Staniford Law has garnered a lot of attention recently for Dean Larry Kramer's efforts to make it the nation's top law school. It all started with an article in the San Jose Mercury News in which Kramer stated his goal of creating a program "unmatchable anywhere else." What is Kramer's precise challenge? Having a great faculty? Creating a superb law school on a stunning, fair-weather campus? The reporter naturally sought comment from our own Professor Leiter who focused on the matters of scholarly impact and high-end student placement. But you can tell from both the story (which of course ends with a list of the US News top ten) and the follow-on press that the real question people want answered is: can Stanford become #1 in US News? As much as Brian and others – including, I suspect, Kramer – want to marginalize the US News metric, we can't seem to shove it aside. It's one sticky norm!
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