I was referring to your intellectual penis. Which is quite robust.
Jolie is creeping up on me.
At this point the OP's obviously pulling an AmyT - just embracing his idiocy to draw a few more minutes of attention to himself. No law student could be this ignorant this long unintntionally.
You are finally starting to build the semblance of argument, but you're still inept. I shouldn't have to walk you through the process, but I will so that you can finally discuss substance at some point in the future, rather than spewing the kind of drivel that has filled the pages of this thread for so long. Here is the argument you ought to be trying to make:Argument #1Premise: US News purports to be a ranking of the top American law Schools. Premise: In determining their rankings, US News relied on factors x, y, and z.Premise: However, factors x, y, and z are either a) not measured properly, b) not weighted properly, or c) not relevant to a determination of what constitutes a top American law school.---------------------------------------------Conclusion #1: US News rankings do not successfully measure the top American law schools. Argument #2Premise: Factors r, s, and t are more accurate and/or more appropriate measures of what constitutes a top American law school. Premise: When judged on these factors, schools A, B, and C perform much better than would have been expected based on their US News ranking. ----------------------------------------------Conclusion #2: Schools A, B, and C are better law schools than would have been expected based on their US News ranking. Here is the argument you tried to make, which is illegitimate: Premise: Ranking #1, which measures factors x, y, and z places school A at #50. Premise: Ranking #2, which measures factor r places school A at #10. Premise: Ranking #3, which measures factor s, places school A at #20.Premise: Ranking #4, which measures factor t, places school A at #30. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------Conclusion: Ranking #1 is incorrect. See the difference?(snip)If you've been following along, this line of argument would fall under Premise #3 of Argument #1. That's just for your own reference, in case you lose track of your argument.The natural response, of course, to your one anecdote regarding a law professor who claims to be only passingly familiar with certain schools is "The Durability of Law School Reputation" a 1998 article from The Journal of Legal Education, in which its author, Richard Schmalbeck, found that the reputations (and reputation scores) of law schools have remained virtually unchanged since the introduction of US News Rankings in 1987 (indeed, there is a great degree of consistency dating as far back as the 1974 survey, replete with methodological challenges though it was). Given the level of consistency over time, the argument that the reputation scores are the result of poorly informed deans making arbitrary distinctions based on tenuous connections seems untennable.Additionally, the Peer Assessment Score correlates with (and thus serves as a proxy for) such factors as: success of placement in academia, clerkship rates and clerkship placement, quality of faculty (both research and instruction), and quality of scholarly resources (libraries, journals, etc). Given the importance each of these factors should have in determining the top American law schools, using this as the basis for 25% of the total score seems eminently reasonable. (snip)First, a helpful little piece of advice for the future. If you are going to make an argument, you ought to make it yourself. Relying on constant quotes from a guy like Leiter, who is a joke among many members of the legal community, will only make you look bad. It is tantamount to me starting a thread entitled "The Right to Choice is BOGUS" and then just linking you to Rush Limbaugh's website. Also, most of us have read those quotes. If we're not already convinced by him, why would your re-posting the same material have any discernable effect? There's no point in speaking if you argument has already been made, and better, in a location just as readily accessable.Second, you really need to be more careful with your word choice. For instance, when you post rankings of Hastings that range from #11 to #36, claim that there is "no statistical variance" among those, and then claim that these rankings "show" that another ranking placing Hastings at #43 is bogus. Even if it weren't illigitimate to use the results of some rankings to discredit others (which is is when they measure different things; don't ever forget that), the #43 is not an outlier - the value would still be reasonable given the dispersion of other rankings. You can't automatically lop off the lowest or highest values simply becuase they are low or high.Third (and this is the one that will save you the most heartache in the end), your argument is bound to fail. Now I've been playing along becuase its fun and becuase you make such a good punching bag, but in the end, even if you frame the argument correctly and take some time to articulate all the points properly, you won't recieve any satisfaction. Why? Becuase there are no objectively true, perfectly quantifiable standards for what makes a law school better than another. They just don't exist. Here's a very simple, but great example: Let's assume that we can all agree that a school with smarter kids makes it better. School A has 25/50/75 LSAT of 164/168/171; School B has a 25/50/75 LSAT of 153/168/180. Which school is better? (hint: there's not going to be a right answer). Law school will always be an individual, ideosyncratic choice where we rank the schools ourselves based on the critera that matter to us. By posting links to a bunch of rankings of factors that may or may not matter to others, you will never be abe to discredit alternative rankings based on different factors. For some people, the USNews factors will matter and yours won't, even if it's the exact opposite for you personally. But that should be common knowledge, especially to the people on a board like this. We know that there can't be one "correct" ranking that is right in every instance. By arguing that other rankings are evidence that one ranking is wrong, you are implicitly asserting that there is right answer to the question of "Where does Hastings rank among top American law schools," and that's just asinine. To make matters worse, you are posting links to information that is even more outdated, irrelevant, and methodologically flawed than the US News rankings. You give us 10-year old salary data, we give you "Correlates of Elite Firm Placement." You give us Brennan, we give you ALAMAR. Much of the information that people need for making the individual decision of which school is right for them is available, and this community has done an excellent job of disseminating it to those who lack it. Neither your posts nor your links have conveyed any new information (it might be arguable that they conveyed any information at all), and your rankings-obsession is misguided at best. If you had come to us before choosing a law school, I'm sure most of us would have gladly helped you become informed. Instead, you come to us after the fact, attempting to convince us that you made a good choice three years ago, and that if we were wise we wouldn't put any stock in sources that disagree with you. Well, we're one step ahead of you (four steps, if you count the three years it took you to get to this point). So, you see, you can't even win the argument if you could execute one successully, becuase one point you're trying to make (that the US News rankings aren't the best measure of a law school) is so obvious to all of us that it usually gos without saying, and the other point that you probably aren't even aware that you are trying to make (that there is some correct ranking scheme out there somewhere) is so laughable a to have led us to riddicule you ceacelessly. It's probably best if you just stop now.
Quote from: Jolie on September 19, 2006, 11:15:13 PMI go to school with him. Not bad, eh?I know I wouldn't want to be competing with him.Of course, for a top 10 school, I might be willing to risk the possibly lower class rank.
I go to school with him. Not bad, eh?
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