Every now and again, we all need a diversion from the rigors of work and law school. Being devoted law students, however, we don’t have time for real pleasures or dalliances like stopping to smell roses, so we must find joy in that last remaining respite: daydreams of suing Deep Pockets. This is the first of hopefully many (or at least several) distractions I can provide you with as we collectively dream about those large negotiated settlements, jury awards, and attorney’s fees.
Sherpa and I came up with the idea for this feature last week as we discussed this story. If you haven’t already heard, The George Washington University Law School (nice title, but it’s no The Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law) dropped in the U.S. News & World Report Rankings, from #20 in 2008 to #28 in 2009. Senior Associate Dean Greg Maggs blamed the tumble on U.S. News’ decision “to count full-time and part-time students mixed together.” Apparently U.S. News made this decision “without giving [GW] any notice.” How did GW respond? The same way any reasonable law school would respond: by slashing the size of the evening program so there are now fewer slots for those underachieving part-time dolts!
Personally, I think GW’s ranking at #20 was an inflated ranking based on incomplete statistics. They haven’t accepted worse students in the last year. They just had to disclose data that they’d previously swept under the rug. It’s no secret that many law schools have gamed the system to achieve higher rankings. There are plenty of stories of schools admitting students with lower GPAs and LSAT scores into part-time programs to avoid reporting those credentials to U.S. News, only to then transfer those same students into full-time programs after making the report. In that case, GW has always been around a #28 school, but it was able to manufacture a #20 ranking through gamesmanship. And now GW has taken steps to once again manufacture a higher ranking by allowing fewer students into its school. They’re taking less tuition money now to appease U.S. News and increase their prestige so they can have higher contributions from alumni later.
The point, though, is not that GW may have made a bad decision and done wrong by its evening students. The point is that U.S. News wields an incredible amount of power over law schools. U.S. News giveth, and U.S. News taketh away. And its 200 or so law school lapdogs bend over backwards for the chance to move up incrementally in the rankings. Moving up a few slots in the rankings is cause for much celebration and rejoicing; moving down a few slots is cause for weeping and gnashing of teeth.
U.S. News pulls the strings, which is why I dream of suing them. I think I could do it if the Perfect Client walks through my door. Imagine:
Perfect applied to GW’s part-time program, but was not admitted after GW slashed the size of its part-time program from 100 slots to 50 slots. Perfect found out GW ranked him as the 52nd-best candidate, so he easily would have been admitted had GW not reduced its class size. GW cut its part-time program solely as an attempt to increase its standing with U.S. News and to get a higher ranking. U.S. News, then, is directly responsible for GW denying admission to Perfect.
U.S. News would argue that there are about 200 ABA-accredited law schools in the country, and if Perfect was almost good enough to get into GW’s part-time program, he is certainly good enough to get into numerous other programs. But let’s assume that other law schools follow GW’s lead to such an extent that Perfect is denied admission to Tier 1 schools and now must attend a Tier 3 school. This leads to (arguably) a lower-quality education which leads to lesser job prospects and lesser career earnings. In that scenario, the actions of law schools to appease U.S. News and regain their illusory higher rankings have had a significant impact on Perfect’s life.
U.S. News would counter that nobody has a right to go to law school and that law schools should be free to exercise their autonomy to make determinations regarding admissions standards and class sizes. But it’s arguable that, while Perfect does not have a right to go to law school, he has the right to a free and equal opportunity to compete, which U.S. News denied. U.S. News denied Perfect this opportunity because its ranking system creates an inflated sense that some schools are of a higher caliber than they truly are, and this leads those schools to deny admission to qualified candidates who are otherwise capable of succeeding at those schools. U.S. News would counter that Perfect had an adequate opportunity to compete during the application process and simply failed to secure a slot. Perfect would probably reply that the application process was neither free nor equal because U.S. News’ influence on the law schools he applied to skewed it from the start.
It’s a tough case, but I think it’s colorable. What do you think? Any other theories on going after U.S. News? Any antitrust whizzes out there who have ideas about whether U.S. News’ monopoly (or at least current predominance) in the rankings game could saddle them with any duties that they arguably violated? Anyone want to be my co-counsel? Better yet, anyone want to be my Perfect Client?
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7 Responses to Stop and Smell the Lawsuits: GW and Those Troublesome Evening Law Students
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I’m certainly not in favor of GW’s move, but it’s not illegal for them do it. As a private institution (hell even if they were public one it wouldn’t matter) they can admit whoever they want so long as they are not discriminating against people based on race, gender, the usuals. Here, GW is only discriminating against part-time students. And there’s nothing illegal with that considering GW is not required to even have a part-time program. So the legal case is non-existent.
There are couple of non-litigating ways to counter the USNWR ranking power. First, get the ABA to require more transparent reporting of statistics. The issue with gamesmanship is that schools get to choose how to define certain categories. If ABA decided to control how schools reported data, then USNWR could use that data for its yearly ranking.
Second, harp on USNWR to release more information on the reputation rankers. It’s silly that people will listen to individuals who are “experts” in the field. Go after them for more information. Anonymous rankings lack credibility (ie, how do consumers know there isn’t a “ranking cartel,” or the rankers represent a good sample of the legal profession.).
Of course none of this will happen. Unlike races, religions, persons with disabilities, no one is a law student for long. And only law students are getting the raw deal here. So there’s practically no way to put pressure on people to change.
I would say that this is proof positive that everyone needs to pay attention to the Fight the Hypo Law School Rankings and throw that USNWR crap overboard.
Here’s an interesting twist that I heard from Mrs. Bombay. She picked it up when she was in graduate school at GW, and it may be prophetic, so I am in no way representing this as the gospel truth. Anyway, somewhere along the line, GW’s law school had a precipitous decline in the rankings. A quick spin around the Internet reveals that between 1993 and 1994, the school dropped from its traditional spot in the low 20’s to 44.
I’m no numbers expert, but I’d have to guess that unless they were distributing mandatory syphilis in the student lounge, the only way a school could drop 22 places in the ranking was due a methodological change. The way Goody heard the story, the administration was using tuition dollars from law students to fund something else in the University, and the methodology punished that.
Contending that the administration had breached a duty to maintain the school’s spot in the rankings (and by extension the value of their degree), the law student body decided to sue. Evidently they lost, and University President Joel Trachtenberg , not content to leave well enough alone, went after the law school student association hammer and tong for the University’s legal fees. And won. Allegedly, this accounted for the non-existent giving by the Law School Class of ’97.
This brings up two questions. First, does anyone out there have any insights into the truth of this story? Second, what do you think about going after your school for failing to maintain the rankings? What about if they don’t drive the placement up?
They didn’t really take less part-time students. They just opened an additional full-time section and offered spots in that section to those admitted to the part-time program. Those that wanted PT to begin with stayed, and those that didn’t, switched. I was originally supposed to start PT at GW this fall, but deferred due to an illness in the family. I was e-mailed by GW offering me the chance to switch, as was everyone else in the PT program. So, them “taking” less PT students isn’t really true.
I think we need to keep the focus on the original post. Can we saddle USNWR with a duty toward law students, actually toward law schools in general? If we first establish a duty exists, then, can we show USNWR breached that duty by not exercising reasonable care?
I think the focus on due process is misplaced; I assume that is what you are after when you counter Perfect’s argument with “no on has a right to go law school.” I believe the first amendment issue will be the most difficult to overcome. If we can keep this out of the first amendment, which I doubt, then we can focus on the gold ole tort of negligence.
Unfortunately, our real concern with the USNWR ranking is the “communicative impact on the listener,” i.e. GW Law School, hiring law firms, prospective students, etc., putting it squarely within the realm of the first amendment. I believe the only recourse we have is to find a way to communicate a different message, compete in the marketplace.
Our concern is almost identical to the NCAA FB rankings, and the so-called national championship. The rankings are arbitrary, and they result in the top schools playing games to be first so that their alumni will still like them.
Beachgirl-
Are you saying the GW Hatchet story (and Maggs’ quotes in the story confirming the shrinking of the evening program) are incorrect? Your issue is with the Hatchet, Maggs, and the Wall Street Journal law blog then. All we’re doing is responding to what they’re saying.
The e-mail you received confirms that they’re shrinking the program and have started that process by allowing students to self-select out. This means in the future the program is smaller to minimize the impact those evening good-for-nothings have on GW’s precious USNWR rankings.
Plus your comment doesn’t prove that they didn’t accept fewer students this year. Maybe the problem is actually worse than we know. For all we know (again, relying on the Hatchet/Maggs/WSJ information), they accepted fewer students AND they are asking students to transfer from part-time to full-time. Either way, you should count yourself lucky to have an opportunity to be in a full-time program at a school that seems to have such little regard for the part-time program.
The point is simply that evening programs are an add-on for many schools. They aren’t viewed as an integral part of a law school’s program and community. (For most law schools.) That’s fine. I get it. There are also practical realities that contribute to this. But you’d like to think that in return for the $35k/year you drop to go to school at night, the school would stick up for you against some ridiculous (unfair and easily manipulated) magazine’s ranking system. With all the intellectual firepower at GW, and in their alumni ranks, they couldn’t muster a credible case against the rankings instead of cutting the evening program? Come on.
Last thought. What USNWR should do, and maybe they are in the process of doing, is to completely separate the day-program rankings from the night-program rankings. This should solve the GW problem.
Valid point. I don’t know how many part-time students they originally planned to take before all of this happened versus how many they ended up taking (both before and after allowing those to switch to FT).