All About Rankings

The annual ranking of law schools in the United States by U.S. News and World Report is the source of the majority of controversy about what the “best” law school to attend is. There are two schools of thought, and one smart path to follow between the two schools of thought, with two notable exceptions. First, a word about the rankings.

All ABA-accredited schools are ranked. The rankings give schools a numerical ranking, and also split schools into tiers (top 100, tier 3, tier 4). The top tier contains the name-brand schools you would expect—Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and friends. The process of ranking takes into account all manner of statistics about the schools, notably the GPA and LSAT of the incoming class. Other factors revolve around arbitrary concepts of reputation. Employment statistics (self-reported) also come into play.

Many law school guides claim that one should attend the highest-ranked school you are accepted to. Unless you fall into a particular category of applicant, this is universally poor advice for reasons explained below.

The rankings’ main flaw is that by assigning a number to each school, it suggests that the higher-ranked the school is, the “better” it is, and particularly, that a school ranked at, say, 85, is “better” than a school ranked “79.” This is a trap you cannot afford to fall into—literally, you cannot afford to play this game, with the same notable exception illustrated below. Falling into this trap will ensure you turn down valuable scholarship offers and that your education ends up costing you a fortune when it need not cost that much.

In brief, one group (the largest) will claim that you should attend the highest-ranking law school you get into, regardless. The other group will claim that you should ignore the rankings, and look at the school that is the most appropriate for your needs, taking into consideration a multitude of factors. The smart path is, in essence, a combination of the two: pay some attention to the rankings, and pay attention to the school that best fits your needs, including the needs of your career (i.e., where you want a shot of working).

The open secrets are that the rankings make money for U.S. News; they aren’t going away; and certain employers (namely, the large law firms) pay close attention to schools that are ranked at the top (and all but ignore the schools ranked thereinbelow). Rankings are important and should not be ignored—picking the right law school for you is too important. Even if you dislike them intensely and philosophically, it’s unwise to ignore them completely.

You should blindly attend the highest-ranked school you get into only if you have your sights set on working for a large law firm (i.e., one with upwards of fifty lawyers) when you graduate. If a top-25 law school, then, depending upon the market and firm, top-10-25% of your class should get you there. If anything lower, then you’ll need to place in the top 5-10% of your class to even get the interview. It’s that competitive (and snobbish). This is the first of only two exceptions. The second is that, if you aim to teach law, you had better attend one of the top five—yes, that’s not a misprint—top five law schools…and place among its top graduates (i.e., law review via the “grade-on,” then law review editor, then judicial clerkship, then perhaps a one- or two-year stint at a national firm).

There is, incidentally, a “reverse” exception: You might be able to get better scholarship offers from schools that are “beneath” your LSAT and GPA (as it is they who want to win you over), making the process of obtaining a legal education comparatively inexpensive for you. Again, keep your goal in mind.

Life is what you make it. Hard work, focus, and determination combined with humility and gratitude (the latter being more important than many would like to believe) will serve you better, and at many more times in your life, than a one-time designer tag on your education that ceases to be of importance after couple of years out of school. s.g.

My problem with going to a lower-ranked school is this. I want to open as many doors for myself as possible. And the fact is, a JD from a top ten school will open more doors in public interest, in policy, in academics and in government, than a J.D. from a lower-ranked school. If I just wanted to be a lawyer and pass the bar, I’d be fine with that. But I want more, and I think that choosing a lower-ranked school may curtail my options later. Prestige matters because the best public interest positions often have heavy competition. It matters because I may find that an academic law career is the way to go. It matters because prestige opens doors I might want to go through. We all know that the quality of education I might get at, say, Michigan, is the same that I’d get somewhere else. But if none of the people who are judging me believe that, I lose. Fiver

I think it is important to know what you want to do with your law degree. If a local school will suffice, then go for it. If it’s prestige, big bucks, and a panoramic view of the bay from the 22nd floor that you’re after, then maybe a 4th-tier school won’t afford you that opportunity right out of law school. That’s not to say that you can’t achieve those things with a degree from a 4th-tier school either. Then again, I still go back to the question of where do the graduates of the other ~160 law schools go? There are successful attorneys in all areas of law and from every imaginable law school. It seems problematic to place so much emphasis solely on the rankings. BatDog

I think the most important thing is doing well at whatever school you go to. But I also never wanted to feel that my choice of going to school would be an impediment in any way; i.e. I like knowing that being at the highest-ranked school I can go to will facilitate me being given the benefit of the doubt on first meeting, if you know what I mean. scrummie2

So Rankings Are Not Important?

No. They are not important, except in one specific situation. In general, they are a useful tool, no more important or less important than any other tools you have to help you pick a school. They give you a good insight into what schools are the best and what schools are not thought of so highly (although even attending the “worst” ABA-accredited law school is still a stunning achievement in the eyes of most people, and even the “worst” ABA-accredited law school will give you a JD that, coupled with a positive Bar exam result, will allow you to practice in exactly the same places as those with JDs from top-ranked schools).

The only time you should pay the utmost attention to the rankings is if you have set your sights on working at a large law firm. If this is the case, then you should know up front that these firms recruit almost exclusively from the top-ranked law schools. Why? Many reasons. Harvard graduates bring in the prestige-seeking clients, and the money that follows. Harvard graduates are, almost without fail, some of the brightest law students available, and the Harvard JD essentially guarantees that you’re hiring someone very smart (although it doesn’t guarantee that they will be a good lawyer). And so on.

Does this mean that you can only fulfill your dreams of working in one of those prestigious, large law firms straight out of law school if you attend a top-ranked school? In a word, yes. Unless you can guarantee that you will be in the top few percent of your law school class at most other schools (which is something you cannot guarantee, regardless of how hard you work and how smart you are), then you stand very little chance of being hired by one of those large law firms. If this kind of job is the sole reason you are attending law school, then do not attend any law school that is outside the top 25, and think twice about attending any law school outside the top ten. Your chances of being hired into one of those positions right out of law school drop off precipitously once you start looking at the employment statistics from lower ranked schools.

Unfortunately, rankings are important, especially in the pedigree-conscious field of law. Rat

There will be slight variations from school to school, but you will get a similar type of education from each school. That being said, degrees from so-called “first tier” schools carry further because they have a more national reputation. Other people claim that since these “first tier” schools are more selective, you’ll met classmates that have more “connections.” These connections will help you land a more prestigious position. Bottom Line: The “reputation” of the school is what allows it carry nationally. TheLimit

I’m not so sure it’s the connections as much as it is the competition. If you do well at a first tier school, potential employers know that you were competing and succeeding in a selective environment. johnny99

I disagree with the contention “that no one will care after a couple of years” where you went to school. Sure, a judge won’t grill you on your school’s rank. But if you want to lateral to another firm, your pedigree certainly comes into play. Rat

Fair or not, people will look at your resume and think “that was the best school the applicant could get into,” not, “well, this person obviously got a full ride.” MediaGirl

Well, consider that one of the factors that weighs in the rankings is percentage of graduates who are hired after law school, and the median salary of graduates. The rankings are not just some kind vague opinion, and they bear directly on the issues raised. blinson

There are many students who take rankings to the extreme by placing an extraordinary amount of importance on the ranking of schools they will consider attending. To these students, a school ranked, say, 25, is better than the school ranked 26, even though the differences between the schools are negligible, and no rational person would claim that a school ranked slightly higher than another is by default the better school. Many factors weigh in to making the correct choice of school, and picking schools by ranking alone is a recipe for picking the wrong school. Here’s an example of one ridiculous (but very real) point of view that arises from a gross over exaggeration of the relevance and importance of the rankings:

I believe that if you don’t attend a top 14, you shouldn’t bother with law school at all. There’s little prestige value in graduating from one of the non-top 14s, save the very, very few that have such incredibly strong regional reputations that locals routinely, and often with straight faces, put them on par with HLS (read: Texas, Notre Dame, et al). Without prestige attached to your degree, you will have to work extremely hard to achieve anything significant in the legal profession. You will probably never be considered “elite.” And without even the opportunity to be considered the very best at what you do, why pursue the career in the first place? Why settle for mediocrity? Chuck E. Chiva

Is There Actually a Difference between High and Low Ranked Schools?

Yes. The facilities and faculties of top-ranked law schools are universally tremendous. Libraries are well-stocked and current, professors are well-published, well-respected in their fields, and are generally among the best academic legal minds. Yet having said this, the facilities and faculty at any ABA-accredited law school are adequate to get a fine legal education. Sure, every professor at a lower-ranked school did not graduate from an Ivy League law school, but does this mean they are not as smart? No. Not as good at teaching? No. There are poor teachers at top law schools, and great teachers at low-ranked law schools. You can find the books you need at top law school libraries and at low-ranked law school libraries. If all you’re after is a practical, legal education, then any law school that the ABA has accredited will suffice.

But the top law schools attract, on average, “smarter” students. At the top schools, everyone had little trouble getting a high GPA in undergrad. Everyone had little trouble getting a great LSAT. Everyone, regardless of whether or not you consider a high GPA and high LSAT to be indicative of being smart, is smart. At lower-ranked law schools, there are students who are not so smart. They don’t pick things up as quickly. They struggle with the basics in class. Are you dumb if you attend a lower-ranked school? No. But be prepared to mingle with some less-than-stellar intellects. And will these less-bright individuals at lower-ranked schools end up being bad lawyers? No. We all know that the smarter students are not always the most interesting, or the most motivated, or the most dedicated, or the best.

Some claim that the top law schools, because the students are intellectually gifted, teach a more theoretically-based curriculum, while the lower-ranked schools teach to the Bar. This may be true, but it’s not an obvious difference that you would necessarily notice from sitting in class at a top school and at a lesser-ranked school. You’ll learn what you need to know at any ABA-accredited law school, and the opportunities to go above and beyond what you need to know will be available through most professors and through legal research at any law school if you are looking for something more.

This is from the chapter “Getting In” on pages 73-81.