Importance of Specialty Rankings Forum

[crockwell]

I'm definitely inclined to believe you, but not as a result of the comparison between IP rankings in 2008 and 2010. Between 2008 and 2010, seven of the ten schools remained in the top 10. The rankings of a school's specialty would be more significantly impacted by one professor leaving than the non-specialty ranking of the school would be overall. I would think that school rankings on specialties should be more volatile because the programs are smaller and more easily affected by changes that the school could more easily absorb in general rankings. As for employers not paying attention to them, I have no idea, so I would have to defer to your information.

FWIW, the USNWR specialty rankings are entirely determined by professors. I would hazard a guess that volatility is due to low response rate.

Legal hiring is prestige driven and prestige isn't something that changes much year over year.

I agree with you 100%. I guess it was more wishful thinking than anything to consider these rankings of real value. For a T4 student as myself it would be pretty cool to be able to transfer into a school and have an advantage over an HYS graduate. Logic dictates otherwise.

[crockwell]

You should stay at Cooley according to this specialty ranking:

http://www.cooley.edu/rankings/overall2010.html

I really wish the school wouldn't publish this. It definitely makes the school a target. I could go on about how this isn't an indication of what Cooley is really like, but it would be pointless. Cooley has a lot of good things to offer, but unfortunately decisions like the rankings system will draw negative attention to Cooley, and overshadow the many things that it does do well.

Well, I realized that was a little dickish but my point was that I don't trust any specialty rankings.

Honestly, I don't think it was dickish. It was funny. If students at Cooley would just accept this as advertising and not start defending the rankings, we would be much better off. If people start picking on Cooley I could defend the school a number of ways. The same can not be said about this ranking system.

[Lawl Shcool]

Specialty rankings are meaningless in real life. However, they sound like an AWESOME way to show interest when trying to transfer to a school.

[adelaney79]

Hi Folks,

I was directed to this forum by a friend who knows I went to Vermont Law School.

I found this interesting. I understand it was in the context of environmental lawyers in nonprofits, but I felt it was particularly ill-informed.

1) I've never met anyone from Vermont Law School with a job as an attorney.
2) Every attorney in environmental law that went to a T-1 outside of the T-20ish wishes they went to VLS instead.
3) Every attorney in environmental law in the T-20ish is at impressive organizations lol-ing at the VLS grads.

I am an attorney. I went to Vermont Law School. I can't speak to number 2, but as to 3, many of my classmates have jobs as attorneys with "impressive" organizations. If T-20ish grads are laughing at them, I'm sure it's not devastating. Vermont Law School is an excellent school overall. I have nothing to do with environmental law. I'm in private practice and I'm very pleased with the education I received at VLS. I have to agree with the above poster's sentiments regarding specialty rankings.

[unc0mm0n1]

You should stay at Cooley according to this specialty ranking:

http://www.cooley.edu/rankings/overall2010.html

I really wish the school wouldn't publish this. It definitely makes the school a target. I could go on about how this isn't an indication of what Cooley is really like, but it would be pointless. Cooley has a lot of good things to offer, but unfortunately decisions like the rankings system will draw negative attention to Cooley, and overshadow the many things that it does do well.

Well, I realized that was a little dickish but my point was that I don't trust any specialty rankings.

Honestly, I don't think it was dickish. It was funny. If students at Cooley would just accept this as advertising and not start defending the rankings, we would be much better off. If people start picking on Cooley I could defend the school a number of ways. The same can not be said about this ranking system.

The best transactional attorney in my law center went to Cooley. He's terrible at litigation though, so we keep him locked in his office churning out actions.