N.J. Judges Told: Just Say No to U.S. News Law School Survey

The New Jersey Administrative Office of the Courts has issued a directive to all New Jersey state court judges to refrain from filling out the reputational survey for the U.S. News & World Report law school rankings:

In Directive #33-65, issued July 8, 1966, Administrative Director McConnell advised the judges of the Supreme Court’s conclusion that it would be inappropriate for judges to participate in the rating of attorneys as part of Martindale-Hubbell’s attorney rating system. That Directive remains in effect.

This Directive is to advise judges that it would be similarly inappropriate to provide ratings of law schools as part of US News & World Report’s survey of "America’s Best Graduate Schools". Judges in your vicinage may have received a request this month to complete a questionnaire rating the various law schools throughout the United States, including New Jersey’s three law schools. Please advise the judges in your vicinages as to the inappropriateness of completing and submitting that survey.

It will be interesting to see if this directive affects the performance of Rutgers-Newark (# 78 in Assessment by Lawyers and Judges in 2004, # 72 overall), Rutgers-Camden (# 89 & # 72, respectively) and Seton Hall (# 89 & # 89, respectively) in the next U.S. News rankings. For prior TaxProf Blog coverage of law school rankings, including our forthcoming symposium on The Next Generation of Law School Rankings to be held at Indiana-Bloomington on April 15, 2005, see here and here.