What is considered T1?

[interrex]

Cooley has room for growth(and it is growing) but people seem to forget just how many are practicing all across the nation and even yes as judges and elected officals. Even if conspiracy nutjobs wanted to believe that only the top percentile of cooleys class was the ones doing so, that number is ever rising. Do the math.

I agree cooley is a fine school. So is Concord in my book(but they're off the grid as far as USNews is concerned)

[Thane Messinger]

So if rankings are based in large part based on the votes of judges, and cooley is spitting out record numbers of lawyers each year flooding the market with them as an increasing percentage of the licensed attorneys and increasing so the standing judges as well, won't the system eventually end up with cooley as #1 simply do to the fact that very soon the vast majority will be cooley grads?

Perhaps in a few hundred years.  Then again, Harvard and Yale will still have a three-century headstart.  (Not as to law grads, granted, but for this level, the official degree was often less important than the pedigree of institution and holder.)  Even newcomer Stanford will have a century on 'em.

And quantity ain't the same as quality.  Ask anyone from Yale.

[MAJ. Lee, Awsome.]

Yale knows about outside of Yale how? You implying they suck or something?

[Thane Messinger]

Yale knows about outside of Yale how? You implying they suck or something?

In matters academic, those from the top of the top tier know just about everything . . . and everyone.  (Note:  Not that they're right.)  Thus the comparison to Cooley, etc., while (presumably) tongue-in-cheek is a bit off the mark.

The competition at the tippy-top is between Harvard and Yale.  (Many put Stanford in the same club, and one could argue for a half dozen others.)  Harvard is nearly three times as large as Yale, and while Harvard dominates in just about every way, those in the know know that it is Yale with the edge, academically.  This isn't because of superiority of faculty, library, lighting, etc., but because of selectivity.  In that word lies the answer to the question.  Whether we like the question . . . that's another question entirely.   = :   )

PS:  Judges are not selected by quantity.  If they were, it's Texas and Georgetown that would be the ones to beat.   

[interrex]

so you honestly believe that 100% of the judges polled by USNews come from those three schools then. That's what your trying to say?

[Thane Messinger]

so you honestly believe that 100% of the judges polled by USNews come from those three schools then. That's what your trying to say?

Clearly not, but precisely because of this, the weighting favors established schools (and especially prestigious ones).  One need look no further than the composition of the current U.S. Supreme Court and their respective almae matres.  This is not about right or wrong; it is about what is.

The question as to what constitutes a "T1" is in many ways the wrong question.  All U.S. law schools . . . ALL of them . . . are modeled on Harvard Law School, circa 1880.  Law professors are routinely drawn from the top five law schools.  To a large degree, legal education is a commodity . . . there is little difference between the highest- and lowest-ranked schools vis-a-vis becoming a lawyer, which is paradoxically why differences among law schools and students, both real and perceived, are so impactful.

PS: Not sure where I wrote anything close to your statement.  = :  )

[interrex]

So in about a decade or so when all the powdered whigs die off and are replaced by cooley grads, THEN it will be a T1, gotcha. 

[fortook]

Thane Messinger is making a cogent and concisely stated observation about our legal system via our law schools and how it has been influenced by how things were in the past.  You are oversimplifying his point to talk up or down Cooley (ironically, I can't tell which).  Why you are doing it I can't imagine.  His point is true, obvious, and well stated.

[marcus-aurelius]

Fortook,

Interrex is banned from the site thanks to our wonderful moderators.  So pay no mind to the troll haha

[fortook]

Ha.  How do you know so soon?  He posted today.  Cheers.