Legal Commentary

Last week, I made the case for creating a race to the top of the law schools on "value added" for students by using the U.S. News survey of academics ? and lawyers and judges, for that matter -- to assess schools on this basis. The basic reaction I?ve gotten so far has gone quickly to the second-order questions about how exactly to do this, with skepticism about it even being possible. As Russell Korobkin (UCLA), a leading scholar on the rankings, once said: "no one has the foggiest idea how to judge objectively the quality of legal education across law schools." But Korobkin?s view, though I?m sure commonly held and reasonable, turns out to be close to 100% wrong.

First, let's state what should be obvious: the purpose of a legal education is to prepare students to practice law. So how to figure out which schools fare better and worse in achieving this goal? Ideally, what we would want is a large data set that included information about inputs, both the incoming credentials of students and educational inputs, and outcomes (bar passage rates, lawyer effectiveness, job satisfaction, salaries, etc.), and we could conduct an analysis that might be able to isolate the school-level impact on these outcomes.

In the absence of such data, what we can do -- and what many do in the undergraduate context, for example -- is assess educational institutions in part based on their use of "best practices" that are correlated with higher learning outcomes. One thing that we know, for example, is that increased "student engagement" is associated with better outcomes -- that is, graduates who are better prepared to practice law -- which is precisely what the excellent Law School Survey of Student Engagement (LSSSE) has been helping 148 law schools measure and work to improve since 2004. And student engagement is affected significantly by an institution?s programs and practices.

So overall, how do we compare "value added" for students? I thought surely someone had written on this in the law school context, but a search revealed little -- so unless and until someone points to other references, let's start with the following proposition:

The value added of one school versus others for a student is a product of four basic elements:

- the relative educational quality (60%),

- quality of and participation in extra- and co-curricular activities (10%),

- quality of the career advising and assistance (15%),

- the alumni network, present and future (15%).

Are these the right elements? I would welcome thoughts. But how did you get these percentages? I made them up; let?s talk about how they should be different. And yes, they?re going to be somewhat rough ? but remember, all we?re trying to do is reason our way to a 1-5 assessment and relative ordering in a particular market.

Okay, but how are we even going to begin to deal with the big enchilada, relative educational quality? Again, please point me to existing research if you know it (I didn't find much on law schools specifically), but let's start with the following proposition on relative educational quality:

The relative educational quality of one school versus another for a student is a product of four basic elements:

- the relative pedagogical skill of the faculty (20%);

- overall classroom experience and student engagement (20%);

- strength of the curriculum, particularly the degree to which it adequately prepares students to practice law in the 21st-century, using "best practices" in legal education identified in the report by the same name and the Carnegie Foundation report (40%); and

- efforts to prepare students for the bar (20%).

Note that the relative weight of this last element probably ought to vary considerably between schools with high and low bar passage rates.

I?m sure this can be strengthened in various respects -- for example, the first two elements clearly overlap -- and I look forward to your views (including and especially students and lawyers). What do you think?