The folks over at Above the Law are reporting that Northwestern Law dean David Van Zandt has issued an email to law students addressing the new Super Lawyer rankings. In these rankings, which we discussed here, Northwestern landed at #18. Van Zandt, a self-described supporter of law school rankings, explained that as good as this new list was, it could be even better...if it took into account law school size. Using a different methodology - ranking schools by the number of Super Lawyers per capita, using the Class of 1999 as a baseline, and limiting the relevant group of law schools to those in the US News Top 14 - Northwestern came out #8. The modified Super Lawyers list produces the following "Top 14" list:
Harvard , Michigan, Yale, Chicago, Virginia, Stanford, Berkeley, Northwestern, Columbia, Cornell, Penn, Duke, NYU, Georgetown.
I have some questions. The first two are methodological. Why would you choose the Class of 1999 as the denominator for a per capita calculation? Surely most Super Lawyers came from a much earlier class - probably something like the Class of 1980. The Class of 1999 is such an odd choice that it makes me wonder if the folks at NU ran the data with earlier - and probably more appropriate classes - and didn't like the result. And while we're at it, what's with limiting the ranking to US News Top 14 schools? Did inclusion of USC, UCLA, Vandy, or Texas undermine the project?
My second question is this: does it really bolster Northwestern's reputation to get enmeshed in the Super Lawyer rankings? Doesn't it convey a sense of institutional insecurity? Perhaps Van Zandt correctly believes that Northwestern is in a tight battle with a few competitor schools and that this new ranking might tip the balance in a bunch of close cases.
But the Van Zandt Law School Ranking is so dubious, in its own right, that he exposes the law school to snarky posts like the one over at ATL. And in today's market, I'd think that Northwestern would be better off avoiding bad press at Above the Law than re-polishing the Super Lawyer law school rankings.
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