California Grumbling at U.S. News
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Only three of California’s 19 law schools accredited by the American Bar Association improved on the U.S. News & World Report annual rankings this year, and the long view looks even worse.
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Not a single California school has seen a cumulative increase in ranking during the past three years — notwithstanding that Stanford Law School; the University of California, Berkeley School of Law; the University of California at Los Angeles School of Law; and Pepperdine University School of Law each maintained their rankings.
State unemployment rates are indeed a factor in the relatively poor performance of California law schools, Bob Morse, director of data research at U.S. News, confirmed. But the ABA’s requirement that law schools release more detailed information about the types of jobs their graduates land also moved the scales. Graduate jobs rates account for 20 percent of a school’s overall rank.
“What the data was masking previously was that at California law schools, many of their graduates weren’t going into real law jobs,” Morse said. “Whether that will change when the California economic improves isn’t clear, but their rankings decline was in part caused by that.” Still, Morse said, U.S. News would consider any changes Campbell proposes.”Trying to get all the law schools in California to speak with a united voice is institutionally difficult, but we are in agreement on this,” University of San Francisco School of Law dean John Trasviña said. “As a state, all the law schools dropped for the past few years in the rankings, but it’s not because the quality of all the schools suddenly dropped.” San Francisco ranked No. 106 two years ago, but fell out of the top 147 schools this year and moved into U.S. News’ unranked second tier.
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Tags: California, Pepperdine University School of Law, Stanford Law School
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