Law School Rankings

Rank ordering is a crude but economical method of conveying information that assists consumers (such as prospective law students) to make choices; hence the popularity of the law school rankings by U.S. News & World Report ( U.S. News\u27). However, U.S. News\u27s rankings are vitiated by the arbitrary weights attached to the different factors on which the rankings are based. This paper explores a variety of alternatives, beginning with the mean LSAT score of the student body, and emphasizes that the design of a ranking system is relevant to the interest of the people whom the rankings are intended to guide. There is broad convergence on plausible systems of ranking law schools, but it is possible to improve on the U.S. News rankings. Symposium: The Next Generation of Law School Rankings held April 15, 2005 at Indiana University School of Law-Bloomington