Rating Law Schools with a Student-Focused Output-Based System
29 Pages Posted: 11 Jul 2015
Date Written: July 10, 2015
Abstract
A better rating system for law schools is needed for prospective law students. This Article uses novel data and methods to describe a possible alternative to the leading attempts to quantitatively measure law school quality. New data is drawn from a representative sample of attorneys presently employed at 100 large law firms, estimated relative starting salaries based upon the distribution of job categories among recent graduates, law school graduates in numerous powerful government positions, estimates of active graduates in the legal job market, and improved data about clerkship placement. These new data sources are combined with existing American Bar Association (ABA) and National Association for Law Placement (NALP) statistics as well as student debt data to create a ratings system that is wholly based on law school outputs. The system also employs statistical cluster analysis to differentiate law schools into appropriate categories rather than relying exclusively on misleading ordinal ranking systems.
Keywords: Law School, Rankings, Ratings
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