Why don't a group of us get together, pool our money, resources and expertise, start a law-student based magazine and do our own rankings?
because none of you are anyone important and therefore no one will care.
Easy Debby-downer. Wah wah wah......
There's precedent that says otherwise. Princeton Review is almost there; much of what it puts out is based on student reviews, and their rankings do have credibility with law applicants. So, you're flat-out wrong.
People are never important until they make themselves important. How did USNWR become important, esp. when its methodology has about as much credibility as GWB on crack? lol. They did much to create the impression that they had done something so intricate that it had to have validity.
But, alas, the most complicated things are not always the most valid or credible. The same way Hollywood studios did much to market Brad Pitt as the best looking White dude on the planet, when each of us knows guys from our own college campuses who are better-looking. Heck, I personally think John Stamos is better-looking!
It's all about marketing, and then making sure that when people finally decide to look under the hood, they do not see massive flaws, as with USNWR.
You don't really get it. Whether or not USNWR says what the best schools are or not, there ARE best schools out there. The people who matter (read: employers) have a fairly common perception of which schools these are. The USNWR reflects these perceptions. They are not to be accepted as having laser-like predictability, but they are quite accurate reflections of what everyone already knows. Obviously smaller regions have their own realities, but if we're talking about national reputation and opportunities, the USNWR rankings do a pretty damn good job of telling us which schools hold the most sway.
I get what you're saying, and you are correct in a sense. But, for legal education to keep evolving, there has to be competition - as much as can be created between the schools. What has happened as a result of USNWR is an arms race (for top GPA's and LSAT's that don't = top talent in all cases) that has forced schools to artificially or cosmetically change schools for the sake of the rankings, without making meaningful, substantive changes within the schools. So, there must be competition between ranking systems and between schools for top talent.
Right now, the artifice created by the USNWR rankings methodology has only served to devalue legal education, overall, because degrees from so-called "top" schools are overvalued. So the fact that USNWR can be gamed has resulted in more harm than good. Perhaps it's unfair to rank regional schools with national schools.
I love the fact that NULaw, whether people agree with its two year degree or not, is being creative and responding to market forces. The program may fail, who knows? But they are trying something. I don't believe there is any one "top" school. I beloeve that some schools do more things and do them better than others. But what should other schools be taking from that? Are rankings just a way of praising some schools, or is the ultimate goal to make other schools better? USNWR does not compel schools to improve meaningfully, a crime against consumers.
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