Top Law Schools

I was talking with a law professor who recently left one T6 school for another, and someone else brought up the USNWR rankings. He laughed and said, "those things are always 5 years behind. They send around those surveys, and half the people who fill them out think 5 people who have died are still teaching at one school, and that 5 people who have moved to one school are still teaching at another."

Just something for the list-obsessed to keep in mind.

Guess that's good news for Duke and the hole left by Chemerinsky.

Hrmmm, what have been some of the other big faculty moves in the past 5 years?

Sunstein from Chicago to Harvard to Obama

Larry Lessig from Stanford to Harvard

Epstein from Chicago to NYU (but does this one really matter since he's going to be splitting between the two just like he was before?)

Who have been some of the other big moves?

Here's a comprehensive list. Some highlights: NYU and Texas made some big acquisitions, WUSTL lost a good number of people and replaced them with relative no-names, and UNC stole half the faculty from Houston.

Thanks! I remember seeing something for last year off of one of Leiter's sites for a recap of 2008. I hadn't seen one yet for 2009. Definitely a helpful break down of the last few years.

Renzo wrote:I was talking with a law professor who recently left one T6 school for another, and someone else brought up the USNWR rankings. He laughed and said, "those things are always 5 years behind. They send around those surveys, and half the people who fill them out think 5 people who have died are still teaching at one school, and that 5 people who have moved to one school are still teaching at another."

Just something for the list-obsessed to keep in mind.

While this is true, to me the rankings are important because they matter to employers, not necessarily because one school is going to give me a better education. I'm pretty sure that most schools give out a pretty decent legal education.

aznflyingpanda wrote:

Renzo wrote:I was talking with a law professor who recently left one T6 school for another, and someone else brought up the USNWR rankings. He laughed and said, "those things are always 5 years behind. They send around those surveys, and half the people who fill them out think 5 people who have died are still teaching at one school, and that 5 people who have moved to one school are still teaching at another."

Just something for the list-obsessed to keep in mind.

While this is true, to me the rankings are important because they matter to employers, not necessarily because one school is going to give me a better education. I'm pretty sure that most schools give out a pretty decent legal education.

How the heck did u get waitlisted by UIUC? Have fun flying to UVA, Panda; i am too fat to fly.

BigFatPanda wrote:

aznflyingpanda wrote:

Renzo wrote:I was talking with a law professor who recently left one T6 school for another, and someone else brought up the USNWR rankings. He laughed and said, "those things are always 5 years behind. They send around those surveys, and half the people who fill them out think 5 people who have died are still teaching at one school, and that 5 people who have moved to one school are still teaching at another."

Just something for the list-obsessed to keep in mind.

While this is true, to me the rankings are important because they matter to employers, not necessarily because one school is going to give me a better education. I'm pretty sure that most schools give out a pretty decent legal education.

How the heck did u get waitlisted by UIUC? Have fun flying to UVA, Panda; i am too fat to fly.

Probably had something to do with not writing a Why Illinois? essay... and thanks I advise less dumplings.

aznflyingpanda wrote:

Renzo wrote:I was talking with a law professor who recently left one T6 school for another, and someone else brought up the USNWR rankings. He laughed and said, "those things are always 5 years behind. They send around those surveys, and half the people who fill them out think 5 people who have died are still teaching at one school, and that 5 people who have moved to one school are still teaching at another."

Just something for the list-obsessed to keep in mind.

While this is true, to me the rankings are important because they matter to employers, not necessarily because one school is going to give me a better education. I'm pretty sure that most schools give out a pretty decent legal education.

im not sure if thats true. most firms know what law schools are good without us news rankings, they knew which schools were good before us news rankings even existed. us news rankings are only important to schools so that naive 0Ls use them as a way to pick a law school.


i do buy that they might be behind though. ive heard from a few professors and lawyers that UT/NYU have all improved a lot in terms of peer assessment, lawyer/judge scores, etc.

aznflyingpanda wrote:

Renzo wrote:I was talking with a law professor who recently left one T6 school for another, and someone else brought up the USNWR rankings. He laughed and said, "those things are always 5 years behind. They send around those surveys, and half the people who fill them out think 5 people who have died are still teaching at one school, and that 5 people who have moved to one school are still teaching at another."

Just something for the list-obsessed to keep in mind.

While this is true, to me the rankings are important because they matter to employers, not necessarily because one school is going to give me a better education. I'm pretty sure that most schools give out a pretty decent legal education.

This was sort of my point. Employers' perceptions of which schools are "good" only loosely correlate to any ranking, and fluctuate far less than the rankings do.

The USNWR ranking provide a general guideline, but getting too excited about Boalt passing U Chi, or a school jumping from 34 to 26 is kind of silly, and made more so by the fact that the peers responsible for the peer assessments aren't really in touch with what is going on at the schools.