U.S. News & World Report is revamping some elements of its law-school ranking, capitulating to pressure after deans at more than a dozen top law schools publicly challenged the value of the closely followed list.
In a letter sent Monday to deans of the 188 law schools it currently ranks, U.S. News said it would give less weight in its next release to reputational surveys completed by deans, faculty, lawyers and judges and won’t take into account per-student expenditures that favor the wealthiest schools. The new ranking also will count graduates with school-funded public-interest legal fellowships or who go on to additional graduate programs the same as they would other employed graduates.
U.S. News said its rankings team held meetings with more than 100 deans and other law-school administrators in recent weeks. They embarked on the listening tour after Yale Law School — perennially ranked at No. 1 — said it would no longer provide information to help U.S. News compile its list.
“The U.S. News rankings are profoundly flawed,” Yale Law Dean Heather Gerken said at the time. “Its approach not only fails to advance the legal profession, but stands squarely in the way of progress.”
Harvard Law School followed suit the same day, and by the end of that week the law schools at Georgetown; Columbia; the University of California, Berkeley; and Stanford joined in the movement to disengage from the rankings.
An expanded version of this report appears at WSJ.com.
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