tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-73363049028094159852012-03-21T07:24:09.099ZLaw School AlmanacBecause the cure for bad rankings is ... more rankings.Michael Shafferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06829556696395876997noreply@blogger.comBlogger28125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7336304902809415985.post-55018198298537006802009-04-20T07:28:00.006+01:002009-04-20T21:21:21.209+01:00Twenty-one Years of USNWRUpdated with rankings from US News America's Best Graduate Schools 2010:Green marks moves into the Top 10, red marks moves out. Turquoise indicates ties for 9th or 10th place that forced more than ten schools into the "Top 10." For those who wonder: The moniker "Top 14" stems from the observation that only fourteen schools have ever appeared in the Top 10 spots of the USNWR law school rankings. Michael Shafferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06829556696395876997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7336304902809415985.post-85585602909926918512008-07-22T17:32:00.026+01:002008-07-24T01:29:41.705+01:00Job Market Risk Index(Cross-posted to MoneyLaw)It's not news that the job market is tough for new lawyers right now. But how bad is it? And how bad will it get? Lets look at some recent figures. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 761,000 lawyers working in America in 2006. The BLS projects that this number will grow by 11% over the decade from 2006 to 2016. That means Michael Shafferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06829556696395876997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7336304902809415985.post-18641138143201363222008-07-20T03:43:00.013+01:002008-07-22T19:29:33.497+01:00Law School Clusters(Cross-posted to MoneyLaw)After pointing out the more severe flaws in the Legal Education Value Added Rankings, I spent some time reading Linda Wightman's LSAC National Longitudinal Bar Passage Study (based on a cohort of students who started law school in 1991). With respect to "valued added" concepts in legal education, one conclusion of this study stands out: LSAT scores and law school GPA Michael Shafferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06829556696395876997noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7336304902809415985.post-37548463749849969862008-07-15T06:12:00.002+01:002008-07-15T06:14:16.019+01:00Take Action to Fix Problems With CCRAAIf you haven't done so yet, check out the email campaign at IBRinfo.org. They're collecting letters addressed to the Department of Education, asking them to fix some issues with the proposed rules on Income Based Repayment and Public Service Loan Forgiveness. The main problems as the rules stand now are: 1) People can't tell whether their jobs will qualify under the public service rules until Michael Shafferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06829556696395876997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7336304902809415985.post-17768003061201363972008-07-09T18:31:00.015+01:002008-07-14T23:51:22.287+01:00LSA Data in Microsoft Excel (.xls) FormatThanks to Jim Chen and The Jurisdynamics Network, you can now download most of the data that I used to produce this site in Microsoft Excel (.xls) format.LSA-ABA-USNWR-MAP: ABA law school identifiers, USN&WR ranks, and geographic regionsLSA-USNWR-REP-2007: US News Combined Reputation Scores 2007LSA-USNWR-REP-2008: US News Combined Reputation Scores 2008LSA-ENDOWMENTS-2008: Law School Endowments Michael Shafferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06829556696395876997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7336304902809415985.post-25487721307187973912008-07-09T03:03:00.008+01:002008-07-09T16:37:12.797+01:00Guest blogging on MoneyLawJim Chen over at MoneyLaw seems to think that my fetish for strange new law school rankings will make fun reading for the regulars on his site. So I'll be posting a few things and taking questions over there for the next couple of weeks. Jim also kindly offered to host some files with all of the raw data behind this site for anyone who wants to download and use it. Soon you should find links on Michael Shafferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06829556696395876997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7336304902809415985.post-38350780419059846382008-07-07T00:25:00.027+01:002008-07-08T18:37:04.203+01:00Law School Almanac Rankings 2008A ranking of ABA approved law schools based on five factors:REP US News Combined Reputation Score$$$ Institutional EndowmentANNR Alumni Network National Reach (B)LEVA Legal Education Value AddedLPVA Legal Placement Value AddedThe first three factors attempt to measure the Three Rs: Reputation, Resources, and Reach. The last two try to capture how much schools boost the success of students beyond Michael Shafferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06829556696395876997noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7336304902809415985.post-511548096450879122008-07-05T22:20:00.039+01:002008-07-08T18:59:39.854+01:00Alumni Network Regional StrengthThe tables below show raw data from the Alumni Network National Reach study summarized by region. Each table has schools sorted by number of alumni in the region. The highlight colors show those schools that account for 50% (green), 80% (light grey) and 90% of all lawyers listed in the directory for that region. Just as there were some striking differences between schools in the prior study, Michael Shafferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06829556696395876997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7336304902809415985.post-62789623819685297642008-06-25T08:15:00.034+01:002008-07-20T03:40:05.770+01:00Alumni Network National Reach (UPDATE)NOTE: Be sure to read my comments on problems with these data before you use them for anything.New data from an extension of the Alumni Network National Reach study to include 192 ABA Approved law schools in the mainland United States, Alaska, and Hawaii. See the original study for details on what the numbers mean.This update also includes two sorts of the "skew" figures: A) The same as in the Michael Shafferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06829556696395876997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7336304902809415985.post-34671533916600906932008-06-17T01:33:00.040+01:002008-06-19T17:34:40.481+01:00Hornbooks & Supplements for 1LBeginning law students often ask what hornbooks or supplements they should read in addition to their casebook for each 1L class. There are four main types of reading supplements or study aids which may help you interpret the cases you study in class and prepare for exams: 1) Hornbooks or student editions of practitioner treatises; 2) Short treatises or summaries; 3) Primary sources such as model Michael Shafferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06829556696395876997noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7336304902809415985.post-15274705036048463832008-03-31T09:54:00.006+01:002008-03-31T19:54:20.889+01:00Most Likely to Succeed Rankings 2008The question arises from time to time which schools might make big moves up or down in the rankings over the next decade or two. To produce some sort of rough proxy of potential to succeed, I ranked schools based on an equal weighting of their reputation scores and endowments. The MLTS score is the sum of the $$$ and REP scores, each of which is a percentile ranking on a 500 point scale. Equal Michael Shafferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06829556696395876997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7336304902809415985.post-35106155023781145182008-03-28T20:57:00.003Z2008-03-28T21:01:02.569ZReputation Score Gainers and Losers 2008Law schools that gained or lost at least five percentile points in their US News combined reputation scores from 2007 to 2008. Negative numbers (a drop in reputation score) appear in parentheses.REP07 Reputation Score 2007 (AR + PR)PCTL07 Reputation Percentile 2007REP08 Reputation Score 2008 (AR + PR)PCTL08 Reputation Percentile 2008MOVE Change in Reputation Percentile (2008 - 2007)USNWR US News Michael Shafferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06829556696395876997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7336304902809415985.post-41138484401621786062008-03-28T18:15:00.000Z2008-03-28T18:16:03.727ZHot or Not 2008Law schools that moved up or down at least five spots in the US News overall rankings from 2007 to 2008. Negative numbers (a drop in overall rank) appear in parentheses. Movements between unscored tiers and into or out of the Top 100 get a value of 99 or (99) depending on direction.2007 US News Overall Rank ("2008" Edition, Released March 2007)2008 US News Overall Rank ("2009" Edition, Released Michael Shafferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06829556696395876997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7336304902809415985.post-22231809807225406682008-03-28T07:25:00.008Z2008-03-28T07:56:25.295ZThe Over-Under 2008The question sometimes comes up, "Which law schools are most under or overrated by the US News ranking system?" We might make a good start on an answer by looking at the difference between the ranks of schools by their US News reputation scores alone vs. their overall rank. Due to the vagaries of the ranking formula, differences of less than five spots probably mean little. But some schools seem Michael Shafferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06829556696395876997noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7336304902809415985.post-89435068870385856922008-03-28T05:00:00.008Z2008-03-31T08:01:56.687+01:00US News Combined Reputation Scores 2008Law schools ranked by US News Reputation Scores; broken down by 98th and 95th percentiles and succeeding deciles. Equal REP scores get equal RANK.AR Academic ReputationPR Practitioner ReputationREP Combined Reputation (AR + PR)PCTL Reputation PercentileRANK Reputation RankUSNWR USNWR Overall RankAR / PR / REP / PCTL / RANK / USNWR4.80 4.80 9.60 99.4 1 2 Harvard University (MA)4.80 4.80 Michael Shafferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06829556696395876997noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7336304902809415985.post-80839939521463347752008-03-27T01:12:00.006Z2008-03-27T01:24:44.354ZTwenty Years of USNWRData from the Pre-Law Handbook web site and US News America's Best Graduate Schools 2009:Green marks moves into the Top 10, red marks moves out. Turquoise indicates ties for 9th or 10th place that forced more than ten schools into the "Top 10." For those who wonder: The moniker "Top 14" stems from the observation that only fourteen schools have ever appeared in the Top 10 spots of the USNWR law Michael Shafferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06829556696395876997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7336304902809415985.post-15633035520252761982008-03-18T22:51:00.004Z2008-03-28T05:50:05.525ZThe Over-Under 2007The question sometimes comes up, "Which law schools are most under or overrated by the US News ranking system?" We might make a good start on an answer by looking at the difference between the ranks of schools by their US News reputation scores alone vs. their overall rank. Due to the vagaries of the ranking formula, differences of less than five spots probably mean little. But some schools seem Michael Shafferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06829556696395876997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7336304902809415985.post-84203870378475617872008-03-18T00:06:00.027Z2008-07-08T01:01:48.818+01:00Alumni Network National ReachThe figures below give the results of a small study on the "national reach" of alumni networks for the Top 30 law schools as ranked by US News & World Report. These schools are more or less the ones that seem to have any sort of reasonable claim to "national" reputations, reach, and placement success. Most are held in high regard by lawyers and judges. But a brief survey of where their alumni Michael Shafferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06829556696395876997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7336304902809415985.post-32600610885105636442008-01-30T07:25:00.005Z2009-04-20T01:21:11.594+01:00Figuring out Financial AidAPPLYINGThere are three basic applications that you may have to submit in order to receive financial aid from most law schools:Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) (http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/)Need Access (http://www.needaccess.org/) or CSS Profile (https://profileonline.collegeboard.com/)School specific online or paper formsFinancial aid to law students comes from three major sources:Michael Shafferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06829556696395876997noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7336304902809415985.post-87940441862706888232008-01-30T06:20:00.000Z2008-01-31T07:32:33.494ZLaw School Endowments 2008Parent institution or university system endowments for ABA approved law schools. Rankings broken out for private and public schools only, and by US News Tier, appear following the list of all schools.Sources:2007 NACUBO Endowment StudyGuideStar.org$$$ Total Endowment in Dollars (000)PCTL Percentile RankUSNWR US News Rank$$$ / PCTL / USNWR34,634,906 100.0 2 Harvard University (MA) 22,530,200 Michael Shafferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06829556696395876997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7336304902809415985.post-64720565091627641882008-01-23T02:23:00.000Z2008-01-23T02:32:59.552ZCiolli Elite Firm Placement DataSummary of Anthony Ciolli's elite firm placement data by school.The Legal Employment Market: Determinants of Elite Firm Placement and How Law Schools Stack UpPAC Pacific: AK, CA, HI, OR, WARM Rocky Mountains: AZ, CO, ID, MT, NV, NM, UT, WYWNC West North Central: IA, KS, MN, MO, NE, ND, SDESC East South Central: AL, KY, MS, TNWSC West South Central: AR, LA, OK, TXMW Midwest: IL, IN, MI, OH, WISA Michael Shafferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06829556696395876997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7336304902809415985.post-1292559243340040952008-01-22T05:42:00.001Z2008-01-24T05:28:30.149ZLegal Placement Value Added Rankings 2007This Legal Placement Value Added ranking is a crude attempt to measure the value added by law schools in terms of the prospects for their graduates finding paying legal work at graduation. A valid measure of this sort would give an idea of which schools have a greater or lesser impact on the career prospects of their students, as opposed to those which just enroll students more or less likely to Michael Shafferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06829556696395876997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7336304902809415985.post-46982101050008163862008-01-22T05:41:00.006Z2008-07-20T03:41:09.363+01:00Legal Education Value Added Rankings 2007NOTE: Be sure to read my comments on problems with these data before you use them for anything.The infamous Judging The Law Schools rankings put out by Thomas M. Cooley Law School inspired an attempt to rank schools based on their "value added" in educating students. Whatever we may say about the Cooley rankings, it is nice that they created a website which allows browsing and comparing schools Michael Shafferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06829556696395876997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7336304902809415985.post-2146975532951343762008-01-22T05:40:00.000Z2008-01-22T05:41:34.426ZMost Likely To Succeed Rankings 2007The question arises from time to time which schools might make big moves up or down in the rankings over the next decade or two. To produce some sort of rough proxy of potential to succeed, I ranked schools based on an equal weighting of their current US News composite reputation scores and the total size of their endowments. Endowment figures come from the 2006 NACUBO Endowment Study and are forMichael Shafferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06829556696395876997noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7336304902809415985.post-63082101367985156842008-01-22T05:39:00.002Z2008-01-30T06:29:17.248ZLaw School Endowments 2007Parent institution or university system endowments for ABA approved law schools.Sources: 2006 NACUBO Endowment Study; GuideStar.org$$$ Total Endowment in Dollars (000)PCTL Percentile RankUSNWR US News RankPRIVATE SCHOOLS$$$ / PCTL / USNWR28,915,706 100.0 2 HARVARD UNIVERSITY18,030,600 99.0 1 YALE UNIVERSITY14,084,676 98.0 2 STANFORD UNIVERSITY5,937,814 97.1 5 COLUMBIA Michael Shafferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06829556696395876997noreply@blogger.com0