tuesday, December 13, 2016
July 2016 California Bar Exam Results: Nine Law Schools (Including UC-Hastings) Are At Risk Of Failing ABA's Proposed New Bar Passage Accreditation Standard
The California State Bar has released school by school data on the July 2016 California Bar Exam. Here are the results for first time test takers for the 21 California ABA-approved law schools, along with each school's U.S. News ranking (California and overall):
Bar Pass Rank (Rate) |
School |
US News Rank CA (Overall) |
1 (91%) |
Stanford |
1 (2) |
2 (88%) |
USC |
4 (19) |
3 (84%) |
UC-Berkeley |
2 (8) |
4 (82%) |
UCLA |
3 (17) |
5 (81%) |
UC-Irvine |
5 (28) |
6 (72%) |
UC-Davis |
6 (30) |
6 (72%) |
Loyola-L.A. |
8 (65) |
8 (71%) |
San Diego |
10 (74) |
9 (70%) |
Pepperdine |
8 (65) |
10 (66%) |
Santa Clara |
11 (129) |
62% |
Statewide Ave. (CA ABA-Approved) |
|
11 (61%) |
McGeorge |
13 (144) |
11 (61%) |
Cal-Western |
Tier 2 |
13 (57%) |
Chapman |
12 (136) |
14 (51%) |
UC-Hastings |
7 (50) |
15 (42%) |
Western State |
Tier 2 |
16 (38%) |
Southwestern |
Tier 2 |
17 (36%) |
San Francisco |
Tier 2 |
18 (31%) |
Golden Gate |
Tier 2 |
18 (31%) |
La Verne |
Tier 2 |
18 (31%) |
T. Jefferson |
Tier 2 |
21 (22%) |
Whittier |
Tier 2 |
The Recorder, By the Numbers: How California Law Schools Fared on the Bar Exam:
Just five of 21 California law schools accredited by the American Bar Association had at least 75 percent of their graduates pass the July bar exam, a proposed new benchmark rate that in coming years could spell trouble for some institutions.
December 13, 2016 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (10)
Saturday, December 10, 2016
Fall 2017 Law School Applicants Down 5.1%
LSAC, Three-Year ABA Volume Comparison:
As of 12/02/16, there are 81,710 applications submitted by 14,892 applicants for the 2017–2018 academic year. Applicants are down 5.1% and applications are down 1.7% from 2016–2017. Last year at this time, we had 28% of the preliminary final applicant count.
December 10, 2016 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (2)
Thursday, December 1, 2016
Law School Rankings By Job Placement
Dan Filler (Drexel) has mined the ABA placement data to rank all 203 law schools by the percentage of graduates in the class of 2015 who found full-time non-law school funded long term J.D.-required or J.D.-advantage jobs within nine months after graduation, along with each school's U.S. News rank. (He notes glitches in the data in a later post.) Here are the Top 25:
Job Rank | US News Rank | School | Percentage |
1 | 7 | PENN | 93% |
2 | 11 | DUKE | 92% |
2 | 60 | KENTUCKY | 92% |
4 | 13 | CORNELL | 91% |
4 | 2 | HARVARD | 91% |
4 | 4 | CHICAGO | 91% |
7 | 6 | NYU | 90% |
7 | 4 | COLUMBIA | 90% |
9 | 2 | STANFORD | 89% |
9 | 12 | NORTHWESTERN | 89% |
11 | 8 | MICHIGAN | 88% |
12 | 8 | VIRGINIA | 87% |
12 | 65 | SETON HALL | 87% |
12 | 8 | UC-BERKELEY | 87% |
15 | 55 | BAYLOR | 86% |
15 | 30 | OHIO STATE | 86% |
15 | 18 | WASHINGTON UNIV. | 86% |
18 | 25 | ARIZONA STATE | 85% |
18 | 20 | IOWA | 85% |
18 | 1 | YALE | 85% |
21 | 45 | GEORGE MASON | 84% |
21 | 57 | NEBRASKA | 84% |
21 | 86 | ARKANSAS | 84% |
21 | 45 | SMU | 84% |
25 | 30 | BOSTON COLLEGE | 83% |
25 | 33 | GEORGIA | 83% |
25 | 86 | TULSA | 83% |
25 | 16 | VANDERBILT | 83% |
Dan notes "there are other ways to slice the data," and my Pepperdine colleague Rob Anderson does so in Law Schools Ranked by Employment. Rob notes the many "oddities" in Dan's ranking, including Kentucky (2), Georgetown (78), and UC-Irvine (127):
I decided to use a technique have written about in the past to produce a better ranking of law schools by ABA employment data. Professor Filler's post really isn't fair to excellent schools like Georgetown, and is especially harsh to UC Irvine, which Professor Filler's approach ranks at #127. My technique takes into account all of the ABA data and uses a dimensionality reduction technique to squash the data into a single dimension. It counts some categories as negatives and some as positives, and uses information about "biglaw" versus "small law" jobs, etc. This ranking, which I denote A-Rank to distinguish it from Filler's F-Rank, is far from perfect, but it is clearly a significant improvement and I think readers will find it more informative.
December 1, 2016 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (4)
Wednesday, November 23, 2016
Law School Student Debt Rankings
JD Journal, Law School Debt Rankings — Law Schools with the Highest Debt:
U.S. News and World Report analyzed the indebtedness of law school graduates in 2015, and they discovered a huge gap between the school with the highest student debt, Thomas Jefferson School of Law, and the least, University of Hawaii-Manoa. To no one’s surprise, the majority of graduates had student loan debt, but what was shocking about this list was that even the non-top ranked schools came with a heavy price tag for students.
Here are the ten law schools with the highest student debt, and the ten law schools with the lowest student debt:
November 23, 2016 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (6)
Saturday, November 12, 2016
preLaw Magazine Grades Law Schools On Breadth Of Tax Curriculum: 2 A's, 9 A-'s, 8 B+'s
Top Schools for Taxation, preLaw 49 (Fall 2016):
There has never been a more exciting time to be a tax lawyer.
That's straight from the mouth of Paul Caron, professor of law at Pepperdine university School of Law and the publisher of TaxProf Blog.
Employment prospects are currently and will likely remain high, compared to other areas of law, making the specialty a fairly safe one to enter. Tax law is not subject to booms and busts like real estate, said Caron.
"There are always tax needs, and tax professionals need to meet those needs," Caron said. "It's never really a booming practice, but the upside is, it's never really a down practice area."
One hundred and nine schools offer either concentrations or certificates in taxation, but just two schools earned A grades [90% or higher] from preLaw magazine for the breadth of their curricular offerings [30% for a concentration, 24% for a clinic, 12% for a center, 12% for an externship, 9% for a journal, 8% for a student group and 5% for a certificate]: Loyola Law School, Los Angeles and Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University. ... Nine schools earned A- [75%-89%], and eight more earned B+.
November 12, 2016 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education, Tax | Permalink | Comments (0)
Monday, October 24, 2016
Weapons Of Math Destruction: How U.S. News' 'Craven' Decision To Eschew Affordability In Its Rankings Increases Inequality
The Traps of Big Data (reviewing Cathy O'Neil, Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy (2016)):
As O’Neil defines it, a weapon of math destruction, or WMD, has three elements: Opacity, Scale, and Damage. Combined, these factors create traps with feedback loops, capturing victims in systems they can’t understand and can’t escape, all the while exploiting them. Of the three, Scale seems the most pernicious element, enabling Damage.
After a critique of value-add theory for teachers and a refresher course on the 2008 credit-default swaps and mortgage-backed securities that led to the Great Recession’s financial meltdown, O’Neil produces a trenchant analysis of the U.S. News & World Report college rankings. After reading this chapter about how higher education has become captured by a big data system, the limitations and difficulties of the Impact Factor seem downright charming.
October 24, 2016 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (4)
Sunday, October 23, 2016
Focus On Reputation/Selectivity Over Earnings/Outcomes Will Render U.S. News Rankings An Anachronism
New York Times, How Much Graduates Earn Drives More College Rankings:
PayScale introduced its first college salary report in 2008, and the College Scorecard from the federal government followed last year, ushering an elephant into the hallowed halls of college admissions: What do the schools’ graduates actually earn?
Despite the hand-wringing of many in academia, who saw the immeasurable richness of a college education crassly reduced to a dollar sign, the data has wrought a sea change in the way students and families evaluate prospective colleges. Earnings data are finding their way into a proliferating number of mainstream college rankings, shifting the competitive landscape of American higher education in often surprising ways.
October 23, 2016 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (5)
Wednesday, October 12, 2016
Online Law School Rankings
- Villanova: Villanova University offers an LL.M. in Taxation fully online. ... This degree is available 100 percent online and is taught in an interesting manner. Although most of the courses are asynchronous, there are debates, discussions, and class activities that are done in real-time on an almost weekly basis. This allows students to study on their own time and bring their knowledge and perspective to share with their class at appointed intervals. ... Students will also have the opportunity to partake in study and tutoring groups, do research with the help of the school’s online law library, speak with online advisors, and more. It is the best tax program for any lawyer in the country, and the overall experience of attending Villanova makes it the top pick for this ranking.
- Washington University
- USC
- NYU
- Florida
- Boston University
- George Washington
- Illinois
- Pittsburgh
- Tulsa
October 12, 2016 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (3)
Friday, October 7, 2016
Princeton Review's Best 172 Law Schools (2017 Edition)
The Princeton Review has published the 2017 edition of The Best 172 Law Schools (press release) (FAQs) (methodology):
The Princeton Review tallied its lists based on its surveys of 19,400 students attending the 172 law schools [an average of 113 per school]. The 80-question survey asked students to rate their schools on several topics and report on their experiences. Some ranking list tallies also factored in school-reported data.
Best Professors: Based on student answers to survey questions concerning how good their professors are as teachers and how accessible they are outside the classroom.
- Boston University
- Virginia
- Chicago
- Duke
- Stanford
- Washington & Lee
- Pepperdine
- St. Thomas (Minnesota)
- Charleston
- Georgia
Best Quality of Life: Based on student answers to survey questions on: whether there is a strong sense of community at the school, whether differing opinions are tolerated in the classroom, the location of the school, the quality of social life at the school, the school's research resources (library, computer and database resources).
October 7, 2016 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (1)
Wednesday, October 5, 2016
WSJ Should Publish Law School Rankings To Supplant U.S. News, Focusing On Student Outputs (Not Inputs), Quantitative Measures Of Faculty Research (Not Reputation Surveys)
John O. McGinnis (Northwestern), A WSJ Ranking of Law Schools Would Improve Legal Education:
The Wall Street Journal in partnership with the Times Educational Supplement has just released a ranking of colleges. It provides a useful corrective to the more famous rankings by U.S. News and World Report, because it focuses more on the student outputs rather than inputs. That is, while U.S. News heavily weights the credentials of incoming students, such as the SAT scores and high school grades, the Wall Street Journal weights the outputs, like student satisfaction and salaries earned at graduation. This ranking system also appears to take a more quantitative approach to the quality of the faculty, relying less on reputation and more on actual research output.
It would be hugely beneficial for legal education, if this consortium were to undertake similar rankings of law schools. It would undermine the unhealthy power of US News’ ranking of law schools, which, as with colleges, focuses more on student inputs than outputs. ...
October 5, 2016 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (5)
Thursday, September 29, 2016
The Best (Columbia, NYU) And Worst (Pace, Seton Hall, Hofstra) New York Law Schools For BigLaw Jobs
Above the Law, The Best (And Worst) New York Law Schools For Biglaw Jobs:
[O]ne tipster has gone through and actually broken down how many students from each New York area school are landing at specific Biglaw firms. Here’s the methodology:
I scoured the websites of Cravath, S&C, DPW, Skadden, STB, Cleary, PW, Debevoise, Latham, and K&E (Weil’s website made it impractical to include them), and saw how many associates they each currently employ from Brooklyn, Columbia, Cardozo, Fordham, Hofstra, NYLS, NYU, Pace, Rutgers, Seton Hall, St. Johns. Since I was mainly interested in recent placement, I kept the list to associates only (no partners, counsel, etc). My goal was to see how successful each school has been at placing students at these top firms, and if you’re really that much better off paying more to go to a better school (spoiler alert: you are). ...
September 29, 2016 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (6)
Wednesday, September 28, 2016
2017 Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education College Rankings
Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education College Rankings:
Outcomes (40%):
- Graduation rate (11%)
- Value added to graduate salary (12%)
- Value added to the loan repayment rate (7%)
- Academic reputation (10%)
Resources (30%):
- Finance per student (11%)
- Faculty per student (11%)
- Research papers per faculty (8%)
Engagement (20%):
- Student engagement (7%)
- Student recommendation (6%)
- Interaction with teachers and students (4%)
- Number of accredited programmes (3%)
Environment (10%):
- Proportion of international students (2%)
- Student diversity (3%)
- Student inclusion (2%)
- Staff diversity (3%)
The inaugural WSJ/THE rankings list over 1,000 schools. Here are the Top 25:
September 28, 2016 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (1)
Tuesday, September 27, 2016
Illinois Law Review Publishes Ranking Of 81 Online Law Reviews
Nancy Levit (UMKC) & Allen Rostron (UMKC) maintain a guide to submitting articles to 204 law reviews (last updated in 2016). The guide contains two charts: (1) the mechanics of the submission process, and (2) the ranking of the law reviews and their schools in six measures: (a) US. News Overall Rank; (ii) U.S. News Peer Reputation; (iii) U.S. News Judge/Lawyer Reputation Rating; (iv) Washington & Lee Law Review Citation Ranking; (v) Washington & Lee Law Review Impact Factor; and (vi) Washington & Lee Law Review Combined Rating.
Colin Miller (South Carolina) maintains a guide to submitting articles to 49 law review online supplements (last updated in 2013). The guide contains a chart on the mechanics of the submission process.
The Illinois Law Review has just published a ranking of 81 online law reviews (SSRN) and their schools in three measures: (1) US. News Overall Rank; (ii) U.S. News Peer Reputation Rank; and (iii) Washington & Lee Law Review Combined Ranking.
September 27, 2016 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (0)
Saturday, September 24, 2016
2016-17 World University Rankings
London-based Times Higher Education has released its annual World University Rankings of the Top 980 universities in the world, based on this methodology of 13 variables in five categories:
Here are the Top 25 Universities in the World, along with their scores:
Rank |
School |
Score |
1 |
Oxford |
95.0 |
2 |
Cal-Tech |
94.3 |
3 |
Stanford |
93.8 |
4 |
Cambridge |
93.6 |
5 |
MIT |
93.4 |
6 |
Harvard |
02.7 |
7 |
Princeton |
90.2 |
8 |
Imperial College London |
90.0 |
9 |
ETH Zurich |
89.3 |
10 |
Chicago |
88.9 |
10 |
UC-Berkeley |
88.9 |
12 |
Yale |
88.2 |
13 |
Pennsylvania |
87.1 |
14 |
UCLA |
86.6 |
15 |
University College London |
86.5 |
16 |
Columbia |
86.1 |
17 |
Johns Hopkins |
85.9 |
18 |
Duke |
84.7 |
19 |
Cornell |
84.6 |
20 |
Northwestern |
83.7 |
21 |
Michigan |
83.6 |
22 |
Toronto |
83.0 |
23 |
Carnegie Mellon |
81.8 |
24 |
National University of Singapore |
81.7 |
25 |
London School of Economics |
80.7 |
September 24, 2016 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (6)
Monday, September 19, 2016
A Tale Of Two (Los Angeles) Law Schools: Enrollment, Student Quality, And Rankings
Last week, USC (23) passed UCLA (24) in the 2017 U.S. News College Rankings. In the U.S. News Law School Rankings, UCLA consistently tops USC:
The gap may widen in the 2018 law school rankings. USC welcomed 231 1Ls this Fall, an increase of 22% from last year (and a 5% increase from 2010), resulting in a one-point decrease in its 50th percentile LSAT, to 165. UCLA welcomed 293 1Ls this Fall, the same number as last year (and a 5% decrease from 2010), resulting in a one-point increase in its 50th percentile LSAT, to 167. UCLA now has a higher 50% percentile LSAT than UC-Berkeley (166). Here are UCLA and USC's admissions data for the prior six years from Law School Transparency:
September 19, 2016 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tuesday, September 13, 2016
2017 U.S. News College Rankings
U.S. News & World Report today released its 2017 College Rankings. Here are the Top 25 National Universities and Liberal Arts Colleges (along with their 2014-2016 rankings):
2017 Rank |
National Universities |
2016 Rank |
2015 Rank |
2014 Rank |
1 |
Princeton |
1 |
1 |
1 |
2 |
Harvard |
2 |
2 |
2 |
3 |
Chicago |
3 |
4 |
5 |
3 |
Yale |
3 |
3 |
3 |
5 |
Columbia |
4 |
4 |
4 |
5 |
Stanford |
4 |
4 |
5 |
7 |
MIT |
7 |
7 |
7 |
8 |
Duke |
8 |
8 |
7 |
8 |
Penn |
9 |
9 |
8 |
10 |
Johns Hopkins |
10 |
12 |
12 |
11 |
Dartmouth |
12 |
11 |
10 |
12 |
Cal-Tech |
10 |
10 |
10 |
12 |
Northwestern |
12 |
13 |
12 |
14 |
Brown |
14 |
16 |
14 |
15 |
Cornell |
15 |
15 |
16 |
15 |
Notre Dame |
18 |
18 |
18 |
15 |
Rice |
18 |
19 |
18 |
15 |
Vanderbilt |
16 |
17 |
17 |
19 |
Washington (St. Louis) |
15 |
15 |
14 |
20 |
Emory |
21 |
21 |
20 |
20 |
Georgetown |
21 |
21 |
20 |
20 |
UC-Berkeley |
20 |
20 |
20 |
23 |
USC |
23 |
25 |
23 |
24 |
Carnegie Mellon |
23 |
25 |
23 |
24 |
UCLA |
23 |
23 |
23 |
24 |
Virginia |
26 |
23 |
23 |
Pepperdine is ranked #50 (tied with Florida, Penn State, and Villanova, above #54 Ohio State and University of Washington).
September 13, 2016 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (2)
Monday, September 12, 2016
Average Private Law School Tuition Discount: 28% (55% W&L, 54% WashU, 53% Case)
How Much Does Law School Really Cost?, preLaw, Vol. 20, No. 1, 2016, at 26:
[T]he vast majority of law schools discount their tuition through scholarships, some as much as 50 percent. The average tuition discount for private law schools was 28 percent in 2014-15, up from 25 percent the year before. ...
The ABA makes available the number of scholarships per school, the percentage of students receiving scholarships, the median scholarship amount and the scholarship amounts at the 25th and 75th percentiles. With this data. preLaw estimated the average grant amount and the average tuition discount per school. (PreLaw focused on private schools only because it is difficult to determine how much public schools discount, given that most have two tuition rates — one for residents and one for non-residents.)
Here are the nine law schools with tuition discounts in excess of 50%, and the ten law schools with tuition discounts under 15%:
September 12, 2016 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (0)
Friday, August 26, 2016
Law Faculty Rankings By Judicial Citations
Valerie Aggerbeck, Nick Farris, Megan McNevin & Gregory C. Sisk (all of St. Thomas-Minnesota), Judicial Impact of Law School Faculties:
This study is a follow-up to our scholarly impact study published in 2015, Scholarly Impact of Law School Faculties in 2015: Updating the Leiter Score Ranking for the Top Third. Looking at an expanded time period (2005-2014), we assessed the extent to which extensive citations in the legal literature translated into citations by courts. It is important to acknowledge that the judicial citation rates were very low, precluding extensive analysis and making it difficult to regard some of the results as reliable and robust. Our study indicates that a certain subset of scholars are both noticed and cited by the judiciary as well as their peers.
August 26, 2016 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education, Scholarship | Permalink | Comments (0)
Sunday, August 21, 2016
How Prestige And Rankings Can Help Law Schools Avoid The Same Fate As The 12% Of Dental Schools That Closed In 1986-1997
Following up on my previous posts:
- Will Top Tier Law Schools be the First to Close, Like Emory and Georgetown Dental Schools? (Nov. 18, 2013)
- Will 10% of Law Schools Close by 2019, Just as 10% of Dental Schools Closed 25 Years Ago? (Oct. 21, 2014)
Eric A. Chiappinelli (Texas Tech), Like Pulling Teeth: How Dental Education's Crisis Shows the Way Forward for Law Schools:
Nearly all observers of the current law school crisis treat legal education as a unique discipline. In their view, legal education as a whole, and individual law schools, have nothing to learn from outsiders that would be useful in reacting to, or thriving in the face of, the radical changes in legal education that have resulted from the collapse of the admissions market.
I take an entirely different approach. I believe legal education is not sui generis. In fact, another profession faced a similar crisis. Its schools’ admissions market collapsed because of a fundamental change in the profession itself. Twelve percent of those schools were closed. That profession was dentistry, and the lessons from its crisis are the way forward for legal education and for law schools.
August 21, 2016 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tuesday, August 16, 2016
Rankings Of 117 Private Law Schools By Tuition Increases Since 2010
Matt Leichter, So Just How Far Off Were My Tuition Projections?:
Thanks to the ABA’s 509 information reports, I get $44,413 mean-average tuition at the [117] private law schools that were around in 2010. ... On average, tuition is 17 percent higher than 2010. ...
Below the fold, here’s a list of [the 117] private law schools by cumulative cost increase between 2010 and 2015.
August 16, 2016 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (1)
Chodorow: A Derivative Market For U.S. News Rankings
TaxProf Blog op-ed: A Derivative Market for U.S. News Rankings, by Adam Chodorow (Arizona State):
Our law and economic brethren never tire of telling us that markets are the perfect solution for just about any problem. So, what is the biggest problem facing law schools? The slowdown in the legal employment market? The steep decline in applicants? Rising tuition? If you ask law professors and administrators, many would likely say the U.S. News & World rankings, which evaluate schools on an ever changing array of factors, often leading to head scratching results. Who doesn’t know of a school that is over or underrated?
I say we unleash the market on this problem. And by that I don’t mean create competing ranking systems that focus on more relevant factors. Instead, let’s treat schools like securities or commodities, with the rankings as their value, and allow people to buy and sell derivatives. Think a school is overrated? Short it. Think it is underrated? Go long. (Yes, Brian Leiter, I’m thinking of you and USD) If there is truly wisdom in crowds, the derivative market for schools could tell us (legal academics, prospective students, and employers) a lot more about schools than a much-maligned magazine. Think of this as akin to unskewed polls. Or perhaps not. That didn’t end so well, if memory serves.
Now I know this sounds crazy—and I’m not saying it’s not—but bear with me for a moment. Significant research is being done into predictive markets in a variety of different contexts. For instance, there is now a derivative market for presidential candidates (distinct from the actual market in which large donors participate), which some believe are more accurate than polls. Some companies are using this approach with their employees to get a handle on anticipated sales and other figures. They’re finding that markets beat estimates made the traditional way. The key is that people must have some skin in the game. It turns out that it’s not only a pending execution that focuses the mind.
August 16, 2016 in Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (2)