2014 Rankings Released Forum

[Lord Randolph McDuff]

I don't think it's a problem to assume on a basic level that everybody wants a job that gets some sort of utility out of their degree.

1/4 people I go to school with disagree.

http://abovethelaw.com/2012/09/the-view-from-0l/

Nice find. Best part of that is 15% of incoming students have "no idea" what they want to do. They are just sorta, ya know, going to graduate school.

As people do..

[LSATSCORES2012]

But that's not what the LST employment score reflects.

I never said it did.

And if you go to LS without wanting to get one of those, well then you're retarded

You're talking about half of congress here. The question is which half

But while I would agree, in very general terms that people shouldn't go to law school unless they want a legal job, there is still the mistake of clumping them all together. A job in a local firm with two lawyers might count as a full-time, long-term, legal job, but should it really count into an employment score? Probably not, because for most people it's not desirable employment (though for some, it is). Which is one reason that, as I've said, LST is so useful: you can break down each type of employment and rank schools accordingly.

So the point remains: different people want different things out of law school, and that is an important thing to recognize. Some would be satisfied with that small time job, while others want to work for a V5 firm.

[Lord Randolph McDuff]

And if you go to LS without wanting to get one of those, well then you're retarded and it doesn't really matter where you go anyway, so I see no reason to cater rankings to that minority.

Boom. Lawyered.

[Rahviveh]

I don't think it's a problem to assume on a basic level that everybody wants a job that gets some sort of utility out of their degree.

1/4 people I go to school with disagree.

http://abovethelaw.com/2012/09/the-view-from-0l/

Nice find. Best part of that is 15% of incoming students have "no idea" what they want to do. They are just sorta, ya know, going to graduate school.

As people do..

I agree. But as someone has said, should we be catering rankings to those people?

[nanochick]

This will definitely impact some schools:

What's w/ the different #s between USNews & ABA info?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I'm not getting into Stanford once it ascends to #1. Please, no, no. Yale, hold on.

[Aroldis105]

The problem with LST is that it would advocate going to Nova Southeastern (NOVA!) over William & Mary based on full-time legal employment numbers. So there is still something missing from the formula. Looking at the numbers alone isn't enough to gain an appreciation for the opportunities one law school may grant you that another may not.

[Rahviveh]

The problem with LST is that it would advocate going to Nova Southeastern (NOVA!) over William & Mary based on full-time legal employment numbers. So there is still something missing from the formula. Looking at the numbers alone isn't enough to gain an appreciation for the opportunities one law school may grant you that another may not.

What that shows is that outside the T20-30 schools, outcomes are shockingly similar. And LST has done a good job of recommending selecting schools based on regional preference - which would resolve the issue you raise.

Looking at NorCal, Hastings/USF/Santa Clara are all under 50%.

The other issue is not an LST thing - but the lack of historical trends is a problem, since one shouldn't judge prospects off a one-year snapshot

[fatduck]

The problem with LST is that it would advocate going to Nova Southeastern (NOVA!) over William & Mary based on full-time legal employment numbers. So there is still something missing from the formula. Looking at the numbers alone isn't enough to gain an appreciation for the opportunities one law school may grant you that another may not.

except no one should be deciding "hmm, should i go to Nova or William & Mary?" Nova probably gives you a better chance at getting a legal job in Florida than William & Mary does, and vice versa for Virginia.

LST is doing the best it can with the information the schools provide. some schools provide more detailed info on what types of jobs students get (firm size, etc) and how they got the jobs (OCI, mass mailing, etc), which is useful for drilling down into what the employment data means for you. but schools don't have to provide this info and many don't.

[Crowing]

But while I would agree, in very general terms that people shouldn't go to law school unless they want a legal job, there is still the mistake of clumping them all together. A job in a local firm with two lawyers might count as a full-time, long-term, legal job, but should it really count into an employment score? Probably not, because for most people it's not desirable employment (though for some, it is). Which is one reason that, as I've said, LST is so useful: you can break down each type of employment and rank schools accordingly.

So the point remains: different people want different things out of law school, and that is an important thing to recognize. Some would be satisfied with that small time job, while others want to work for a V5 firm.

I can certainly agree with that last point. IIRC for med schools USNWR doesn't actually have a true "overall" ranking; the problem is for law the distinction between fields is much more nuanced and we all know that specialty rankings are a flame. In that sense, it would perhaps be even more beneficial to have a ranking system based on so-called "favorable" outcomes - biglaw, AIII clerkships, prestigious government and PI positions, etc. While not everybody wants one of these positions, suffice to say that the difficulty of getting a less "favorable" legal position if that is what one desires is lower. The point is while some schools are certainly better than others for placing into biglaw, there's nothing to suggest that the schools that are less successful at placing into biglaw are intrinsically more successful at placing into shitlaw. I would argue it's not necessary to have a ranking metric based on such outcomes because they are essentially included within the more "favorable" ones.

As for the small subset of people who are in fact going to law school to be Bryce Harper's agent or the POTUS or whatever, that's where specialty rankings might actually have a purpose - perceived reputation, quality of life, etc.

[Aroldis105]

The problem with LST is that it would advocate going to Nova Southeastern (NOVA!) over William & Mary based on full-time legal employment numbers. So there is still something missing from the formula. Looking at the numbers alone isn't enough to gain an appreciation for the opportunities one law school may grant you that another may not.

except no one should be deciding "hmm, should i go to Nova or William & Mary?" Nova probably gives you a better chance at getting a legal job in Florida than William & Mary does, and vice versa for Virginia.

LST is doing the best it can with the information the schools provide. some schools provide more detailed info on what types of jobs students get (firm size, etc) and how they got the jobs (OCI, mass mailing, etc), which is useful for drilling down into what the employment data means for you. but schools don't have to provide this info and many don't.

Without a doubt. I love the work that LST does and it is a great reflection on the legal market as a whole. I'm just using this as an example that just ranking schools by the bare-bones numbers can be as deceptive as the schools' inflated numbers. I don't have the answer, but it's not as simple as some people may make it out to be.

[Rahviveh]

But while I would agree, in very general terms that people shouldn't go to law school unless they want a legal job, there is still the mistake of clumping them all together. A job in a local firm with two lawyers might count as a full-time, long-term, legal job, but should it really count into an employment score? Probably not, because for most people it's not desirable employment (though for some, it is). Which is one reason that, as I've said, LST is so useful: you can break down each type of employment and rank schools accordingly.

So the point remains: different people want different things out of law school, and that is an important thing to recognize. Some would be satisfied with that small time job, while others want to work for a V5 firm.

I can certainly agree with that last point. IIRC for med schools USNWR doesn't actually have a true "overall" ranking; the problem is for law the distinction between fields is much more nuanced and we all know that specialty rankings are a flame. In that sense, it would perhaps be even more beneficial to have a ranking system based on so-called "favorable" outcomes - biglaw, AIII clerkships, prestigious government and PI positions, etc. While not everybody wants one of these positions, suffice to say that the difficulty of getting a less "favorable" legal position if that is what one desires is lower. The point is while some schools are certainly better than others for placing into biglaw, there's nothing to suggest that the schools that are less successful at placing into biglaw are intrinsically more successful at placing into shitlaw. I would argue it's not necessary to have a ranking metric based on such outcomes because they are essentially included within the more "favorable" ones.

As for the small subset of people who are in fact going to law school to be Bryce Harper's agent or the POTUS or whatever, that's where specialty rankings might actually have a purpose - perceived reputation, quality of life, etc.

For someone who is not chasing after those prestige-focused positions you named - Biglaw/Prestigious PI/Clerkships, at that point cost matters more. There doesn't seem to be any evidence that school ranking or prestige matters outside of those jobs, and people shouldn't be concerned about rankings at that point. This is oversimplifying but it could be broken down into two groups

A: Biglaw, Prestigious PI (International Law, ACLU, Big City PD/DA jobs, BigFed, etc), A3 Clerkships, Prestigious non-law jobs (ie MBB consulting)
B: Shitlaw/Small firm law, state/local clerkships, PD/DA jobs in remote areas, Non-law jobs

For group A you need the rankings and generally to aim for at least a T25-T30 school, preferably T14. For group B you should just be minimizing cost as much as possible. A rankings system which recognizes this would be more helpful and the "T14 or free" meme going around right now sums it up nicely

[Skye]

I still think rayiner's UN-employment graphs could work as the basis of a new ranking system. The only controversial bit was that he declined to include school-funded, opting instead to establish an upper bound on bad outcomes.

Not controversial to me.

I think it is wonderful that UVA offers school funded jobs to those facing employment hardship. But given the importance and perception of employment (for applicants and USNWR), isn’t this practice self-serving and misleading? 17% school funded employment, is what, 3X/4X the norm?

[jenesaislaw]

The problem with LST is that it would advocate going to Nova Southeastern (NOVA!) over William & Mary based on full-time legal employment numbers. So there is still something missing from the formula. Looking at the numbers alone isn't enough to gain an appreciation for the opportunities one law school may grant you that another may not.

except no one should be deciding "hmm, should i go to Nova or William & Mary?" Nova probably gives you a better chance at getting a legal job in Florida than William & Mary does, and vice versa for Virginia.

LST is doing the best it can with the information the schools provide. some schools provide more detailed info on what types of jobs students get (firm size, etc) and how they got the jobs (OCI, mass mailing, etc), which is useful for drilling down into what the employment data means for you. but schools don't have to provide this info and many don't.

Without a doubt. I love the work that LST does and it is a great reflection on the legal market as a whole. I'm just using this as an example that just ranking schools by the bare-bones numbers can be as deceptive as the schools' inflated numbers. I don't have the answer, but it's not as simple as some people may make it out to be.

Let me preface what I'm about to say with one difficult-to-dispute fact: the way we present information lends itself to too-general of comparisons.

That said, we actively encourage people on the site, both through narrative form (if people read the guide to using the Score Reports) and structure of the information presentation, to dive deeper.

So whoever said that LST is advocating W&M over Nova confirms that first fact, while underscoring the importance of doing a good job guiding people through information instead of overwhelming them with raw data.

As always, I am happy to talk about how we can improve things, especially since the next batch of Score Reports will be out within two months. In fact, a TLSer sent me a PM last night and we have a call tomorrow morning to talk over his suggestions.

[20141023]

.

[Rahviveh]

Anyway, this all kind of gets back to the point that I was trying to make here. Because it is difficult to rate law schools by the fields that their graduates go into, it would perhaps be more beneficial to provide applicants with some sort of measure that shows if the investment of a legal education is "worth it" instead.

As Ti Malice said, this might reflect poorly on schools (like Yale) that have a lot of graduates that go into public interest or other low-paying but highly-sought-after jobs; also, as I mentioned, schools that cost next to nothing but also have graduates that make next to nothing wouldn't be portrayed as poorly as they should be with what I suggested in the link above.

Even so, I believe that some sort of metric that compares the amount that students pay in tuition to what they end up making is necessary. Such a metric would essentially tell applicants whether they would be able to pay off their debt if they choose to attend any given school. Although it would be unfair to say that "more money = better," what this metric would really be trying to portray is not the amount of graduates' salaries, but rather the ability of graduates to overcome the cost of their investment.

The problem is that salary reporting rates for most schools outside of the T14 are absolutely atrocious (and even a couple within the T14). Should we just assign default values to people who do not report?

[Br3v]

Anyway, this all kind of gets back to the point that I was trying to make here. Because it is difficult to rate law schools by the fields that their graduates go into, it would perhaps be more beneficial to provide applicants with some sort of measure that shows if the investment of a legal education is "worth it" instead.

As Ti Malice said, this might reflect poorly on schools (like Yale) that have a lot of graduates that go into public interest or other low-paying but highly-sought-after jobs; also, as I mentioned, schools that cost next to nothing but also have graduates that make next to nothing wouldn't be portrayed as poorly as they should be with what I suggested in the link above.

Even so, I believe that some sort of metric that compares the amount that students pay in tuition to what they end up making is necessary. Such a metric would essentially tell applicants whether they would be able to pay off their debt if they choose to attend any given school. Although it would be unfair to say that "more money = better," what this metric would really be trying to portray is not the amount of graduates' salaries, but rather the ability of graduates to overcome the cost of their investment.

The problem is that salary reporting rates for most schools outside of the T14 are absolutely atrocious (and even a couple within the T14). Should we just assign default values to people who do not report?

Give schools a bigger incentive (disincentive) to (not) track down those numbers.

[LSATSCORES2012]

The point is while some schools are certainly better than others for placing into biglaw, there's nothing to suggest that the schools that are less successful at placing into biglaw are intrinsically more successful at placing into shitlaw. I would argue it's not necessary to have a ranking metric based on such outcomes because they are essentially included within the more "favorable" ones.

Interesting point. Another reason why it would be so nice to have a measure of the percentage of people who get a job out of a certain type divided by the percentage of people who applied for a job of a certain type.

[HBBJohnStamos]

Which, IMO, hits TLS's big problem in general on the nose: everyone seems to think that what they want out of law school is what everyone wants out of law school.

+43542

We're best friends.

I don't think it's a problem to assume on a basic level that everybody wants a job that gets some sort of utility out of their degree.

1/4 people I go to school with disagree.

1/4 of the people at CU don't care about the utility of their degree?

[Lord Randolph McDuff]

1/4 of the people at CU don't care about the utility of their degree?

She framed the issue a certain way and I didn't fight her on it. However, 1/4 students at CU didn't come to law school desiring jd-required jobs, at least not more than other outcomes. Without getting into all the possibilities, the point is that schools do not all share the same culture.

[Lord Randolph McDuff]

Nice find. Best part of that is 15% of incoming students have "no idea" what they want to do. They are just sorta, ya know, going to graduate school.

As people do..

I agree. But as someone has said, should we be catering rankings to those people?

I would not word it like that, but yes.

Providing less "points" for JD Advantage/ Other Professional unnecessarily plays favorites among schools. Is GULC worse than Texas Tech or LSU? I bet LSU and Tech have better full-time, long-term JD rates than GULC. (by the way, I'm not going to look this up, but even if the schools are close my point is made). There are cultural differences between schools. GULC is a good example, but there are also plenty of lower ranked schools which attract students with varied career goals. There are many people at my law school that want to start off their careers as advisors to non-profits, aides to politicians, consultants at private companies. Some of these jobs will be JD Required, some not. Finally, there are people with high LSAT scores who really have no idea what they will be doing in three years but in the meantime they would sure love to live in Boulder County and go skiing on the weekends. Sorry, but it's true. Should we punish CU for it's location? I don't see the point in it. By just counting school funded as short-term and punishing schools for all short-term or part-time work, we've improved the rankings in a much less controversial way.

Also let us keep in mind the practical repercussions of excluding JD Advantage and Other Professional from the employment rate. There is a great shortage of lucrative JD required work; we should be encouraging CSO to steer students in other directions, not discouraging them.

[delarge3]

Is it a totally stupid idea to have some sort of alumni satisfaction criteria included in the rankings weighted factors?

9 months after graduation the graduating class fills out a survey about job satisfaction or something like that. You see a LOT of TTT graduates complaining about their schools on TLS, ITLSS, and elsewhere, shouldn't that count for something?

I know that it may give recent grads the incentive to rank their schools higher (to allegedly increase the school's "prestige" in an attempt to help with their job search... Sure), but I feel like there should be enough bitter grads that the true student satisfaction could be reflected.

Any thoughts?

[Crowing]

Is it a totally stupid idea to have some sort of alumni satisfaction criteria included in the rankings weighted factors?

9 months after graduation the graduating class fills out a survey about job satisfaction or something like that. You see a LOT of TTT graduates complaining about their schools on TLS, ITLSS, and elsewhere, shouldn't that count for something?

I know that it may give recent grads the incentive to rank their schools higher (to allegedly increase the school's "prestige" in an attempt to help with their job search... Sure), but I feel like there should be enough bitter grads that the true student satisfaction could be reflected.

Any thoughts?

This could be good but idk how you would ensure that the sample is representative. This problem already exists with salary reporting with schools hounding the people who had good outcomes to get their reports and ignoring the people with shitty outcomes, resulting in the reported data being totally skewed.

[delarge3]

Is it a totally stupid idea to have some sort of alumni satisfaction criteria included in the rankings weighted factors?

9 months after graduation the graduating class fills out a survey about job satisfaction or something like that. You see a LOT of TTT graduates complaining about their schools on TLS, ITLSS, and elsewhere, shouldn't that count for something?

I know that it may give recent grads the incentive to rank their schools higher (to allegedly increase the school's "prestige" in an attempt to help with their job search... Sure), but I feel like there should be enough bitter grads that the true student satisfaction could be reflected.

Any thoughts?

This could be good but idk how you would ensure that the sample is representative. This problem already exists with salary reporting with schools hounding the people who had good outcomes to get their reports and ignoring the people with shitty outcomes, resulting in the reported data being totally skewed.

I guess my thought was that USNWR would conduct the survey (like the lawyers/judges survey) and would multiply the average score by the fraction of grads who responded to the total size of the class. That will also induce schools to encourage their recent grads to complete the survey as opposed to the other way around. But they will not have access to the data.

[jenesaislaw]

I guess my thought was that USNWR would conduct the survey (like the lawyers/judges survey) and would multiply the average score by the fraction of grads who responded to the total size of the class. That will also induce schools to encourage their recent grads to complete the survey as opposed to the other way around. But they will not have access to the data.

The biggest problem here is the same problem I have with the LSSSE, which is that fresh graduates don't know much about what they just got. It would have to be grads 2-3 years out, I think.

Btw, I recognize that you used recent graduates at that this might include the group I said. I just think most people right out are not in a state to evaluate their education.

[jenesaislaw]

Providing less "points" for JD Advantage/ Other Professional unnecessarily plays favorites among schools. Is GULC worse than Texas Tech or LSU? I bet LSU and Tech have better full-time, long-term JD rates than GULC. (by the way, I'm not going to look this up, but even if the schools are close my point is made). There are cultural differences between schools. GULC is a good example, but there are also plenty of lower ranked schools which attract students with varied career goals.

Here is something you should look up. Look at GULC's numbers pre-crash for JD Preferred and Professional jobs.

2009: http://www.lstscorereports.com/?school=gulc&class=2009
2008: --LinkRemoved--

For fun: http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legalw ... ustry.html

"The JD-Advantaged and Professional jobs appear to be, on balance, less desirable than those requiring bar passage. They increase nearly three times in relative proportion as we move from T14 to Tier 1 to Tier 2. Many are likely compromise jobs—not as good as practicing law, but better than non-professional alternatives."