2010 U.S. News Law School Rankings

• Academic Peer Reputation
• Lawyer/Judge Reputation
  

Law Schools on Steroids

The annual USN&WR rankings and the inevitable controversy that follows, steroid use by baseball players, and a recent article in the New Yorker ("Brain Gain," April 27, 2009) have made me realize that I am not sure what it means to cheat. It's not that I do not regard lying as cheating but things get very blurry after that.

You could say that cheating means everything that creates a perception that is not accurate.

In the law school ranking context, employment rates are suppose to reflect the demand of graduates so that applicants can assess their chances of landing jobs if they enroll at that law school. A school raises that number by hiring its own graduates. Is the School engaged in a misrepresentation? Does it matter that the number might have been achieved if the school had devoted more resources to placement.

In baseball, a player's average of 20 home runs a year jumps to 35 after the use of steroids. 35 might have been achieved with a conditioning program that would have been much more difficult than a few shots in the butt. Why does this concern law school officials who are quick to hire their own graduates or solicit applications from people with no chance of admission?

A student turns in four terms papers on time after several all-nighters aided by Adderall which was not prescribed or was prescribed after the student read up on how to describe the "right" symptoms to a physician. Or course, the same papers could have been submitted with less partying and more planning. Why would someone doing this give a second thought to steroid use?

I think cheating is increasingly defined by what someone else is doing. This seems especially true in the law school rankings game. Or maybe it is defined as being anything you would prefer not to reveal or feel compelled to defend. Or it could be that life is ultimately just a fucking free for all. Opps. Now I have cheated -- used the dreaded F-bomb in a blog which may cause idle web surfers to drop by looking for porn and send up the readership or, in another context, SSRN downloads.

Please pass the Adderall. I need to get my exam written by tomorrow.

The SSRN blog

Not every coblogger at MoneyLaw necessarily agrees, but I do appreciate SSRN. And now we can follow the SSRN blog. According to SSRN's electronic press release:

[T]he SSRN Blog will provide updates regarding SSRN's eLibrary and services, weekly "Top Five" lists, and announcements of new networks, conferences, and presentations. It will also explore and share our perspective on issues such as Open Access, new publishing models and directions for scholarly research, and the technologies that affect us all.

Get a "Gift Certificate"

My goodness! It is rating season already. This year the students at my School find that they are not at the tied-for-46th rated school but at the 51st. And since we are reducing the class size, next year's will likely find they are back in the 40s. In the meantime, the teaching is the same, the scholarship the same and, I suspect, job placement will not change. And no one seems to take seriously that wonderful graph (that was presented a couple of years ago by someone I'd like to mention but I've forgotten where I saw it) showing that the 30th school is separated from the 80th school by an eyelash. Just sneeze and you move up 10 places.

Somehow all of this reminds me of a joke I do not fully recall but the punch line was something like, "We've already determined what you are. We are just determining the price." And with Law Schools, is there a single one not tweaking the acceptance rate (Hey, is it true at one School gives itunes downloads to those who apply?), the employment figures, or mailing out forests of law porn? Of course not. So we know what Law Schools are. We are just determining how much they will pay for what they want. For those willing to go all the way, if you'll forgive my terminology, here are some ideas:

1. The 90% transfer student law school. Yes, admit a class of 10 with LSATs of 178 and GPAs of 4.0 (or even higher -- report 5.0 for the students who took advance placement college courses assuming they exist and, if they do not, just assume they do.) The rest of the students are transfers.

2. Get those acceptance percentages down. Potential applicants are selling cheap if they will settle for itune downloads. What about a $100 J.Crew gift certificate for applying? Cold cash is also perfectly acceptable. If each school will do this many good things happen. 1) My unemployed children can make a living by being professional applicants, 2) I will open an Expresso-like business and take a small percentage for submitting an application for my clients to every single law school in the country. There are any talented potential professional applicants in nursing homes, pre schools, and prison. I am pretty sure this is Pareto superior. The clients are happy, I am happy, and Law Schools will all have huge applicant pools and low acceptance percentages.

3. Pay the graduates of other schools not to work. Once you have hired every one of your own out-of-work graduates you hit 100% and that is as far as you can go. If you are serious about becoming a better law school (Opps, higher ranked school) pay the graduates of schools close to yours in the rankings to stay home. Yes, we are talking about a possible bidding war for law school graduates to do anything but work. (It's like a new occupation for which you are qualified only if you have a law degree.) Right now these unemployed grads think they have no leverage at all. Life to them, . . . well, sucks. In fact, they have tremendous leverage any time they threaten to become gainfully employed. They can auction off their right to take a job. This sounds more than faintly Coasian. After all, the law school placing the highest value on having the graduates of other law schools stay home wins and, winning by paying is efficient.

4. Be proactive about lowering the student-faculty ratio. Are there any maintenance workers, landscapers, or secretaries at your schools? Were you getting ready to say "yes." WRONG! They are now part of the faculty and, most likely, deservedly so. (I don't know, visiting-adjunct-lecturer sounds good). And those potential applicants at nursing homes, pre schools and prisons also make excellent faculty for distance learning. Your faculty swells and your ratio falls.

When you think about it, law schools are just scratching the surface of ways to improve.

Early Release of 2010 U.S. Law School Rankings

Although the 2010 U.S. News Law School Rankings are scheduled for release on Thursday, April 23, the Internet is abuzz with early copies -- these scans of the Top 100 (via The Faculty Lounge) appear legitimate. TaxProf Blog lists the biggest moves among the Top 50 and 51-100.

Wilkins Micawber, dean and professor of law

Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery. — Wilkins Micawber in Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

I've held the title "dean and professor of law" for nearly a thousand days, long enough to make me chuckle whenever I'm introduced as "the University of Louisville's new law school dean." I take it as a compliment, for I'll make no apologies for juniority.

I spent roughly the first third of those thousand days not having fully grasped what I now consider the most important tactical principle of educational management. If the most important strategic principle is Smoot's Law — namely, that return on student investment is the goal of professional education — then Wilkins Micawber's Principle offers the greatest snippet of tactical wisdom. Translated from the monetary jargon of England before currency decimalization, Micawber's Principle means simply this: live within your means.

Read the rest of this post . . . .I've learned this much in the past year and a half: Never let an economic crisis go to waste. The catastrophic decline in economic fortunes around the world has not spared American higher education, and that disaster gives moral succor to those of us who find our highest calling in doing more for our students with less from our appropriations and endowments.

The broader economy is witnessing the resurgence of the gleefully frugal: recession-happy people who "happily seek new ways to economize and take pride in outsaving the Joneses" by living a "mantra [of] cut, cut, cut — magazine and cable subscriptions, credit cards, fancy coffee drinks and your own hair." This phenomenon “implies a re-emergence of thrift as a value.”

A similar revival should sweep American higher education. Let me be clear about what I mean. I vehemently oppose hatchet jobs on educational budgets. In full accord with Leon Botstein, I believe that a recession is a time for expanding, not contracting, the academy's instructional resources. If you have to freeze something for its own sake, something I'd strongly oppose in any forum where I had a voice, I'd much rather freeze salaries (especially, and exclusively if I could, at the high end) than hiring.

But not all spending is equal. No less than private companies, universities are susceptible to what Herman Holtz, 100 Ways to Boost Your Firm's Profitability, has called "Taj Mahalitis." Ambitious, financially marginal organizations can easily fall victim to the urge to splurge, to present themselves to customers and competitors alike in grandiose fashion.

From law porn to lavish meals that feed no one besides our highest-paid employees, law schools have many ways to violate Micawber's Principle. The trick — admittedly so much more readily described than performed — is to separate types of spending that advance legitimate educational goals from those that don't.

That don't impress me much

Chatting with a friend elsewhere in legal academia reminded me: Shania Twain, That Don't Impress Me Much, Come on Over (1997), is an anthem for all seasons. Enjoy!