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https://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=113560
minuit wrote:Have you all seen this yet? What do you make of it?
http://www.leiterrankings.com/new/2010_ ... pact.shtml
Rawlsian wrote:Vandy> Cornell, Duke, UM, UVA, Penn, UCLA, UT, GULC
They tend to favor smaller faculties over larger faculties, which no doubt explains why schools like Texas and Virginia and Georgetown come out behind schools like Vanderbilt and Cornell, even though I don’t think any informed scholarly judgment would rate them that way.
In some cases, older faculty account for quite a lot of the result (e.g., three of NYU’s ten most cited faculty are between the ages of 76 and 80; four of Columbia’s ten most cited are 70 or older).
I don't think Leiter is trying to replace standard rankings per-se, he is just offering up additional data based on different criteria. Citations probably matter a lot more to someone who is planning on teaching law school as opposed to someone going to law school.Basically, Leiter is offering an objective alternative to reputation rankings. But at least for lots of people, law school choice largely comes down to job prospects, so reputation rankings are more important (even though they have so many problems).
Yea, I like his rankings. I'm likely headed to Vandy, so I'm always on the look out for outside validation.nealric wrote:I don't think Leiter is trying to replace standard rankings per-se, he is just offering up additional data based on different criteria. Citations probably matter a lot more to someone who is planning on teaching law school as opposed to someone going to law school.Basically, Leiter is offering an objective alternative to reputation rankings. But at least for lots of people, law school choice largely comes down to job prospects, so reputation rankings are more important (even though they have so many problems).
Yeah, I said 'alternative' and it is probably the wrong word. I agree that he is offering something closer to a supplement than an alternative.nealric wrote:I don't think Leiter is trying to replace standard rankings per-se, he is just offering up additional data based on different criteria. Citations probably matter a lot more to someone who is planning on teaching law school as opposed to someone going to law school.Basically, Leiter is offering an objective alternative to reputation rankings. But at least for lots of people, law school choice largely comes down to job prospects, so reputation rankings are more important (even though they have so many problems).
Because if you want academia you need faculty members to champion for you.Excellent117 wrote:Why the f**k is scholarly impact even important?
Actually, Leiter is a pretty laid back, hilarious guy. You need to calm down. Chicago does have a stronger academic faculty than Columbia. Columbia has a stronger practitioner faculty. They are different approaches to education. It doesn't make either school better.Twit wrote:Trolling through Leiter's stuff today, and I've come to this conclusion: his agenda is to establish that the T4 is a thing, and that it is: Y-H-S/Chi. He abhors the fact that Columbia is ranked higher than Chi and really thinks that Chi is on par with S and probably H. He's got a lot data to back it up.
Granted, however, he gets to pick the data that's be used, but that's what argumentation is all about, isn't it?
Yea, I'm actually going to back Taipei on this one. Chicago and NYU (although NYU has the old faculty problem) both have stronger academic faculties than Columbia.TaipeiMort wrote:Actually, Leiter is a pretty laid back, hilarious guy. You need to calm down. Chicago does have a stronger academic faculty than Columbia. Columbia has a stronger practitioner faculty. They are different approaches to education. It doesn't make either school better.Twit wrote:Trolling through Leiter's stuff today, and I've come to this conclusion: his agenda is to establish that the T4 is a thing, and that it is: Y-H-S/Chi. He abhors the fact that Columbia is ranked higher than Chi and really thinks that Chi is on par with S and probably H. He's got a lot data to back it up.
Granted, however, he gets to pick the data that's be used, but that's what argumentation is all about, isn't it?
Nope. I actually think that Leiter is on to something. His methodology is as good if not better than USNWR's and it presents a pretty persuasive argument that UChi should not be overlooked.TaipeiMort wrote:Actually, Leiter is a pretty laid back, hilarious guy. You need to calm down. Chicago does have a stronger academic faculty than Columbia. Columbia has a stronger practitioner faculty. They are different approaches to education. It doesn't make either school better.
stillwater wrote:Leiter is a hack.
moneybagsphd wrote:stillwater wrote:Leiter is a hack.
Academic reputation ratings have zero impact on job prospects. And professional reputation rankings don't seem to match employment trends.sumus romani wrote:Basically, Leiter is offering an objective alternative to reputation rankings. But at least for lots of people, law school choice largely comes down to job prospects, so reputation rankings are more important (even though they have so many problems).
Props for shamelessly politicizing the thread.d.schoenfeld16 wrote:All these rankings seem to be good for is getting a job in the Obama Administration where you get to participate first-hand in the downfall of our country as some hack regulatory czar.
Don't forget his arbitrary ranking of the "Placement in Law Teaching" that he did only in 2006. You know, the year where Chicago happened to beat out SLS? But, of course, since Chicago's placement has declined significantly relative to YSH (in that order) in recent years, he only recently in 2011 decided to look at historic placement dating back to 1995 when Chicago was still crushing its numbers. Similar, single-year studies are nowhere to be found apart from this isolated ranking where it looked particularly favorable to the school that pays his salary.hung jury wrote:Also, anyone notice Leiter recently decided to troll the internet to note that Chicago is #1 in the always crucial metric "FACULTY QUALITY BASED ON MEMBERSHIP IN THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS & SCIENCES."
http://www.leiterrankings.com/new/2012_AAAS.shtml
I mean, it wouldn't be so egregious if it wasn't the only update to his "rankings" since January 2011
(that wonderful piece, by the way, decided to stretch all the way back to Chicago's glory years when discussing tenure track appointments).