Document Type

Working Paper

Publication Date

10-2-2013

SSRN Discipline

Education by Discipline eJournals; LSN Subject Matter eJournals; EduRN Subject Matter eJournals; IRPN Subject Matter eJournals; Innovation Areas eJournals; Innovation Research & Policy Network; Legal Scholarship Network; Education Research Network; Law School Research Papers - Legal Studies; Law & Society eJournals; AARN Subject Matter eJournals; Cognitive Science Network; Humanities Network; Anthropology & Archaeology Research Network

Abstract

Although much attention has been paid to US News World Report's rankings of US law schools the hierarchy it describes is a longstanding one rather than a recent innovation In this Article we show the presence of a consistent hierarchy of US law schools from the 1930s to the present provide a categorization of law schools for use in research on trends in legal education and examine the impact of US News's introduction of a national ordinal ranking on this established hierarchy The Article examines the impact of such hierarchies for a range of decisionmaking in law school contexts including the role of hierarchies in promotion tenure publication and admissions for employers in hiring and for prospective law students in choosing a law school This Article concludes with suggestions for ways the legal academy can move beyond existing hierarchies and at the same time address issues of pressing concern in the legal education sector Finally the Article provides a categorization of law schools across time that can serve as a basis for future empirical work on trends in legal education and scholarship

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