"'... rather than dealing with any rankings implications later.' [Some] students [agreed and] speculated... that not having to worry about LSAT and GPA data dragging down its U.S. News rank will allow YLS to either (a) continue to use racial preferences in admissions or (b) water down its academic credentials. Furthermore... some sources suggested that Dean Gerken withdrew from the rankings because she feared that YLS was about to lose the #1 spot it has held for more than three decades—and she didn’t want that to happen on her watch.... One professor told me that... there was no sense within the faculty that YLS’s #1 ranking was at imminent risk. Instead... 'This is clearly part of a larger and deeper commitment on her part toward leadership in the law school industry when it comes to fairness, welfare, and equity.'"
From "Yale And Harvard Law To U.S. News: Drop Dead/Two leading law schools have withdrawn from the influential law school rankings; will others follow?" by David Lat (Substack).
I remember when U.S. News first started this ranking. It was 1987, and I was 3 years into teaching at the University of Wisconsin Law School. From day one, the professors at my school were hostile to the rankings. We had our values, and how dare U.S. News attempt to influence our choices.
Here's how the rankings looked in 1987. We were #20 at that point — the point when the game began. A decade later we were struggling for position in the 30s and we currently stand at #43.
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But Wisconsin is still in the top tier. Creighton School of Law is in the bottom third and, from what I've seen with recent grads, it is well deserved. I'm sick about it, but nothing I can do. One of my law school classmates called the situation "irredeemable."
The Creighton Law School Dean added a DEI person. The ratings probably drove that decision.
Let the quality of the product you produce (lawyers) speak for itself.
I have said all along that Harvard will continue to find ways to use race in admissions even after SCOTUS finally ends its legal justification. Unless admissions are restricted to purely objective methods like test scores( I don't think they should be) there will always be some wiggle room where race can implicitly be used in the process.
Yale is a school for the wealthy. Always was. Always will be.
You lost me at "is"
context?
;)
Rankings should be a complex number so that there's no obvious top or bottom.
It's funny how liberal professors always want transparency and accountability for everyone except themselves. Robert Conquest said, "Everyone is conservative about what he knows best," but few people match the hypocrisy of the average academic.
"leadership in the law school industry when it comes to fairness, welfare, and equity"
IOW, leadership in promoting racial discrimination and other prog policies, law and Constitution and basic merit be damned.
Then why do this at the law school only and not the undergraduate college?
In the woke of affirmative discrimination ruling.
That said, Diversity [dogma] (e.g. racism, sexism, ageism), Inequity, and Exclusion (DIE) is an ethical doctrine and an anachronistic relic of a forward-looking religion established in order to socially justify wicked solution(s).
I thought the quality of an attorney was correlated to their pre law school job experience, not the law school itself.
"A decade later we were struggling for position in the 30s and we currently stand at #43."
So, it's still "we"?
Now at 4 T14 schools withdrawing. US News still plans to rank them. It does not rank a handful of accredited schools for undisclosed reasons.
Seriously,
of the people (of ANY color), that have crappy LSATs, how many graduate? how many make the bar?
What EXACTLY, is the purpose of sending unprepared lambs to the slaughter?
"I have said all along that Harvard will continue to find ways to use race in admissions even after SCOTUS finally ends its legal justification."
That strikes me as a peculiar expectation. Ask yourself, why does Harvard want to festoon its campus with semi-competent blacks? I confess, I have no insight into the motivations of the kind of evil scum that operates Harvard, but it seems like what they actually want is to be seen to practice AA. As protection against the various Leftist finger-pointers and shakedown artists who would otherwise infest them. But if they have to pretend, as a matter of legal fact, that they don't discriminate on race, then that might not work so well.
People will 'rank' them, whether they want it or not.
Some of the best lawyers I know went to schools that couldn't dream of making that list. Tier 3 schools. I've run into Harvard, Yale, UofC, etc. guys and gals a bunch. I always know when that's the case because they always tell you - if they don't tell you, you'd never know. They don't have magical powers.
However, they do have a more direct line to elite clerkships. So there's that.
You have the highest bar passage rate in the country.
I guess that doesn't count, but congrats.
About 70% of Black law students wouldn't get accepted to law school without affirmative action.
Rankings aside, isn't Yale the most beautiful campus after UW-Madison?
I don't give a shit about law schools. What worries me is what is happening to medical schools. DEI, doing away with MCAT and inflating grades risks the public health. Of course the greater risk is from the Public Health Bureaucracy.
A big component of USNWR ranking has been LSAT. My firm hired a POC secretary (job not called that anymore) out of college who decided on law school. Mediocre LSAT score. Partner offered to pay for LSAT prep course if she retook and applied to his tippy top Alma Mater. She agreed, aced it, was accepted, and is now attending.
Jake: who do you hang out with? Can't remember last time a lawyer brought up their law school in conversation. Not like we have sports teams to follow.
Affirmative discrimination is analogous to immigration reform that with premeditation and perhaps malice is pursued in lieu of emigration reform to mitigate progress at both ends of the bridge and throughout. This is reminiscent of Atlanta, GA, where, in the spirit of Diversity, Inequity, and Exclusion (DIE), a policy of "every child left behind" was exposed to public scrutiny.
For 15 years I worked in DOJ unit that was staffed mostly by graduates of the top 10 law schools. I was consistently impressed by the graduates of Harvard, Columbia, and Michigan. In contrast, most of the Yale grads were smart and conscientious but didn't seem to have as much knowledge of our laws and legal system. Even worse, at least one of the Yale grads did little actual work and had a laughable sense of entitlement. That experience and Yale's unbroken record of being listed as America's number one law school ultimately caused me to conclude that there is something seriously wrong with the US News' ranking formula. Among other things, it gives far too much weight to per student expenditures, student-faculty ratios, faculty salaries, and so-called peer evaluations from professors at other law schools.
[Some] students [agreed and] speculated... that not having to worry about LSAT and GPA data dragging down its U.S. News rank will allow YLS to either (a) continue to use racial preferences in admissions . . .
How does withdrawing from the US News rankings mean that they get a pass on their unlawful conduct (racially discriminating in the application process)? That makes no sense at all. It's illegal to do, whether you advertise your LSAT/GPA rankings or not.
Another way to say that is that Yale and Harvard will not conform their conduct to the expected Supreme Court ruling against racially-discriminatory admissions, but will simply do everything possible to hide it.
Echoes of Governor George Wallace: "Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever."
Only substitute "racially discriminatory admissions" for "segregation." Today, tomorrow and forever.
Massive resistance to the law of the land, just like in the 50's and 60's, after Brown v. Board of Education. Nice company you're following in, Harvard and Yale. Ivy League scofflaws.
Well Boalt Hall has gone to hell in a handbasket under its recent series of deans--even changed its name (and brand) to Berkeley Law. And, like Yale, they are bailing.
@ Jupiter I do not expect Harvard to abandon its "wholistic" method of evaluating candidates. I am unfamiliar with how the law school evaluates candidates, but I doubt it is that much different from the college. By using an "wholistic" approach the admissions committee can be reasonably certain that it has slotted blacks in the black pigeonhole, or the Asians in the Asian pigeonhole through high schools, zip codes, names , and - of course - interviews. What it will no longer be able to do is have the candidates self-identify. If, like some of the CA schools, admissions were based solely on test scores you would see a big change in the racial mix, but who would play the Tuba?
Up to 5 of T14 with Georgetown and Columbia.
6 with Stanford
law schools do not interview applicants.
“Jake: who do you hang out with? Can't remember last time a lawyer brought up their law school in conversation. Not like we have sports teams to follow.”
I am not an attorney but have contracted for legal services for decades. Every partner I have interviewed has noted where they graduated, and where the proposed attorneys graduated, who were on the list of providers. Are you claiming that this is not done? Because you are wrong.
Jake, that's not what you wrote. Lawyers have bios that include college degrees and above. Maybe included in pitch materials, or as link in online communication. But that's all lawyers soliciting retention, not just ones from top schools. If a spoken interview involved, then, no, I don't see lawyers volunteering their legal pedigree unless perhaps there is a connection with you or someone on your team. Especially no if a prospective client like yourself signals lack of interest in such things.
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