USNWR Law School Rankings

Well, the 2012 rankings for law schools were released today (actually, they were leaked last night). I think it's so insane the way some people look at rankings as if they were the holy grail of all things law school related.

Newsflash, there's not THAT much of a difference between a school ranked 45 and a school ranked 50. There's really not.

I would implore people who are interested in attending law schools to look beyond the rankings when trying to make a decision about where you should go. I know people who just went to the very best school that they could get in to (Pepperdine, one of the most expensive law schools everrrrr) without any scholarship money. He liked it well enough, but honestly would have probably been happier elsewhere. Not to mention way less in debt.

Yikes.

Here's a nice little analysis from Above the Law about this years rankings. It has links to loads more sites, if you happen to be interested.

As far as the rankings are related to my law school choices, Santa Clara jumped a few spots (back to where they were last year, #84) and SMU dropped two places (from #48 to #50). But honestly, when you're talking that small of a drop or a jump it's really completely arbitrary. In the "Law Firms Rank Law Schools" list SMU was listed as #41, a jump of three spots from last year. I think that's probably a little more important than the arbitrary USN&WR.