The American Bar Association recently released its report detailing just a few of the ways in which U.S. News & World Report‘s law school rankings have been counterproductive for prospective lawyers and the profession — from driving up the costs of legal education to driving down the importance of diversity.
The ABA report concludes with an ominous warning: “Once a single rankings system comes to dominate a particular field, it is very difficult to displace, difficult to change, and dangerous to underestimate the importance of its methodology to any school or firm that operates in the field. This, we believe, is the most important lesson from the law school experience for those law firms who may be ranked by U.S. News in the future.” (Read the report.)
