In a letter to the editor, published in The New York Times, Dean Matthew Diller responds to the ongoing news of law schools dropping from the U.S. News World and Report ranking and comments on the ranking’s flaws.
To the Editor:
“In Growing Movement, More Top Law Schools Will Boycott Rankings” describes the scramble to enter the vaunted “T14” — the top 14 law schools as ranked by U.S. News.
“At No. 15,” the article declares, “U.C.L.A. is tantalizingly close to the T14.” The difference between ranking 14th and 15th is presented as clear-cut and consequential, illustrating the absurdity of reducing the many facets of legal education to a single number.
The article cites a study that found graduates from the T14 to have higher salaries and more “prestigious careers” — on average. Yes, the law schools in the T14 are excellent, but there is no magic to the number 14, and the U.S. News algorithm includes as much “noise” as “signal.”
Moreover, the remaining 185 law schools reflect a wide range of approaches and cannot be lumped together. As the dean of an outstanding law school with strong placement in the kind of prestigious jobs the article refers to, I know that many schools provide superb student outcomes, a fact erased by the cited study and obscured by U.S. News’s opaque numbers.
Prospective students miss out when they substitute reliance on U.S. News rankings for their own research into which law schools are a good fit for them, given their academic records, interests, career goals and financial situations.
Matthew Diller
New York
The writer is dean of Fordham Law School.