The Travesty Of The US News Rankings: How Legal Education Should Be Measured

Reuben Guttman (American) & Gregg Ivers (American), The Travesty of The US News Rankings: How Legal Education Should be Measured, 10 Emory Corp. Governance & Accountability Rev. __ (2023):

The authors analyze the detrimental impact on legal education attributable to the chase for US News rankings and tell the story of how one law school—Howard University Law—forged its reputation on the success of alumni who litigated cutting edge civil rights cases. It is the Howard experience that provides a model for how legal education should be measured. ...

“In the last analysis,” wrote Felix Frankfurter, “the law is what the lawyers are. And the law and the lawyers are what the law schools make them.” And therefore, law school Deans need to forget rankings and just focus on turning out lawyers who can meet the enormous challenges of the day. And if these Deans worry that they will have no benchmark to measure their efforts, they need only look at the accomplishments of their alumni. That should be enough; surely it was for Charles Hamilton Houston.