I admit to using the US News & World Report rankings for purposes from time to time. I think I am a member of a big club because using those rankings is easy and convenient. However, I also understand the weaknesses of rankings that weigh certain factors arbitrarily, and that seems to be what has gone on.
The objection of some law schools, which recently has led them to boycott the US News & World Report rankings, is that the rankings give too much value to the percentage of graduates in a given year who choose private practice settings over public service. And I can identify with those objections. Although I went straight to private practice after graduation, I also spent almost a third of my practice years in public service. The result for me was that the public service experience was some of the best and most satisfying of my career and led me to some very meaningful work.
So I am in favor of the message that some law schools, including mine, are sending to the ranking czars. I always have thought that the folks at USNWR have too much sway over where prospective law students apply and attend law school, and I have been happy to see some alternative rankings take hold in recent years. And there is always the possibility that USNWR will take the criticism as positive and change its ways.
To date, the schools to opt out of submission of data to USNWR and inclusion in the USNWR rankings are: Yale, Harvard, Berkeley, Georgetown, Columbia, Stanford, Michigan, Northwestern, Duke, UCLA, UC Irvine, UC Davis, University of Washington, UPenn, NYU, and UVA. In a twist on that theme, Washington University Law seems to agree with the issues identified by other law schools but will continue to submit information to US News. If you are confused by that, so am I.
For more perspective about what this means for the future of law school rankings, here is a podcast that may interest you.
