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.

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.

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?

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.