Blatant Rankism

Well, the US New 2008 rankings are out (I believe they publish these in June) and Seattle U has moved up again. Here is the blurb from the folks in PR:

Seattle University School of Law continues to climb in the US News & World Report rankings, moving up to 82 this year (from 85 last year and 93 just two years ago.) The law school's acclaimed Legal Writing Program continues to be ranked among the best in the country – second again this year – and the law school is still among the most diverse (19th highest diversity index).

I guess this mean were strongly mediocre now, which is vast improvement over marginal. I tease, everyone knows I love SU. The school has aggressively moved up from a marginal 3^rd tier institution to being a solid top 100 program in our short, 35 year history. Some of the plans in the future will further move us up. They are shrinking the size of the student body (which will drive up selectivity) and are expanding the size of the faculty (which will shore up the student: faculty ratio). I won't be surprised if we are in the top 60-70 within a year or two and perhaps in the top 50 in the next decade or two. I'm constantly impressed with my fellow students; many are razor sharp and found their way here from undergrad institutions such as Cornell, Norte Dame, and Penn. Yet, we still have a good mix of non-traditional students who have fought their way in via night classes at their local State U. Together, the two types of student blend well to create a great learning environment.

I'm not sold that this attempt to climb the ranks is the best use of our efforts though. Sure, it is nice to say that you went to a better school then so and so, but in the end does it really matter? No doubt, a student from a top ten program has something to brag about but anything beyond that is pointless elitism. If a law firm, or any other business for that matter, hires solely on the basis of school rankings then they are extremely lazy recruiters and probably miss a lot of good hires along the way, and if they are that lazy in hiring, what else are they lazy about, their clients cases perhaps? And would you really want to work in that kind of environment anyway? And, what will we lose by chasing rankings? Will we start denying applicants who didn't go to the right undergrad schools, who may not have come from a privileged background and could not pay the $3,000 - $5,000 for an LSAT tutor that so many student do (I was taken aback to find out how many of my fellow SU peers had paid for LSAT training!).

Anyway, although I rail against these ranking, I can't help but be fascinated by them. Here is my annual dissection of the list pulling out law schools in the Western US and comparing them. Why the West Coast? Because everyone knows it's the best coast!

So, without further adieu, the Word Forge 2^nd Annual Western States Law School Rankings (the following is my personal ranking of the law schools in the Western US based in part on US News & World Report's Survey, Undergraduate strength, and the general reputation these school have among law students)

Of the top Law School in America, here are the top 20 in the West:

08 Rank	School	07 Rank	Movement	Comments
1	Stanford	1	None	Let's face it, Stanford dominates any academic pursuit on the west coast.
2	Berkley	2	None	Stanford might dominate, but wouldn't you rather attend Berkley too?
3	UCLA	3	None	LA baby, LA.
4	USC (Gould)	4	None	Every graduate gets a BMW with their diploma.
5	U Washington	5	None	Good school, but their greatest benefactor's most significant accomplishment was in the bedroom not the courtroom …
6	U Colorado (Boulder)	7	Up
7	U California (Hasting)	7	None
8	U Arizona	9	Up	Arizona might be the better school, but everyone knows ASU has the better football team, a SCOTUS alumni, and hotter co-eds.
9	UC Davis	6	Down
10	BYU	9	Down	Great school with oodles of oddly hot co-eds all looking to get married.
11	U Utah	12	Up	BYU's poorer yet cooler brother.
12	Arizona State (O'Connor)	11	Down	You might be down, but see Arizona.
13	Pepperdine	13	None	We have the most beautiful location of any school anywhere, what do we care about rankings? Oh, and conservatism is too cool.
14	Loyola Marymount	??
15	U New Mexico	14	Down	Still the sleeper hit of the Western States.
16	Lewis & Clark (Oregon)	16	None	One the Sr partners at my law firm went to school here, so I'll refrain from commenting.
17	Santa Clara	20	Up
18	Seattle U	18	None	I go there, 'nuff said.
19	U Hawaii, U Oregon, U San Diego	21 16 18	Up Down None	Can't go wrong, you go to school in Hawaii. Perhaps Phil can push some money toward the academic side of the house?
20	U Denver Pacific	15 22	Down Up

Those schools that didn't quite make the top 100:

08 Rank	School	07 Rank	Movement	Comment
3rd Tier	U San Francisco U Idaho Gonzaga Chapman (Calif) U Montana U Wyoming Willamette (Ore)	22	Down None None Up None None Up	Ouch, out of the top 100! Go Vandals! They are opening a campus in Boise, it should help them climb up into the top 100. Who cares, they can't ever get past the elite 8 anyway. Hippies study law, who knew?
4th Tier	California Western Golden Gate U Southwestern (Calif) Thomas Jefferson (Calif) Whittier		None None Down None None