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4 responses to “Law School Rankings”

1. 

   International

   December 20, 2017

   Here’s my theory. Students want instruction from the smartest professors. The smartest students want even smarter professors. To attract the smartest students, law schools must provide the smartest possible professors (not necessarily the best teachers). So, how do law schools select the smartest professors? Research. The theory is that research is the best available proxy for measuring smartness (and probably also work effort, to some degree). You reward research to attract the smartest professors, which in turn attracts student demand.

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2. 

   International

   December 20, 2017

   Law students want a credential rather than an education. Law schools are in the business of selling credentials (or, more practically, seats) rather than providing a strong education. Law professors focus on self-advancement and/or an ideological agenda rather than on teaching and/or students.

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3. 

   International

   December 20, 2017

   I think I deny the premise that the law prof is paid per hour, and that therefore it’s proper to do the cost accounting on an hourly rate basis. Rather, the prof is paid for certain duties and excess time is available for other projects.

   If our good professor were to spend the time golfing instead, his reputation might suffer, but he’d hardly lose tenure for failing to execute his duties. Or would he?

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4. 

   International

   December 20, 2017

   Arthur Kirkland

   I have long sensed that law reviews are useful but overrated teaching enterprises (particularly for students who wish and/or need to improve their writing) and less useful, generally overrated scholarly enterprises that resemble a lottery — a few big winners, an ocean of misspent resources.

   At the conclusion of a year in which a law school informs students they know little or nothing and must exhaustively reconstruct their perspectives and thought processes, certain students are promptly assigned authorship of a detailed, insightful, exhaustive analysis or development of a novel (and preferably imortant and complex) point of law. This generates predictable consequences: useful educational exercise, mediocre-to-worthless product. With remarkable volumes of pomp and circumstance.

   Simultaneously, or a bit later, those students are expected to edit articles of greater complexity and insight submitted by professors and practicing lawyers (and sometimes to perform grunt work for the lazier authors).

   Some law review articles are worthwhile contributions to the body of learning concerning law. The range is interesting and/or useful to groundbreaking and/or important. Most are not.

   The cost of law reviews’ contributions is substantial. When hiring big-firm lawyers, I consistently asked applicants about favorite professors. Over time, the responses trended in what I regarded as a negative trajectory. Early applicants generally offered enthusiastic description of a law professor, or wrestled with a choice involving two or even three special instructors. More recent applicants labored increasingly to identify a winner, or mentioned an undergraduate professor, or with remarkable frequency answered: ‘None’ or ‘I really don’t have one.’ Follow-up inquiries generated a sense that law professors had reduced office hours, discouraged after-class exchanges with students, or focused myopically on students willing to serve as research assistants.

   Experience as an alumnus involved in law school affairs suggests this change derives from increased emphasis on written scholarship. Bylines appear to be perceived as a route to improved institutional rankings, individual advancement in the academy, research funding, lucrative consulting or private practice engagements, and prestige. The prizes for outstanding teaching appear to range from a set of steak knives to ‘you’re fired.’ Faculty devotion to careers (rather than to students or teaching) causes my school to subject law students to adjunct professors not only in small, specialized, practical courses but also in large, general core courses.

   I believe law schools (which seem relatively impervious to recognizing, let alone addressing, long-term problems until they reduce the number of applicants to a point that generates an empty seat in a first-year classroom) and students suffer from these developments. I suspect these developments are negative for many law professors, too.

   I do not claim to be an expert in this field, or to have many answers to the questions surrounding law reviews. Against the background I have observed, however, I consider the costs of the current law review system to be no more worthwhile than I considered them during law school, when I quit law review. Twice.

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