Rankings: This Just In!

Car & Driver magazine to rank law schools on the basis of how many faculty members subscribe to Car & Driver magazine.

Comments

[Matt]

It might be of more use to those on the law school job market this year if Car and Driver rates schools by the types of cars driven by the faculty. They could also do a ranking based on cars driven by students at graduation, 9 months, and 5 years.

[Eric Fink]

How about a Field & Stream ranking, based on how many faculty members hunt and fish.

[Matt]

based on how many faculty members hunt and fish.

Well, I'd want some sort of success metric built in, too, so that deans don't just pass out fishing poles to faculty and tell them to drop a line in the nearest river between classes so as to pump up their rankings.

[twitter.com/jimmilles]

Field & Stream might be a good ranking for environmental law programs. A colleague recently remarked about a facultly, "Does [s]he even OWN a pair of hiking boots?"

[John Nelson]

I think the ranking should be a multi-tiered ranking similar to US News & World Report. For example, the faculty body and student body can have separate scores for their cars.

Each type of car will be broken down by type. For example, one of the professors at my law school owned a Ferrari. That falls under the sports car category. A number of professors owned high-end BMWs and Mercedes -- these fall under the luxury category. Then there was a professor who drove a 1992 Honda with roof liner falling down. This falls under the 'I still pretend I'm a grad student' category. (Interestingly, this last category is actually worth more points because, let's face it, those folks publish more.)

This also works for the students -- except the scores are the inverse of the professors. The nicer the car, the more prestigious the school, the more likely it is an Ivy League (or able to buy rich, well-connected students, anyhow). So, whereas the 1992 Honda was worth more for the professor, it would be less for the student body.

This could work. Or, at least, it will be as representative of school quality as most rankings.