Brian Leiter’s Law School Reports

In Memoriam: Herbert Morris (1928-2022)

December 20, 2022

A longtime UCLA faculty member, there are more details here.
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Grade point averages and law school rankings (Michael Simkovic)

December 19, 2022

One area of disagreement among law schools and between U.S. News and some of the law schools boycotting its rankings turns on whether incoming students’ undergraduate grade point averages (GPAs) should be included in the rankings, and the extent to which they should be weighed. The case for including grades initially seems similar to the…
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New Hampshire joins USNews.com rankings boycott

December 16, 2022

Dean Carpenter's statement is here. Unfortunately for the boycott effort, there's still less than 20 schools boycotting.
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Some questions for law schools joining the boycott of USNews.com rankings

December 14, 2022

Dean Rutledge at the University of Georgia (a school not joining the boycott) kindly gave permission to share some questions he has both for and about law schools that are joining the boycott: For those schools who claim to be “boycotting/not cooperating with/posturing with respect to” US News Are they completing the reputational survey? Are…
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Penn State-University Park law faculty are, quite understandably, opposed to any “merger” that would relocate all operations to Carlisle

December 13, 2022

They are quite correct that it will destroy any possibility of Penn State's law school maintaining a national and international presence, and will negatively affect the recruitment of faculty and students. The flagship campus of a major state research university should have its law school on that campus.
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Campbell Law joins boycott of USNews.com rankings

December 13, 2022

Statement here. More law schools that are regularly and unfairly denigrated by USNews.com will need to join the boycott if this is to really affect the operations of USNews.com.
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USLaw.com ranking boycott update #2

December 9, 2022

UVA has joined the boycott. No word yet from Texas, Vanderbilt, or Southern California, as well as most law schools outside the "top 20."
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Standardized test scores and law school rankings (Michael Simkovic)

December 9, 2022

One area of disagreement among law schools and between U.S. News and some of the law schools boycotting its rankings turns on whether students’ standardized test scores should be included in the rankings, and the extent to which they should be weighted. The case for including standardized test scores, and weighting them heavily, is as…
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“Unemployment” and law school rankings (Michael Simkovic)

December 7, 2022

One area of disagreement among law schools and between U.S. News and some of the law schools boycotting its rankings turns on whether “unemployment” should be defined according to the standard definition used by the U.S. government, the Department of Labor, the Census Bureau, and the Department of Education. The government defines unemployment narrowly to…
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USNews.com ranking boycott update

December 6, 2022

Penn is out, so is NYU, and so is the University of Washington in Seattle. Virginia, Texas, Vanderbilt, and Southern California–among top schools–have made no announcement either way. Chicago, Cornell, Wash U/St. Louis, Georgia, and George Mason have formally announced they are not joining the boycott and it's a safe assumption that any school that…
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In Memoriam: Stephen A. Smith (1958-2022)

December 5, 2022

I was very sorry to learn of the passing of Professor Smith, a distinguished private law theorist and longtime faculty member at McGill University. Early in his career, he visited at Texas, when I taught there, and I very much enjoyed getting to know him then. The McGill memorial notice is here.
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School-funded jobs, long-term outcomes, and law school rankings (Michael Simkovic)

December 5, 2022

One area of disagreement among law schools and between U.S. News and some of the law schools boycotting its rankings turns on whether and to what extent school-funded jobs should count as post-graduate employment. The argument in favor of inclusion is as follows: School funded jobs pay students real money. From the perspective of…
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Should student loan balances be included in law school rankings? (Michael Simkovic)

December 2, 2022

One of the most contentious areas of disagreement between U.S. News and law schools boycotting its rankings turns on whether student loan balances should be included in the rankings. Currently, a higher student loan balance counts against a law school in the rankings. Student loan balances are apparently meant so serve as a crude proxy…
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Penn State may reunify its two law schools–one in Carlisle, one on the main campus at University Park–with Carlisle being the main site for the law school

December 1, 2022

This is pretty dramatic, and faculty in University Park cannot be pleased, especially by this: "Whether any law school programming would remain at University Park or what would happen with the imposing, $60 million Lewis Katz Building, erected in 2009 as a home for the school, is uncertain."
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Who are law school rankings meant to help? (Michael Simkovic)

November 30, 2022

Approximately 12 law schools, including Harvard, Yale, and Stanford, have refused to compile data to facilitate the U.S. News rankings. Statements by the deans of the protesting law schools suggest that they hope to pressure U.S. News to modify its ranking system. This raises a fundamental question: What is the purpose of ranking law schools?…
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It’s official: Cornell is not joining the boycott against USNews.com

November 30, 2022

The ambiguity of Cornell's initial statement has now been clarified: no boycotting for Cornell.
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Even if Yale Law may not be #1 in USNews.com rankings much longer…

November 30, 2022

…it will still #1 for graduates convicted of seditious conspiracy! I would love to see Mr. Rhodes's application file!
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UC Davis joins boycott of USNews.com ranking

November 29, 2022

Dean Johnson's statement is here. At this point, the official boycotters are: Yale, Harvard, Columbia, Stanford, Berkeley, Michigan, Georgetown, Duke, Northwestern, UCLA, UC Irvine, and UC Davis. Chicago has declined to join the boycott, and Cornell's status is ambiguous. No word yet from NYU, Virginia, Penn, Texas, Vanderbilt, Southern California et al. Unless there is…
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Some law school rankings from the 1970s

November 28, 2022

Here.
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Cornell’s statement on USNews.com rankings

November 24, 2022

I think they're not joining the boycott, but it's actually a bit ambiguous. Dean Ohlin makes many points I've made here, but then note the first sentence of his last paragraph (bold added): My own view is that the rankings distort academic decision-making, fail to adequately capture institutional quality, and create perverse incentives that are…
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Chicago is not joining the boycott

November 23, 2022

From Dean Miles's statement:
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UC Irvine Law will not cooperate with USNews.com rankings

November 23, 2022

Announcement here. This is a much riskier decision for Irvine than for Yale or Harvard, and perhaps signals that schools outside the top ranks will also boycott. (Thanks to Sameer Ashar for the pointer.)
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A boycott of USNews.com will only succeed if most law schools (not just top law schools) join it

November 23, 2022

The NYT story noted the other day foolishly invoked the nonsense category "top 14" in discussing schools that were declining to cooperate (UCLA's joining the boycott torpedoed that characterization). As UCLA Interim Dean Korobkin correctly noted, 80% of the input data is available to USNews.com without the cooperation of the schools. It will, however, be…
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UCLA Law will not cooperate with USNews.com, at least this year

November 22, 2022

The letter from Interim Dean Russell Korobkin, which makes a number of good points about the more general problems with what USNews.com does, that other Deans have not noted:
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Lateral moves, 2012-2022

November 22, 2022

Professor Lawsky at Northwestern has an interesting analysis of data compiled here over the years.
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Michigan Law becomes 7th school to decline to cooperate with USNews.com rankings (UPDATED: also Duke and Northwestern)

November 21, 2022

Dean West's announcement is here. UPDATE: Two more: Duke and Northwestern. (Thanks to John Coates for the pointers.)
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Since that great business genius Elon Musk seems to be destroying Twitter…

November 21, 2022

…I have decided to set up a Mastodon account, where all tweets are cross-posted, for those readers who use either Twitter or Mastodon.
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Stanford is out…

November 19, 2022

…but makes it pretty clear that if "the methodology is seriously overhauled" they may be back. Meanwhile, this NYT story reports that some schools–for example, Boston University and George Mason University–are not planning to withdraw. Both have done well in recent iterations of the USNews.com exercise, and without a brand name like "Harvard" to fall…
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And now there are four: Georgetown announces it will not participate in US News.com rankings (UPDATED)

November 18, 2022

Dean Treanor emphasizes the anti-public interest bias of the metrics, something mentioned by other schools. (Thanks to John Coates for the pointer.) MAKE THAT FIVE: Columbia Law School will also not cooperate.
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Some realism about withdrawing from USNews.com (UPDATED)

November 18, 2022

USNew.com is not going to go gently into the good night it richly deserves, even if dozens and dozens of schools withdraw over the next week. 40% of the ranking consists in reputational surveys, that USNews.com controls, and even if the response rate drops, they will use what they can get (as they have done…
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Richard Painter’s racism problem

November 18, 2022

(Apologies to readers bored with this saga, but I know many others find this train wreck fascinating–in any case, I haven't remarked on his displays in over six months.) One of the mysteries of Twitter's most unhinged law professor is why he feels the need to falsely accuse others of racism so often. He did…
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Berkeley Law will not cooperate with US News.com, at least this year

November 17, 2022

Dean Chemerinsky has issued this statement: After careful consideration, Berkeley Law has decided not to continue to participate in the US News ranking of law schools. Although rankings are inevitable and inevitably have some arbitrary features, there are aspects of the US News rankings that are profoundly inconsistent with our values and public mission. …
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Harvard Law School’s statement on its withdrawal from the USNews.com rankings

November 17, 2022

I noted yesterday that both Yale and Harvard were withdrawing from the USNews.com charade. Here is Dean Manning's statement on HLS's decision. If over the next week, most of the other top 10-20 law schools withdraw, USNews.com will be in trouble. It would undoubtedly be excellent for legal education if its current master were dethroned: …
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Kudos to Dean Gerken for withdrawing Yale Law School from the USNews.com ranking charade (UPDATE: HLS also dropping out)

November 16, 2022

Her explanation is here. This creates an interesting strategic dilemma for both USNews.com and other law schools. USNews.com would seem to have good reason to "punish" Yale, much as the EU punished the UK for the stupidity of Brexit: to send a message about the costs, lest other schools follow suit. However, having elevated Yale…
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$1.7 billion to rename UC Hastings?

November 16, 2022

That would be a tad expensive! The lawsuit cites an 1878 agreement with the state of California to create and fund the law school, which promised Hastings’ heirs $100,000, plus interest, should the school ever “cease to exist.” One hundred forty-four years later, that would amount to $1.7 billion, the San Francisco Chronicle has reported.…
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“Operant conditioning” via Twitter (or “Twitter poisoning”)

November 15, 2022

I thought this was interesting and perceptive: Behavioral changes occur as a side effect of something called operant conditioning, which is the underlying mechanism of social media addiction. This is the core mechanism analogous to the role alcohol plays in alcoholism. In early operant conditioning, pioneered by famous behaviorists like B.F. Skinner, animals were…
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What’s going on at the University of San Diego School of Law?

November 14, 2022

This essay notes a number of retirements, including some surprising ones, like the constitutional law scholar Steven Smith. (Larry Alexander, who is 79, is a less surprising retirement, although he is unquestionably the person singularly responsible for making USD a nationally recognized law faculty. He has also been badly treated in recent years, as I…
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The end of the LSAT is coming

November 10, 2022

It seems like the writing is on the wall. The real driving force, that we're seeing across multiple fields, is concern that standardized testing hurts "diversity." If in fact the LSAT becomes optional, the next question will be what the masters of legal education at USNews.com decide to do. If they decide to just increase…
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The end of law Twitter?

November 9, 2022

Lawprof Heidi Feldman (Georgetown) is maintaining a list of law faculty and lawyers migrating to Mastodon in the wake of the Musk takeover of Twitter. In a rather short time, there are more than 500 migrants! Could this be the end of law Twitter? Of Twitter? Will Mastodon prove better, or will it also turn…
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In Memoriam: Dmitry Karshtedt (1977-2022)

November 8, 2022

I'm sorry to report the untimely passing of Professor Karshtedt, a well-regarded patent law scholar, who was recently tenured at George Washington University. There are memorials here, here, and here. (Thanks to Sean Seymore for the information.)
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