1. Anon - March 27, 2007 at 5:05 pm

   Can these be right? There are some significant shifts. Also, where is Wisconsin?

2. dave - March 27, 2007 at 5:08 pm

   I don’t know if they are right, although Orin Kerr posted the list on the VC and the ones I checked looked the same. Wisconsin is at 31. I missed it before, somehow.

3. HughRice - March 27, 2007 at 6:48 pm

   I’m going to gas the family of the first person I meet who publishes these things.

4. David - March 27, 2007 at 7:09 pm

   It’s funny how the administrations of any law schools that fell will talk about how meaningless the rankings are, while schools that rose will be filled with self-congrlatory posturing.

   But that said, they are relatively meaningless and certainly pernicious in their influence, particularly in spreading the disease of a crudely simplistic form of economics through the academy, strangling funds to needy students, and herding graduates towards sweatshop firms.

5. Dan Markel - March 27, 2007 at 7:27 pm

   Where’s American?

6. Dan Markel - March 27, 2007 at 7:29 pm

   Oops, my eyes glazed over somehow…please delete both comments…

7. dave - March 27, 2007 at 7:29 pm

   #47. The original list missed one.

8. ipsedixister - March 27, 2007 at 8:02 pm

   Am I the only one who sees the irony here? Everyone decries the USNWR rankings, but even the blog scholars can’t resist obsessing over them. How sad.

9. Anon - March 27, 2007 at 8:06 pm

   5:05 pm: I worked undergrad admissions for a couple years and learned at least one thing about US News. They have to make some significant moves within the rankings each year because otherwise the rankings wouldn’t be interesting and people wouldn’t buy the magazine.

10. Other Michael - March 27, 2007 at 9:42 pm

    Where is Regent?

11. neal - March 27, 2007 at 10:42 pm

    dude – where is MIT?

12. BU2L - March 28, 2007 at 12:02 am

    I can’t believe BU is outranking BC again. I am happy, but I seriously cannot believe it. Another year to brag.

13. [ed-Hoffman] - March 28, 2007 at 12:27 am

    A comment here, from an individual with the IP address 128.143.43.125, was removed, as it violated our policies by assuming another person’s name.

14. hdhouse - March 28, 2007 at 6:57 am

    “I can’t warrant the accuracy of the data, nor do I know who deserves credit for this “scoop.”

    Then why do you publish it? You know it will be cut and paste and pretty soon your disclaimer will hit the cutting room floor.

    It is irresponsible to publish if you don’t know.

15. anon - March 28, 2007 at 7:28 am

    Yippee, just in time for my expedites!

16. anon - March 28, 2007 at 7:29 am

    Yippee, just in time for my expedites!

17. anon - March 28, 2007 at 1:48 pm

    What the heck happened to San Diego? How can a school that is only getting better, and has an amazing faculty, drop 20 spots in one year?

    This doesn’t smell right.

18. James R - March 29, 2007 at 6:03 pm

    How could Mercer drop back to 100 after moving up to 13 spots to 87 last year?

19. Joe - March 29, 2007 at 6:53 pm

    I hope neal was kidding about MIT.

20. Rickshaw Van Cleaven - March 29, 2007 at 8:31 pm

    Where is Virginia Beach State Law School?

21. Mr. Jeff Raddison - March 29, 2007 at 8:38 pm

    I refuse to believe, under any measurement, that William and Mary hass a superior law school to Hastings. Buck ‘em BRONCOS!!!

22. anon - March 29, 2007 at 9:15 pm

    Mr. Jeff Raddison, this board of for serious posters giving an objective analysis. If you think Hastings is better, tell us why. If not, keep you clearly biased opinion to yourself.

23. anon - March 30, 2007 at 12:09 pm

    Perhaps now the San Diego administration will finally wake up, join the 21st century and stop treating their students like crap. The school dropped 20 points because there are major issues regarding the adminstration and the dean’s unwillingness to address blatant deficiencies. Everyone passes the buck, patronizes students and refuses to do the job they are being paid to do. The University needs to do house cleanings at the law school.

24. anon - March 30, 2007 at 1:14 pm

    The University of San Diego’s drop is completely warranted. It does have an amazing faculty. Unfortunately the administration thinks securing prestigious professors as its only job. There are many other facets of a good law school (e.g. career services, responsiveness to student suggestsions and needs, helpful employees, efficient administration of transcripts, financial aid, facilities maintenacne, etc. etc.)that San Diego completely ignores. This drop is a well deserved adjustment that reflects San Diego’s attitude that all of its paying students are privileged to be in the presence of its greatness. This is a good reality to check to remind it that, although it may be the best law school in the city, it is far from the best law school in the region, state, or nation.

25. Anon - March 30, 2007 at 4:36 pm

    After I was accepted at USD a couple years back, I went to visit (I called to make an appointment first). I was shocked at the rude reception I received. The woman in the admissions office told me there were no classes I could attend that day (which was true); then she handed me a map so I could give myself a self-guided tour of the campus. She then thanked me for coming, but stated that she had other work to do. I walked around for a few minutes and quickly decided to attend a different law school.

26. Andrew - April 1, 2007 at 5:27 pm

    This list is not correct.

    Where is Boston College?

27. Joe Merc - April 1, 2007 at 9:47 pm

    BC is at 28

28. dana - April 1, 2007 at 10:29 pm

    why did american drop so drastically? especially because it’s so good for international law…

29. steph - April 2, 2007 at 11:26 pm

    Joe, I hope Neal *wasn’t* kidding about MIT.

30. Matt - April 11, 2007 at 4:21 pm

    Where is Southern Illinois? They should crack the 2nd tier shortly due to their small class size and quality of faculty, in my opinion.

31. Jal - April 11, 2007 at 7:35 pm

    whooohoooo Pepperdine jumped up 21 spots! Tied with Loyola (CA), amazing.

32. Sean - April 12, 2007 at 5:47 am

    The University of San Diego has an amazing faculty, and the student body is fantastic. Word has it the evening students are morons, but what the hell. The day students have a reputation for being really bright and really fun. The mediocre gpa and respectable lsat scores illustrate that point. The quality of life at the school has to be in the top 10 in the country. San Diego is easily the best place to live in the country. There’s a reason everyone wants to be a summer associate with a San Diego firm. The school really belongs in the top 25-40… that said, the administration is clueless and the career services office is useless. One of the reasons for the drop is because the administration doesn’t know how to manipulate the data like other schools do. Everyone plays the game… so it really shows the stupidity of the administration that they would allow a drop like this to occur. If there’s a coup and the administration is overthrown, USD should skyrocket.

33. Thad Anderson - April 24, 2007 at 2:27 pm

    As a St. John’s (Queens, NY) grad, it’s good to see the school move up to 70, although the rankings of the schools in the second tier (50-100) range seem to fluctuate like crazy every year, so it is unclear what this move up reflects.

    If you look at the number of major firms which hold on-campus interviews at St. John’s, compared to other schools in the second tier, it is almost surprising the school isn’t ranked higher. I have a lot of friends I graduated with who are working at major NYC firms. And the school is doing all the right things in terms of expanding its course offerings. For example, I took National Security and the Law (with Prof. Borgen, who I recommend highly) during 3L, and we had a drill in which we role-played as Defense Department employees in the aftermath of a hypothetical terror attack.

    So while I would say that the rankings are kind of unpredictable, and shouldn’t be used as your main factor in choosing a school, it wouldn’t surprise me to see St. John’s move up to somewhere in the 60’s during the next few years.

34. CWR - April 27, 2007 at 1:04 pm

    Really, do these changes mean anything? Did Pepperdine really improve their school that much? What actually happened/changed to the schools to cause the big rises and drops? My guess is very little, thus proving these rankings don’t mean so much.

35. USD Student - June 15, 2007 at 7:09 pm

    Sean: The “evening” student status at USD simply means 6 less credits. The “evening” students take day classes; the day students take evening classes. There are 85 students in every class whether at 9:00am or 7:00pm consisting of both day and evening students. In short, your “word” is incorrect.

36. Jayant - July 6, 2007 at 2:35 am

    Chicago should outpace Columbia and NYU in a few years. Faculty is top notch and most well reputed and grads are making a big impact worldwide.

37. z - July 16, 2007 at 1:26 am

    ha… no? NYU in the top 5? princeton isn’t even on there, neither is MIT, Caltech, Dartmouth, Johns Hopkins, Carnegie Mellon

    Washington and Lee is a liberal arts school and would not be ranked with universities

    and michigan and berkeley ranked above duke, northwestern, etc? haha, what kind of methodology would lead to that.

    don’t post stuff like this, it’s just irresponsible

38. adam - July 24, 2007 at 8:49 am

    THESE ARE LAW SCHOOL RANKINGS!!!! To all who cannot get it through their thick heads that certain excellent schools are not on the list because they do not have law programs: do some research before posting!

39. fsd - July 30, 2007 at 5:46 pm

    impossible

    Princeton and M.I.T. are not even on the list!!

40. fsd - July 30, 2007 at 5:46 pm

    impossible

    Princeton and M.I.T. are not even on the list!!

41. 网站推广 - August 28, 2007 at 12:24 am

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42. 超声波流量计 - August 29, 2007 at 4:56 am

    I think you need to have the famous Google cookie and a Google account (such as GMail, Google Analytics, Google Calendar, etc.) so it identifies you. And it might just be a test, yes, but I bet it’ll stick.

43. Luke - March 26, 2008 at 2:17 pm

    Hello?…Caltech? Seriously, how does Caltech not get on here? These rankings are a joke. Caltech boasts top notch faculty and students. Who is responsible for these flawed rankings!?!?

44. Mike - April 4, 2008 at 2:47 pm

    Caltech does not, however, boast a law school. Hopefully you were aware of that and this is just a failed attempt at humor.

45. Benson - April 12, 2008 at 11:31 am

    Bob Morse, the law school rankings czar, spoke out yesterday about the rankings:

    http://resipsablog.com/2008/04/12/the-law-school-rankings-czar-speaks-out/

46. J.smith - June 4, 2008 at 2:32 pm

    Forget about law school rankings…. As a previous user stated, “they are relatively meaningless and certainly pernicious in their influence, particularly in spreading the disease of a crudely simplistic form of economics through the academy, strangling funds to needy students, and herding graduates towards sweatshop firms.”

    For a moment consider those schools that refuse to rely heavily on LSAT scores to determine admission. Many of these schools allow anyone in, and they matriculate out. Over 20 years of data (in some instances) has shown that people with low LSAT scores who are in the top 10% of a class after their first year will usually remain there for the duration of their education.

    Granted the LSAT is a prescreening method to aid admissions, but when you think about all of the time, money and sleepless nights wasted over something that is virtually irrelevant, there is only one true motive, dollar signs. You need to sign up for the data service, you have to pay them to submit your apps, it’s like they spent time figuring out how to nickel and dime people. The sad part is that it’s all electronic, and it costs relatively nothing to maintain.

    Moreover, I wouldn’t be surprised if USNWR allows schools to bid on their placement within their annual publication. Think about it, Georgetown receives more money in application fees than they make in tuition for an entire class (this holds true with many T1, T2 and T3 schools). It would be a wise business investment to influence USNWR’s rankings in order to perk people’s interests in applying.

    In all, its extremely superficial and useless. The only reason there is such a heavy emphasis on the LSAT, and USNWR’s report is to help regulate the number of practicing atty’s. If everyone can be a lawyer, they’ll flood the market, and you will have reduced what was once considered an elite profession to a blue collar job. Any idiot can pass the bar, and in california you don’t even need to graduate from a law program to take the bar.

    Yet here we are arguing over the relevance of this garbage. The most important question I have to ask people, mainly those practicing, “How many clients have ever asked you where you graduated from?” – 0…. Lawyers solve people’s problems, the client is only concerned with their problem and it is up to us to provide them with the best representation we possibly can. I know many IVY league brats that can’t walk and chew gum, but yet their parents generous endowment to the school prior to their admission is what got them in. It doesn’t matter that they don’t understand simple procedure because they have a diploma that says YALE.

47. J.Smith - June 4, 2008 at 2:40 pm

    Also note: People that are truly rich never talk about how much money they have.

    Atty’s that brag about where they went to law school usually lack any significant accomplishments, whereas those individuals that “save the world” so to speak, rarely mention where they went to school.

48. J. Smith Groupie - December 15, 2008 at 12:34 pm

    J. Smith, marry me!

49. dcllj - April 8, 2010 at 2:30 am

    Granted the LSAT is a prescreening method to aid admissions, but when you think about all of the time, money and sleepless nights wasted over something that is virtually irrelevant, there is only one true motive, dollar signs. You need to sign up for the data service, you have to pay them to submit your apps, it’s like they spent time figuring out how to nickel and dime people. The sad part is that it’s all electronic, and it costs relatively nothing to maintain.

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