That the U.S. News & World Report annual rankings of law schools are inaccurate and misleading is no secret. Nevertheless, many law schools, having found themselves trapped in the rankings game, have made decisions affecting their law schools to improve their ranking rather than improve their program or benefit the profession. Indeed, some critics assert that some law schools have directed their efforts to gaming the system. For example, when the credentials of part-time students were not taken into account in determining the qualifications of entering classes, some schools enrolled many lower-credentialed students into their part-time program with the implicit promise that they could quickly transfer to the full-time program. When U.S. News & World Report responded by changing its methodology to include all entering students, deans and others predicted dire consequences, asserting that law schools would respond by reducing the size of their part-time programs or by reducing the number of highly qualified but low credentialed students they admitted to their part-time programs. This program will explore the actual effect the new U.S. News & World Report ranking methodology has had on part-time programs and the market for legal education.
Business Meeting at Program Conclusion.