"All in favor of killing the LSAT requirement say 'aye.'"

Donald J. Polden, dean of the law school at Santa Clara University and chair of the ABA committee studying the standards, said that in two preliminary discussions of the issue, a “substantial majority” of committee members indicated that they would like to drop the LSAT requirement. (He confirmed a report on the likely shift in requirements, first published by The National Law Journal.)

Polden said via e-mail that there are “good arguments” for dropping the LSAT as an accreditation requirement. He said such a move would provide “greater flexibility for schools to achieve diversity goals in their admitted classes, permitting schools to experiment with admission programs that benefit the school without being penalized by U.S. News ranking changes attributable to those programs, following some of the thinking of undergraduate institutions on optional standardized entrance exams.” An ABA report last year was highly critical of the way many law schools are obsessed with high LSAT averages, which lead to higher rankings from U.S. News & World Report, and said that the link between test scores and rankings was discouraging efforts to promote diversity among law students.

We’re not sure how many law schools will drop the LSAT requirement if the requirement goes away, although one school, the Massachusetts School of Law, has famously fought the ABA’s LSAT requirement for years. It’s hard to imagine numerous top law schools following suit, but it’s not out of the question that they could end up looking at a combination of other quantified factors to get at the same thing.

If the changes does happen, though, one can’t help but feel like it’s a case of the tail wagging the dog: “The rankings are driving some less-than-ideal behavior because they report on LSAT scores. I know… Let’s not require the LSAT anymore! That will fix it.” If that were to happen, then surely U.S. News and other publications will simply put more emphasis on other quantifiable measures, such as undergraduate GPA. We can see it now: In five years there will be an article about the ABA dropping the rule that law schools require applicants to provide undergraduate transcripts. Then they won’t want schools to report how many of their grads pass the bar. That will teach those rankings publishers.

While we agree that too much emphasis is put on rankings, and the rankings themselves may put too much emphasis on standardized test scores, it really seems like the ABA is missing the point. If the LSAT works for admissions officers (and most still say that they do), then figure out another way to solve the rankings problem, rather than stopping what works simply because it creates an indirect downstream problem somewhere else. Dropping the LSAT requirement is an easy change to make, and it may seem like it mitigates the problem, but we guarantee that problem will simply reappear in another form.

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The most famous, of course, is the “peer assessment” score that plays such a huge role and completely stems from opinion — and often uninformed opinion at that. With numbers — average test scores and GPAs, acceptance rates, job placement, and so on — we assume a bit of gaming (using a huge waitlist to improve yield rate is a favorite), but for the most part, trust that we can believe the stats.

Well, as the old expression goes, there are “lies, damned lies, and statistics.” And in the case of the U.S. News Law School Rankings, there are some very interesting statistics indeed.

Our society loves rankings, law schools (and grad schools in general) are part of a fairly hierarchical world, and rankings have a way of making that world go round. Click through to get our take on some of the changes and trends that can be found within this year’s list.

First, for those who hate navigating links, we’ll go ahead and list out the 2011 top 20. We’ll even provide the service of including comparative numbers (something U.S. News doesn’t do):

Law School Rankings for 2011
Current rank [Previous rank] School Name (Rating) [Previous Rating]
1 [1] Yale (100) [100]
2 [2] Harvard (97) [95]
3 [3] Stanford (93) [93]
4 [4] Columbia (91) [88]
5 [6] Chicago (88) [87]
6 [5] NYU (87) [87]
7 [6] Berkeley (85) [84]
7 [7] Penn (85) [82]
9 [9] Michigan (84) [81]
10 [10] Virginia (83) [80]
11 [10] Duke (82) [80]
11 [10] Northwestern (82) [80]
13 [13] Cornell (78) [78]
14 [14] Georgetown (77) [75]
15 [15] UCLA (76) [74]
15 [15] Texas (76) [74]
17 [17] Vanderbilt (75) [73]
18 [18] USC (72) [71]
19 [19] Washington U. (70) [69]
20 [28] George Washington (69) [63]

Now, for some commentary:

The “T14″ remains unchanged
Sure, there was some movement within the top 14 law schools, but for the umpteenth year, the schools making up that top tier remained unchanged. Here at the Veritas Prep compound, we joked that this list will never change in our lifetimes. (And yes, we felt very much like the TMZ guys as we hung around the office this morning, riffing about academic rankings. Oddly, we are not remotely embarrassed by this.)

15-19 remains identical, big news at #20
Usually there is some movement among schools 15-through-19, but not this year. Each school saw its raw score go up a bit (more on this below), but the ranking order remained exactly the same. But prized spot #20 features some excitement. You may recall the controversy surrounding George Washington’s awful drop from 20 to 28 last year (okay, maybe you don’t, but luckily the second bullet of this post will refresh your memory), which allowed Boston, Emory, and Minnesota to come crashing into the top 20. This year, those schools are out and GW is back in. Whether it was the placement numbers or the inclusion of part-time data that did George Washington in last year, everything seems to have course-corrected a year later. Cut to: GW law grads taking their fingers off the panic button.

Harvard continues to hold off Stanford for #2
One of the rankings races we watch most closely is the joust for #2 between Harvard and Stanford. Not only did HLS hold off Stanford yet again, they widened the gap and saw their score go up again (from 91 to 95 last year and from 95 to 97 this year). Clearly the momentum of former dean Elena Kagan (the current Solicitor General and a leading contender for appointment to the Supreme Court) is still alive and well in Cambridge. Yale is and probably always will be king, but one could argue that HLS is the hottest property on the law school market.

The U Chicago comeback continues
Two years ago, I wrote a plea to my alma mater Chicago to turn up the heat on their rankings efforts. Whether it is sheer coincidence or the school really has changed its view of the rankings games, the U of C Law School continues to turn things around. After a steady drop through the middle and end of the last decade, Chicago has moved back up in each of the past two years and has now passed NYU and sits at #5 in the current rankings. Again, there’s no need to obsess over this type of stuff (Chicago and NYU are very different schools and whether one is #5 or #6 is no reason to choose one school over the other), but in the case of Chicago it is interesting, because it represents a continued reversal from years of sliding down this list. Chicago grads everywhere (including your author) can breathe a sigh of relief.

Raw scores still going up
Whether law schools really are getting better and better (entirely possible, given the new emphasis on clinical opportunities, seminar instruction, and interdisciplinary learning) or we are just seeing the rankings version of “grade inflation,” the trend of improved scores across the board that we we saw last year continues for the 2011 edition. For instance, Columbia improved three points (from 88 to 91) but stayed at #4, while Michigan and Virginia also went up three points (81 to 84 for UM and 80 to 83 for UVA) but couldn’t make up any ground from a rankings standpoint (#9 and #10, respectively). NYU held steady at 87, but dropped a spot, Berkeley went up a point (84 to 85) but still dropped from #6 to #7, and Duke and Northwestern both went up two full points but dropped from a tie for #10 to a tie for #11.

Has Penn officially arrived?
Quietly, PennLaw keeps giving rise to the idea that it’s a truly elite program, on par with Columbia, Chicago, NYU, and Berkeley. For many, Penn has been viewed for years as the “start of the next tier,” and while that may remain the case for some, it is hard to argue that with a straight face anymore. The U.S. News raw score trend bears that out, as Penn has gone from 80 to 82 to 85 over the past three years and has improved in all of the key “profile” elements (acceptance rate, LSAT, GPA). This has largely gone unnoticed even by rankings junkies because Penn has gone from 7th to 8th back to 7th over the past three years, which obscures just how rapidly the school has closed the raw score gap on the competition.

Northwestern doesn’t climb, despite placement success
There was a lot of attention paid to a recent National Law Journal ranking that listed Northwestern as the top law school for placement of grads within the NALP top 250 firms. We threw some cold water on that excitement and if the U.S. News rankings are to be trusted, it looks like we might have been right. There are just too many factors excluded from a BigLaw placement ranking to establish any larger trends connected to a law school.

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You may have already heard the “Northwestern ranked as best law school” sound bite in the last week and scratched your head. “Really?” Well, yes and no. Yes, in the sense that the National Law Journal is a highly respected publication that put out a legitimate ranking that had Northwestern had the top of the heap. No, in the sense that this ranking measures one thing — and one thing only — and has nothing to do with academic excellence, peer reputation, class profile, or any other metric that we’re used to analyzing. And no in the sense that the one thing it does measure might be a pretty misleading statistic.

Here are some of the hot topics in the law school community:

• In the wake of the new law school rankings, U.S. News & World comes right out and addresses concerns and feedback, via Bob Morse’ “Morse Code” blog. The publication’s recent movement toward transparency and dialogue about the all-important rankings has given the list even more credibility.

• Perhaps not surprisingly, one of the more extensive responses to the rankings came from The GW Hatchet, where the George Washington student paper tries to work through law school’s drop from 20 to 28 in the latest rankings. In particular, the article focuses on the disagreement between the school and the aforementioned Morse – the former claiming that the addition of part-time programs in the rankings is what dropped GW down the list, while the latter insists that “weak placement” data is responsible. Worth a read, if only to understand how seriously everyone takes this ranking business.
• Third-tier program New York Law School rates well behind fellow Manhattan schools such as NYU, Columbia, and Fordham, but its new building appears to be second to none. (Note also the swanky location. You could do worse.)
• The Wall Street Journal is the latest entity to run a story on the increase in job deferments for new law firm associates. You can follow our analysis of this trend here and here.
• The Kansas City Star also focused on the difficult legal job market, and extended the analysis to include a reduction in federal clerkship positions.
• The Chicago Tribune ran a story speculating that President Obama’s pick to replace Justice Souter on the Supreme Court is likely to have significant ties to the University of Chicago Law School.
• Legal writer and attorney Ursula Furi-Perry has published Law School Revealed and this article provides a solid checklist for analyzing which schools might be a good fit.
• Stanford shook off a discouraging drop to #3 in the rankings and the loss of constitutional law scholar Lawrence Lessig to Harvard by hiring 10th Circuit Judge Michael McConnell to direct the Stanford Constitutional Law Center.
• Stanford can also take solace in the fact that its Law School is at the top of the heap in the TaxProf Blog’s ranking of employment success. The ABA’s blog reports that Stanford rates first (followed by Duke, NYC, UCLA, and Penn) in a study based on U.S. News & World employment statistics and conducted by respected law professor Paul Caron, of the University of Cincinnati.

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Ethics has obviously become a hot topic in recent months, given the financial crisis causes by the negligent, if not clearly unethical, behavior of many of America’s most trusted institutions. This topic certainly surfaced during the scandals of Enron and WorldCom, but it seems to have new life, as the subject of ethical training was featured recently in a New York Times article pondering the need for reform in MBA programs.

However, the fact that U.S. News is considering adding an ethical component to its ranking system is probably the most radical thing I’ve heard yet regarding a sea change in how our professional education systems handle the subject of ethical behavior in both academia and in the workforce. Most, if not all, law schools already require a course on professional responsibility, which doubles as preparation for the MPRE (multi-state professional responsibility) exam, which is part of the bar admissions process in all states. Adding an additional layer of measurement (no doubt both objective and subjective, which is indicative of the rankings system as a whole), puts the notion of ethics in a whole new light. Morse grapples with many of the issues (or at least relays what they dealt with at the conference) in the blog post, but this approach gives rise to many questions: will schools begin to promote workshops and speaking series on ethics to game the rankings rather than for the good of the students (or are the two mutually inclusive?). Will ethics courses start to replace elective options? Will they become mandatory courses? Which schools will rise or fall based on this new element … or will it make a dent at all?

It is hard to say what kind of impact this change in approach would have, but it would certainly make things interesting. And as “ethics” becomes more and more of a buzzword in politics, the media, and in academia, we can only expect the attempts to measure it in quantifiable ways to increase. On balance, that would seem to be a good thing. Time will tell.

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Until such time that U.S. News & World decides to fold part time programs in, this story won’t affect the general rankings much. That said, it is still an important bit of information for a couple of reasons:

1. It affirms part time programs. There is definitely a need for part time J.D. programs, as they provide opportunities for people who can’t afford to stop working and they also create admission spaces for those candidates who may not be able to put forward the traditionally rewarded academic profile. By ranking these programs, it validates them as options, while also drawing attention to those law schools who specialize in this type of legal education.

2. It validates the rankings. This is a topic for a stand-alone post, but there are many critics of rankings and how they are used. However, the introduction of these part time rankings really validates why we have rankings in the first place – they serve as guideposts that inform students where they will find what they are looking for, while simultaneously alerting employers as to where they might find great employees. Without a ranking system for part time programs, there is no method by which part time candidates can predict the behavior of other part time candidates – and so they blindly select a school based on factors that are important only to full timers. As always, when you reduce any list or ranking of programs, the ultimate value is that they inform behavior and eliminate confusion in that particular market. These new rankings certainly accomplish that goal.

However, signs are starting to emerge that a true challenger is on the horizon.

Stanford Law School recently announced that its proposed new grading system (introduced in March of this year) will take effect both immediately and retroactively, turning a more standard evaluation model into an “honors/pass/low-pass/fail” hierarchy. The school offers plenty of rationalization for the change in a memo to students posted here, but it doesn’t take a legal scholar to recognize where such a grading scheme comes from. (Here’s a hint: it’s from Yale.)

This development comes at the same time that The Yale Daily News wonders aloud about the possibility of Yale Law slipping due to a mass faculty exodus. The piece surmises that the New Haven location is finally catching up to Yale as spousal career options drive top professors to larger cities like Boston and New York. For a small law school that is built upon the world’s most elite legal faculty, this is a rather large blow.

Throw in the fact that Yale has added a controversial question to its application this year (which may drive away top applicants who want to use test prep and/or admissions consulting and worry about disclosing such assistance) and one could surmise that for the first time in ages, Yale is primed for a bit of a decline, however gradual.

All of which creates a perfect opportunity for Stanford to leverage its ongoing status as the “laid back” law school or the “trendy” law school (or whatever title is hot in the streets these days) and make the final push up the ladder. Whether switching to a grading system that alleniates current students in order to mirror Yale is the way to go remains to be seen, and it should be noted that there is still a wide gap between Yale and Stanford, at least as calculated by U.S. News, but it looks like that gap will start closing any minute.

(Note – Not to be outdone, Harvard has followed suit and announced its own Yale copycat, err, revamped grading model. A hat tip to Above the Law for posting the key student memos involved in both grading changes.)

[Update - Georgetown is not going to the pass/fail grading system. I guess it is now news when a law school doesn't change the way it grades students. Strange times!]