NDLS back in Top 25?

U.S. News and World Report's 2009 law-school rankings aren't due to be officially released until Friday, but there are scattered reports of leaks. (Hat tip: yea.) Specifically, law blog The Shark has published a PDF scan of an apparently Xeroxed copy of the alleged list (purportedly found at an unspecified "newsstand"); Xoxohth poster "Gerbil21" claims he saw the magazine on display early at a local Barnes & Noble and wrote the rankings down by hand; and poster "m1" on Law School Discussion took a digital picture of the alleged new rankings page.

If the leaked list is accurate -- a big "if" -- it would mean Notre Dame Law School has recovered from last year's drop from #22 to #28, climbing back into a tie for #22. However, I can't vouch for the accuracy of these purported leaks in any way, shape or form. I'm just passing on the links. You can consider them sort of like the early unweighted exit polls on election nights: lend them whatever credence you feel is appropriate, with "none" being a perfectly valid answer. We report, you decide.

Oh, and insert your own rankings-don't-matter disclaimer here. :)

P.S. For example.

Comments

[Derek]

This is, of course, entirely expected, particularly on account of a number of bizarre circumstances from the previous year: new career services personnel have correctly reported the at-graduation employment rates, which moved from 78.8 to 83.8; new admissions directors have corrected the errors from the Class of 2009's and benefited from a large deferred admitted class, dropping the acceptance rate from 24.4 to 18.6; the GPA percentiles increased with improved admissions selectivity, from 3.28-3.69 to 3.40-3.76.

Some items remain curious. First, NDLS students who fail to report to CSO their employment status have, inevitably, harmed the 9-month graduation rate, which is 97.3%. That's not to say that some members of our graduating class were unemployed at 9 months, but it is to say that underreporting occurs from "lost" alumni, which truly hurts the ranking.

Second, our peer ranking remains 3.3. While it is true that there's an anti-Notre Dame bias in academia on account of, among other things, the "Catholic" nature of the institution, or perhaps that our younger faculty don't have the wide accolades of older faculty (either because they're still young, or because the accolades have not been spread well), it's still curious that it remains so disproportionate comparred to our lawyer/judge ranking.

Third, the 89.5% IL bar passage rate is shockingly low. IL had a 87% first-time bar passage rate, and virtually every Illinois-based school, to my knowledge, had a 90%+ passage rate. While I do not advocate ND moving toward a "state bar specific" curriculum, I wonder if any steps could be taken to assist students taking the IL bar, or if, perhaps, faculty should strongly encourage students to take the IL bar particularly seriously, rather than treat it as a "default" option (and, potentially, increase the failure rate of those who simply take the IL bar by "default").

Next year, I will be intrigued to see if glossy photographs of the nearly-completed law school addition, coupled with complementary copies of the Notre Dame Law Review symposium featuring Justice Antonin Scalia, Brad Clark, William Eskridge, Elizabeth Garrett, John Manning, Peter Strauss, and Ernest Young distributed to all law school deans (which I hope the administration plans to do) would boost the peer reputation scores. Of course, then again, perhaps nothing can overcome the anti-ND perception among some academics.

Finally, in light of some of last year's Observer "reporting," it should be fairly obvious that the hyperbolic panicked reactions were, well, simply uncalled for. I do hope that some of last year's vociforous critics of the precipitous drop are equally vociforous in their praise for the skyrocketing climb.

[yea]

there is no praise due for this rise derek. the drop last year was mostly the result of incompetance. i dont see why i should giving praise for being ranked where we are supposed to be. make the top 20 and then ill give some praise.

that being said, im very relieved that you were right about last year's drop being a one time thing. lets start marketing our faculty better to increase our peer score. lets get career services on the ball with getting info from grads. lets pass the illinois bar. nds small class size and underated peer rep score makes top 20 not out of the question for nd.

Let's take this info to our bosses and request a raise!