first

Thanks, Lat! (Oh, and I don't care that I'm first)

oh noes! can i still get a job from this TTT????

It's going to be a rough day at ATL

And near Columbia will drop a spot, Duke will be back at 10, Northwestern will say bye-bye to the top 12, and so on, and so forth. Yawn.

The People's Republik of Berkeley above Chicago? I used to generally be in agreement with U.S. News, both for colleges and law school rankings, but they really are off this year.

Ahh! Vault rankings!

And............................................................NO ONE CARES

These rankings are a joke. Penn (State?I don't even know anymore) is not as good as Chicago. Berkeley is a great school, but not better than 7-9. All of this is common knowledge.

Yep, just as I thought. Vault > US News

UIUC got pwn3d. What gives?

Anyone that truly thinks Cornell, Duke and Michigan are better law schools than Georgetown is crazy. The only reason G-town is low is because they are so large. Their resources and access to law makers should make them a top 10 school every year.

GeorgeTTTown

Funny how when one doesn't like the rankings, it's an off year, and when they do, they're the most legit rankings ever.

Vault rankings make much more sense these days. It shows employability for people who are considering going into debt by about 200K.

Who cares about scholarly professor ranking if the school produces good lawyers who hiring lawyers want? Bar passage rates and employment opportunities are what matters. Instead of the LSAT/GPA splits at 25th percentile and 75th percentile they should do median salary for each quartile of the graduating class. It would allow a much more informed decision for people entering law school with such a high cost attached.

Any chance Vanderbilt knocks Georgetown out of the Top 14 next year? This list, and these scores, don't inspire much confidence.

F)@#$(*!

I SHOULD HAVE GONE TO BOALT OVER HLS!

Now I have all these loans and would have probably ended up in the same prestigious firm!

9:59 - Your statement is consistent with the reputation scores (which are probably not given enough weight).

not a bad day for GW

How long before Lat gets a letter from USNWR threatening a lawsuit for posting a pdf of their magazine?

10:03 - not very subtle Michigan troll.

Vandy = propped up by ridiculously good bar passage rates

What "gives," 10:00, is that UIUC apparently turns out graduates who can't spell "owned," much less use it intelligently in a sentence.

9:59, years ago it used to be common knowledge that NYU was not a top 5 school, now it is, things change.

10:02: I think the point is that the "permanent" rankings are correct, i.e., if you average the rankings for the last 10 years, you would get the right rankings. But to the extent that the rankings vary from year to year (as with Boalt moving up this year), this is bullshit. The true rankings really don't change all that much.

LOL berkeley's patchouli julie school of law?

When a law school has 200 students and is in TN, I am sure it is easy to make sure they are all employed. Not many others competing in that Memphis/Nashville market. Also, that TN bar is notoriously difficult. Com'on G-Town's bar passage rate is almost the same as Yale's.

LOOK AT THE BAR PASSAGE RATE FOR YALE -- THEY SHOULD NOT BE #1.

CHICAGO NEEDS TO FIRE DEAN LEVMORE. HOW CAN ITS NUMBERS ALL BE HIGHER THAN THREE AROUND IT, BUT STILL BE FALLING EACH YEAR!?!?

GW Rules.

The only reason it's known as T14 is because certain schools are in the elite and will stay there no matter what USNews says. So if they decide Vandy is 14 and Georgetown is 15, the new standard will be USNews T15. Similarly, if Northwestern drops to 14 or below (where they belong), USNews T13 will be the standard.

What was GW last year? Aren't they still the second best in DC?

I just took my chicago diploma off the wall... lest some MORON from Penn or Berkely wander by and drool at my door. I have a gun in my mouth and am conteplating pulling the trigger. I sure hope this is a hoax.

10:07-LOOK AT BERKLEYS BAR PASSAGE RATE (especially versus Chicago)

Lynch Dean Levmore (Chicago). My diploma is losing value each year. Maybe we could ban internet use in classrooms and lose some more professors to Harvard!?!?!

I think the large majority of Vanderbilt students leave TN for jobs (and the Bar Exam). Vanderbilt has separated itself from and triumphed over UCLA and UT.
I don't think Georgetown is in very much danger -- its LSAT scores are still much better -- but Georgetown is failing to keep pace with the rest of the T14.

Cardozo = /wrists

Note the particularly atrocious LSAT scores for Berkeley: 163-170! The next school in the rankings with comparably mediocre scores is Vanderbilt, #15. Any school can inflate the GPA of its entering class by recruiting students from less selective colleges.

Should have gone to Vandy if I had known they would have ended up in the top 15.

US News sees through the Chicago mystique. A school full of Harvard rejects and strivers, which is bleeding faculty, that has high clerkship numbers only because the federal judges on the faculty refuse to hire non-Chi students, which has now apparently shut off the wireless access in classrooms.

Chicago trolls think that just because Dick Posner is being pushed around the halls in a wheelchair by a hospice worker that their school is top 5. It is not.

10:07, it would probably make more sense to compare Boalt's bar passage rate with that of Stanford. The CA rate is much lower than NY.

Woot! No change for WashU! (who?)

Proof the economy is in TTT land: There will be 200 posts on this thread by noon (If Lat's servers don't crap out first)

10:14 - worst post ever. Not funny.

levmore got's to go--what a disgrace. 10:07 is right on. better scores, better peer rating, better lawyer rating, better bar passage, but lower ranking. wtf???

reality

GW>G'TTTOWN

thx Fred!

Breaking News: Dean Levmore (Chicago) attempts suicide!!!

[in a dream world...]

I mean, who even applies to Chicago? Yuck!

I wish I had gotten in to Boalt.

Georgetown should be ranked much higher! The reason why people go to law school is to learn the different areas of law and to get a job. Georgetown offers a wide variety of classes and has the most law firms and employers visit and recruit from the school than ANY other law school (including all 13 ranked before it!).

There is no reason why these other schools should be ranked higher. It doesnt matter if some professor at that school wrote a book or paper, people want class selection and JOBS!!

These rankings, much like the same rankings for undergraduate institutions, are the only way for people who spend all of their time studying and agonizing over their class rank to feel good about themselves. Sort of a sad trade-off, no?

Those ties create a mess. At least Vault has the stones to go 1-25.

10:09's comments re Gtown are right on the money. As for the possibility of Vandy knocking Gtown out of the top 14, as 10:09 says, it wouldn't matter. It would just be seen as an act of humanitarian kindness or a meaningless statistical flutter that would do nothing to alter the universal perception of either school as elite (Gtown) and second-tier (Vandy).

That is strange that UIUC dropped (it should have gone up one or two, or at least maintained). Berkeley ranking over Chicago is just plain nuts. Wash U seems a little high (Emory maintained its spot at 22; one wonders whether - were it not for the scandalous departure of its career services dean during recruiting season and the wildly imprudent online response of a couple of its students - it and not Wash U would be at #19). Vandy will no doubt jump to 14 (or 13?) next year. Harvard would be #1, were it not for the fact that its class is more than twice the size as Yale's. Michigan is far superior to G-town (Cornell and Duke are another story).

What are the chances USNews let these out because of the hype surrounding the Vault release? DAMN GOOD

10:01 - Georgetown's "access to law makers should make them a top 10 school." That's too funny for words.

Is Dubya hanging out giving guest lectures? Who the fuck cares that you're in the same shithole of a city as Congress? I've never met a Georgetown grad with an IQ over room temperature.

10:14 -- say all that is true, but it STILL better than Penn and Berkley and NYU -- which don't have faculty to bleed, no judges to push around (or hire) and no clerks. Chicago also has 99% employment, top placement at NYC and CHi firms and high bar passage rates in IL, NY and California.

Its peer assesment and judge assement put it in the top five.

Wow, New York Law School moved way up to 5th!

***Chicago trolls think that just because Dick Posner is being pushed around the halls in a wheelchair by a hospice worker that their school is top 5. It is not.***

hilarious post, 10:14, hilarious.

Lat -- I'm coming for your lunch money!

THIS "EARLY RELEASE" IS A HOAX YOU IDIOTS!!! PUT OUT BY VAULT TO BOOST ITS OWN EVALUATION OF LAW SCHOOLS OR USNEWS TO GENERATE DISCUSSION! CALM DOWN... law firms and judges know Chicago is top 3. Leiter knows Chicago is top 3. Judge Wood (7th), Posner, Easterbrook, Scalia all still love Chicago.

But really, WTF is up with Northwestern? It's last in the T14 in the reputation, GPA, and LSAT scores. How is it now in the top ten? How?

Can I sue US News for libel and devaluing my degree?

Fed Soc @ 10:12: The reason Boalt's LSAT scores are garbage is that they have an especially aggressive diversity recruitment program.

US News is irrelevant. I'm sure USC and WUSTL love it, but for people who are putting their money where their mouth is (law students) Vault matters a hell of a lot more than which school manipulates its LSAT range and other metrics more, or which one hires what brilliant but has-never-practiced-and-can't-teach professor.

Time for another coolest law school run off March-madness style, like last year....

ALLAH AKHBAR! HUSSEIN OBAMA WILL DESTROY THE INFIDELS! ALLAH BE PRAISED!

Not sure how these rankings will change anything. Not sure why anyone cares about them.

GW awesomeness!

Question -- why is GW's "jurisdiction bar pass rate" listed as 93.9% in New York????

NY? wtf?

In other news... NY Therapists Raise Rates 10%...Suicide Rate among Legal Professionals Spikes...Law School Applications Up (see employment at graduation)

HILLARY LIED; PEOPLE DIED

(its true, see Bosnia Sniper story)

Look at Texas' peer assessment ratings and adjust its GPA and LSAT statistics for the huge class size: it's TEXAS, not Vandy, that should be knocking on the doors of the T14. Texas, the Harvard of the South...plus, the girls are much hotter.

10:26 - see 10:18[1].

Chicago is so TTT.

I went to Yale, and my Boalt friends are way cooler than my Chicago TTT "friends" (conservative jerk-off gunners).

G-Town = lawyer factory without a distinct culture, almost like a commuter school. I don't know anyone who chose G-Town over a better or comparable school. Quit complaining.

Hofstra is second tier again!

o-O

US News still uses number of volumes in law library when law students use Lexis on their laptops and rarely even go into the law library?

And Illinois shouldn't go anywhere but T2.

yes, the girls are hotter in Texas

10:26--they will be changing Dean Levmore's day at Chicago... I can guarantee that! "GET ME SAUL ON THE PHONE!!!"

OUCH UNC TTTT!!! Maybe they need to admit tyler hansbrough to the law school.

Where's W&M? They're the first law school in the country!

Harvard = Duke of the North!

WTF is up with UIUC!

You down with OPP? YEAH YOU KNOW ME!!

So Leiter crusades against US News, announces he is going to Chicago, and then US News drops Chicago a peg just for spite.

10:27 - Because most students in DC law schools take the NY bar. It is based on where the majority of students at a school take the bar.

If UVA just hired some more faculty and pumped up their applications (by, say, not charging applicants for submitting), they could climb as high as #6.

10:26 -- Markets are down 1% on the news... nice try!

Now NYU's going to be out for blood in the Dean's Cup.

FYI - it appears GW grads pass the bar at a higher rate than those of Georgetttown.

anyone who thinks GW is better than GULC deserves to go to GW.

during EIW last fall GW students trolled the halls of the Washington Court hotel hoping to hand their resumes to firms who only recruit at GULC.

GULC's median LSAT broke the 170 barrier for the first time this fall (class of 2010). i am surrounded by extraordinarily talented and accomplished people here -- as i would be at any other leading law school.

we find the GULC bashing amusing. we have great jobs lined up, awesome faculty, live at the center of the american empire, and can walk over to the Court any time we want to hear an oral argument. moreover, we don't spend our time hating on other schools.

10:20 must be measuring IQ in Kelvins. Idiot.

Georgetown lets students choose not to take fundamentals. Of course they are going to produce a lot of shit practical lawyers.

10:20 must be measuring temperature in Kelvins. Idiot.

GW > G-town

notice that GW has more people employed at graduation that G-town and has a higher bar passage rate. that shows you that these rankings are stuck with past tradition.

10:33: Wish it was true!. Too bad for the UChicagoians. Should have protested his hireing

Georgetown lets students choose not to take fundamentals. Of course they are going to produce a lot of shit practical lawyers.

Hofstra leads all other Tier 2 schools in big state governors.

emory stays at 22, hooray!

In two years when this year's graduate employment rate factors in, WUSTL's going to sink like my morning coffee dump. (I don't remember eating corn ...?)

"Their resources and access to law makers should make them a top 10 school every year."

And yet their TTT students keep holding them back.

How Columbia, which has not had a significant lateral hire in years finish in front of NYU? Columbia does not even have too many superstars left for other schools to poach? They have one professor, Tim Wu, who other top five schools want. That is about it.

The peer and lawyer assessment scores seem a bit off. How many really believe that UMICH is an equivalent or better law school to NYU?

The fact that Yale crushes (by 9 points! or about 10%) the closest competitors is proof in and of itself that the Vault rankings are more useful than these. Yale is good at turning out future professors who have never practiced a day in their lives and like to teach useless theories. Law schools where firms atcually look to hire "real" lawyers are more useful to 99% of law students.

Also, if these rankings are to be believed, how is Emory on this first page? Emory is the place that rich parents send their idiot kids who couldn't get in anywhere else. This is the reason the LSAT scores are so low. They are only above 160 because of the few smart kids who look at these shitty rankings and think the school is any good. A buddy of mine with a rich father and a 151 LSAT and a 2.8 GPA from SMU (another stupid rich kid mecca) got into Emory, and did just fine.

GW > G-town

notice that GW has more people employed at graduation than G-town and has a higher bar passage rate. that shows you that these rankings are stuck with past tradition.

AND a lower admission rate

10:34(3) - yeah, and I bet those employers are really happy when you fail the bar

10:40, you don't go to NYU by any chance, do you?

NYU is going to be out for blood in the Dean's Cup.

Nice to see NYU pushed back a bit. Now we just need Chicago to reclaim its former glory and things will be back to normal (oh, yes. Harvard needs to knock Stanford down a peg . . . that may happen in a few years when the Kagan effect begins to take hold . . .)

wisconsin looks a hell of a lot better on vault

If UVA just hired some more faculty and pumped up their applications (by, say, not charging applicants for submitting), they could climb as high as #6.

Newsflash! If you have more than a room temperature IQ and took the LSAT half sober, UVA, like most law schools, doesn't charge you for submitting an application!

GTown is fundamentally a JD factory. Sure they produce some great attorneys, but how can you separate the wheat from the chaff amongst a 1k+ graduates each year?

yeah their location and past prestige will keep them afloat for a while but, fundamentally, they are the equivalent of GW

How is Fordham ranked below GW?

Chicago should be lower than Penn and Boalt. Chicago's reputation scores are higher than they should be because 10 years ago they were a top five school and 20 years ago they were arguably amongst the top 3 schools in the country.

They are losing top quality professors each year and have trouble attracting new ones.

Northwestern's rise is the strangest part. Makes no sense.

Wow, Georgetown kids really are hung up on this prestige thing. I'd go to Michigan over Georgetown in a second. A top-tier school with a part-time program, puh-lease. Oh, and Yale... You just get #1 because you're soooo small.

10:41(3) -- yeah, i guess that's why they keep coming back and hiring here year after year.

AU WCL SHOULD BE TOP 10 YALL

Yale turns out you law professors... I turn out young college coeds... I win!

So disappointed in Cardozo. Can someone explain why US News lists Cardozo's bar passage rate as 88.8% for NY even though it was actually 92% in 2007 (higher than Fordham and Cornell's) ??

Oops, I didn't read the headline fast enough and peed as soon as I saw the picture. I'm still sittin' in my filthy pee pants.

Actually, Vandy's major reasons for a jump this year were a higher 25% LSAT, rising prestige amongst practitioners, and a significant drop in student faculty ratio.

Where Vandy gets killed is the rankings from other law schools. It seems that the New England liberals who dominate this crap will always be biased against a school in the SE.

GW has always been underrated by USNEWS, the same for Fordham. It's just that GW has a much better reputation and facilities.

FWIW, GW lists the NY bar passage rate b/c that's where the majority of GW grads go. IT shows that GW can compete in NYC with Fordham, while Fordham cannot compete in DC.

Did you count both July and Feb bars in your #'?

"we have great jobs lined up,"

Clearly, you're not a lawyer.

"live at the center of the american empire,"

You should openly ridiculed for that remark. Do you describe DC as the "center of the Am. Emp." when talking to your friends? Toolshed.

"You shoudl eb and can walk over to the Court any time we want to hear an oral argument."

Big deal.

"moreover, we don't spend our time hating on other schools."

Other than skewering GW kids as a bunch of beggars in the very same post. Nice.

Over / Under = 400 posts

Nice - I paid all this money for a school that has dropped 14 slots between the time I applied and the second semester of my 2L year.

10:46 - yeah, because only people who don't work during the day could possibly be intelligent enough to qualify as top law student material.

US news counts July & Feb numbers -- is that what you are referring to with "Dozo's?

Penn State has lost seven tenured faculty members in the last month. It should be in the fourth tier, not at 77.

Replying to 10:45 am:

even without Sunstein, Chicago still has a much stronger faculty than either Boalt or Penn by every measure I have ever seen.

10:46(2) - I guess they're looking for the diamonds in the rough. [GW > GTTT in grads employed by graduation. I'm pretty sure GW gets a lot of employers to visit during fall recruiting. Not sure, though.]

10:41. No offense, but you are an idiot. Numerically that argument makes no sense. If the 25th - 75th for LSATS is 162-166 then very few people got into Emory with less than a 162, much less a 160. It deserves to be on the first page and in the 22nd spot.

Yalies can barely pass the NY bar.

HLS to #1! (or at least undisputed #2!)

Berkeley 25% LSAT is lower than most around it, but look at its GPA range. Higher than everyone but HYS.

10:46[1] - yeah, because only people who don't work during the day could possibly be intelligent enough to qualify as top law student material.

Wisconsin is a hell of a lot better on Vault because their graduates are actually good at practicing law.

Between the ties and the private schools and being the public law school in a state with two, Wisconsin gets hammered by US News.

10:51- credited re: GW & Fordham. Another reason why Fordham is worse than GW is the quality of student they attract. Both seem to be "destination schools" (ie I go there because I really want to be in the respective city). However, GW does much better in its home-market than Fordham.

GULC2L: I like the trolling, but you're living in a world of sick delusion.

W&M getting no respect. Seriously, why is W&L still ranked higher?

10:34, "Kelvin" is singular. Idiot!

10:46[1] - yeah, because only people who don't work during the day could possibly be intelligent enough to qualify as top law student material.

Chicago has not won a top lateral battle in years.

Penn at least has some rising stars such as Roosevelt.

The real school that got shafted was NYU. NYU is the best school in the country in tax and international law and is up there in corporate law. The one and only area that NYU is weak is IP.

Yet Chicago, Mich., and UVA all have better reputation scores with attorneys and judges. This would be in part based on NYU being less good thirty years ago. But it seems dubious that NYU which gets better every year has seen its reputation score drop as opposed to rise in the recent rankings. It seems some of these lawyers are trying to drop NYU's ranking.

10:54- given the rampant UG grade inflation and variation between institutions, I think this should totally be discounted.
The only thing that should count is LSAT, as it's truly objective

10:29 - a number of GULC students chose to attend it over schools like duke and UVA...as for it being a commuter school, well yea students "commute" to school. we live in a f*ckin city. I wonder whats students in large cities like boston (harvard) or NY (columbia, NYU) do to get to class. Perhaps they magically wake up at their designated classrooms and turn on their laptops. You sound like a UMich student who got screwed - poor little wolverine...

10:45 - Northwestern has been busted in the past for blatant ranking manipulation (boosting employment by giving research assistant jobs to unemployables).

That they go up should be no surprise.

10:56 are you an idiot?

I went to Wisconsin and then transferred to a different law school. WI does NOT turn out lawyers that can practice law -- it is the exact opposite. WI has no bar exam for UW graduates so they have no incentive to actually teach the law.

Do NOT go to WI unless you want to learn nothing except theory and policy -- and you love tree-hugging hippies.

how is Washington & Lee ranked so high if only 75% of their 3Ls are employed at graduation? That's pitiful.

Given the long-standing dominance of Yale and the aggressive rise of Boalt Hall, the real catalyst in this survey is the existence of a pass/fail system of grades.

In turn schools that use arcane logarithms to determine grades are punished, e.g. the University of Chicago.

I have done lengthy research that supports these findings, which will be published shortly in numerous journals, so don't humiliate yourself by trying to contest these assertions.

Why is PENN ST. listed on there twice? At 7 and 77... I think that's a pretty clear typo.

Yaaay GW! We love you fred lawrence!

No need for the hate GULC2L, we're not bashing g-town, we just love our school!

And I call BS on GW students trolling the halls at your recruitment hotel. Got any names?

11:02 knows more than the Vault survey, apparently.

Probably an angry Chicagoian.

Vote: Bigger east coast bias - US News or ESPN?

My guess is that UIUC got knocked down in the rankings due to the poor basketball showing this year. No other possible explanation.

I'm annoyed.

Good catch 11:06. Someone should contact the US News editor.

10:20 must be measuring temperature in Kelvins. Idiot.

Don't they get the bar waived in wisconsin if they went to a wisconsin school?

Give me a friggin' break. Quality control indeed.

BYU Got the shaft big time....46th. If you look at their LSAT/GPA and go up the list, you don't find anyone as good as them until UCLA. I guess that's what you get when you only charge $8,000 a year for tuition (and consequently have a high student-to-faculty ratio).

7 is UPenn, 77 is Penn State. Not the same school.

Where are the 3rd and 4th tier rankings?

10:05 (3) is right.

Except a few big changes helps sell magazines and allows law schools to try and game the system which, in turn, makes them care even more about the rankings since there is something within their control to change their stature in the rankings.

If Vault would actually develop a ranking system which properly accounted for the difference in prestige of various big-firm, gov't, and not-for-profit jobs it would surpass US news within no time.

vault already has as much, if not more, credibility than US News and 99% of students attending law school want to know which school gives them the best odds of getting the job they want.

If I were applying to law school, the only thing I would want to know is median 25-75% starting salary.

Its SAT Time!
Boalt Hall: Chicago::Walmart Brand clothing:Armani

whooo hoo..... we're up to 32

What's with bashing GULC's part-time program? Same LSAT and GPA range. The people just happen to be working professionals (from the Hill, consulting, lobbying, etc.) instead of insecure, immature twits.

Guys from my high school use to leak USNWR Rankings all the time, it was no big deal.

Both Georgetown and GW get shafted on "student-faculty ratio." DC is filled with top practitioners, legislators, and judges who want to teach, which is to the benefit of DC law schools, who get those great minds as adjunct faculty members. But USNews only counts full time faculty, so a Ken Feinberg or a Deputy Solicitor General counts the same as some two bit insurance defense lawyer trying to boost his resume by teaching legal writing at Northwestern.

"Chicago has not won a top lateral battle in years."

Facts please?

Bernstein turned down Yale to stay at Chicago, Weisbach turned down Harvard to stay at Chicago, Nussbaum turned down Harvard to stay at Chicago, Case turned down NYU in favor of Chicago, McAdams turned down Virginia in favor of Chicago, Leiter turned down Penn in favor of Chicago.

Partial list. You can find this stuff on the Leiter Law School blog.

JT's schools will continue to be #1 and #2 forever!

USC will leave the Top 50 once that football program gets the sanctions it has been baiting for the last decade.

-

Wisconsin grads are a mixed bag. Because the state is the last one with diploma privilege, it does not teach to a bar. HOWEVER, in order to get said privilege, you have to take a highly specified list of practical courses that controls 2/3's of the credits needed for graduation.

The issue is with people who go to Wisconsin but do not plan to practice in Wisconsin, and don't realize that you actually need to take most of the privilege classes if you want to pass the multi-state. Dumbasses, but it happens.

Transcripts from Wisconsin grads should be reviewed carefully for excessive "squish" and stupid shit like not taking Evidence.

BC Law still reigns supreme over BU, particularly in Boston. Everybody knows that.

11:02, that's rich. I have no doubt there are a few who chose GULC over Dook and UVA, but I'll bet those folks 1) regret it, and 2) did so for geographical/family reasons. GULC was my safety. I even got $$ there. But when I went to visit that "facility" of yours (more like concrete fortress in the middle of a sketchy neighborhood) and had the opportunity to meet with some of the prestige-obsessed student body, I decide to go somewhere better.

So by selectivity Georgetown should be about #8 yet it remains #14?

And to think I just got used to saying "T15" with a straight face.

Damn you, Vanderbilt.