Cooley Law School Ranks (Itself) 2nd in Nation, Behind Harvard

Good News!  Cooley Law School's latest law school ranking has just been published on its web site.  In a single year, they have improved from 12th to second best in the nation; only Harvard Law School remains ranked higher than Cooley according to the their own rankings.

Now, you've just got to stand back and take note of such bold and relentless devotion to self-promotion.  Simply refusing to allow reality to get in the way of its vision of excellence, Cooley actually announced its ever-higher ranking in a press-release on its web site.

Despite a firm national consensus that the law school dwels in the basement of the "4th Tier", Cooley believes it deserves top-flight status largely based on their collossal law library; one of the largest in the nation.  Nevermind that in our increasingly digitized world, actual bricks, mortar, and book volumes are rendered less-significant by the minute; think Borders.

This blog took note when Cooley drew serious national criticism by installing its good name on a minor league baseball park in Lansing; the former Oldsmobile Stadium.  That post received more comments than any other in this blog's two-year history.

A steady theme in the law-blogoshpere concerns the lack of employment prospects in the legal field after a six-figure student loan debt is incurred.  Along these lines, this blog questions the propriety of an educational institution that rakes-in premium tuition dollars on the promise of future employment, despite the absolute saturation and professional grid-lock among the already-minted lawyers in our service-based economy.

With its satelite campus system, and a jaw-dropping legion of graduates, Cooley is part of the "lawyers-gone-wild" problem in our nation.  This latest self-adulatory ranking is simply designed to entice ever-more eager but unsuspecting students into parting with a lot of dough for their shot at the American Dream; lawyer-style. 

In the opinion of this blogger, however, Cooley's self-rank is so disingenuous, it boarders on fraud.  Perhaps its time for the ABA to review this business model.  On the other hand, maybe Harvard Business School should do one of its famous case-studies on Cooley's undisputed financial success.

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Cooley Law School Stadium is a Minor League Ballpark

Thomas E. Brennan, former Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice, and the founder of Cooley Law School, was in Ann Arbor in October 1982 giving interviews to the Michigan Daily, and the now defunct Ann Arbor News as a Republican candidate for Lieutenant Governor.  It was the early-Regan era and I escorted Mr. Brennan through town as Dick Headlee's campus chairperson.

The former justice was asked by a reporter what he would do if Democrat James Blanchard moved into the Governor's Mansion.  Mr. Brennan paused as though the thought had never occurred to him, then said, "I'll go back to running the law school; we're developing an innovative curriculum at Cooley."

He was true to his vision.  There can be no doubt that Brennan developed the "business model" that is the Cooley Law School.  Cooley has tapped deeply into the American Dream, lawyer style.  As a result, it has enjoyed a healthy balance sheet, boasting one of the largest collections of law books in the country, pioneering the use of satellite "campuses", and swelling the ranks of its students to staggering proportions.

The law school dropped just under $1.5 million this week on it's first baseball park sponsorship; the former Oldsmobile Park inside the Capital Loop in Lansing.  The decision was met with mixed reviews from the law pundits and among the extensive network of Cooley Law Alumni.

Ashby Jones of the Wall Street Journal's law blog interviewed Cooley's dean, Don LeDuc, earlier this week about the sponsorship.  Dean LeDuc explained that the idea for the stadium came from past alumni-student gatherings at Tigers games in Comerica Park.  According to LeDuc, Cooley's stadium now allows them to bring the ball game to Lansing, so their students don't have to go so far.

LeDuc listed the advertising benefits of the sponsorship, sounding more like a marketing director than a law school dean.  In the blog interview, LeDuc admitted his was a revenue-driven operation with a multi-million dollar marketing budget.

The blog, Above the Law, was far less polite, calling out the mamoth law school (3500+ students) as a "diploma mill", and speculating that its graduates will be paying-off student loans with jobs at McDonalds.  The ATL blog critiqued the stadium sponsorship in a post that has attracted more than 150 comments; mostly negative.

A recent Cooley Law alumna admitted to me in confidence when discussing the ballpark sponsorship, "Cooley can't figure out whether it's a law school or a community college..."

The nation's largest law school does seem to attract its share of criticism.  It claims to be "ranked" as high as 12 on its own website, using its own criteria.  Most professionals not affiliated with the school, however, relegate it to "fourth-tier" status all day long.

All this raises the question: "Do we really need some 1200 new lawyers pumped into Michigan's service economy each and every year?"  Oakland County already has nearly 11,000 lawyers to Wayne County's 7000.

Over the past three decades, Thomas Brennan's law school business model has been a fiscal success.  Over those same years, I've come to know many a lawyer from Cooley with outstanding lawyering skills.  Former Michigan Governor John Engler is a Cooley graduate.

These days, however, I just have to wonder how many more lawyers we can take; whether or not they graduated from Cooley.  Brennan's vision of the American Dream has been tapped, but good.

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