School Grades

By Lawrence Hurley

University of Chicago Law School professor Brian Leiter hates U.S. News and World Report's law school rankings. The influential rankings, published every March, suffer from a flawed methodology, according to Leiter: They fail to emphasize the importance of teaching.

Leiter got so annoyed with the magazine's approach that in 2005 he started his own rankings system. He relies on fellow law professors' input about the quality of faculty and future job prospects for graduates. "U.S. News needs more competition," Leiter says.

Robert J. Morse, U.S. News and World Report's director of data and research, responds wearily. "[Leiter's] no better than us, but he thinks he is." But Leiter isn't the only one to take on the magazine, which bases its annual rankings on reams of data, 60 percent of which law school administrators self-report.

For example, since 1997 Vault.com has issued an annual ranking of 25 top law schools based on interviews with 400 legal professionals. And last year Avvo.com, a website that compiles consumer ratings of attorneys, launched its own law school rankings based on an aggregate of the consumer ratings that a law school's alumni receive.

Despite these varied approaches, all four rankings put Yale Law School, Harvard Law School, Stanford Law School, and Columbia University School of Law in the top ten.

The main use for any of these ranking systems is as guidance for prospective law students, according to David Lat, founding editor of the legal-profession gossip blog Above the Law. In that regard, the U.S. News rankings are "tremendously influential," says Lat. But the Avvo.com and Vault.com rankings are also useful, Lat continues: In focusing on the professional successes of graduates, these rankings tend to counter claims that the top schools "don't necessarily produce the best lawyers."

Nevertheless, many law-firm recruiters may pay little heed to any of the ranking systems. Steven Sletten, the Los Angeles-based head of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher's hiring committee, says he happens to see the U.S. News rankings only because he subscribes to the magazine for its news coverage. "From the standpoint of hiring, I would be surprised if any major firm paid any attention," he says.

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