Legal News

Boycotting the U.S. News: Not All Law-School Deans are on Board

By Dan Slater

Gary Simson’s call for a boycott the U.S. News law school rankings is eliciting mixed reviews from his peers, reports the NLJ.

Even if deans banned together to refuse to provide information to U.S. News, writes the NLJ, many say that the situation would be the same — or worse. “I have serious problems about ranking law schools and the methodology, but it’s a fact of life,” says Lawrence Ponoroff, dean of Tulane University Law School, which came in 44 in the 2008 rankings. He says the notion of getting rid of the rankings is akin to “whistling in the wind.”

Here’s why: A boycott wouldn’t spell the death of the rankings; rather it might simply mean that U.S. News would rely more heavily on the numbers side of the survey, based on public information that schools provide to the ABA, such as enrollment numbers, bar-passage rates, library amenities and the number of faculty. In the event of a boycott, peer reviews — which are based on the opinion that a dean and three faculty members from one school provides about the reputation of another — would be missing. (U.S. News also uses the opinions of attorneys and judges as part of reputation scores.)

“Not participating not only wouldn’t accomplish getting rid of the rankings, it could be worse than it is now,” says David Yellen, dean of Loyola law school, which ranked 82 in 2008.

But Case Western’s Simson sticks to his guns. He says that, without the deans’ participation, the rankings would crumble. A boycott by the deans would prompt other faculty members to pull their participation, which, in turn, would influence attorneys and judges to stop participating, he said. “I think it has a real effect if the deans don’t participate,” Simson said.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on August 04, 2008 (boomark / email).