Law School Rankings Unkind to Michigan Law Schools

Once again, the highly controversial national law school rankings have been published by the US News & World Report. Although you have to pay to see them in full, University of Cincinnati Law Professor Paul Caron has published a segment of the rankings; peer reputation vs "overall" rankings.

Some movement was observed at the top of the rankings.  The University of Michigan Law School, for example, fell three spots from 7th to 10th.  Harvard also fell a spot.  To the USN&WR editor: really; what changed at UM and Harvard to merit the drop?  Go figure.

Proving that it never hurts to associate with a huge public university, Michigan State University's "College of Law" [formerly the unaffiliated Detroit College of Law] is now ranked #82 overall; that would not have occurred in the law school's "stand alone" days.  Not yet "first tier", but improving.

MSU bested Wayne State, which now sits at #112 overall; that never would have happened in the 1980s.

While my law school alma mater, University of Detroit Mercy, did well in the NCAA men's basketball tournament seeding, in the law school rankings, er...not so much; stuck at #178 in the peer reputation category with an "overall" ranking simply noted as "tier 2" and trending downward from its whopping 169 rank back in 2009.  Guess that means, "second rate".  What's going on over there?

Finally, we would be remiss if we did not at least mention Michigan's other perennial basement dweller in these confounded rankings: the mighty, albeit somewhat narcissistic, Thomas M. Cooley Law School; ranked at #184. 

If you care enough to drill into Cooley's own website, however, you will see that they persist in publishing their own law school ranking which places them second [to Harvard] based on a variety of class-size factors.  And perhaps that is as it should be, with a whopping 3727 Juris Doctor candidates currently enrolled [yes folks, that's Three Thousand Seven Hundred Twenty Seven students; can you say, "you are just a number...].  The next highest enrollment is Georgetown University, with 1982 students.

Again, we have to ask, do we really need that many lawyers out there on the street?  Really?

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Consumers of Legal Services Force Change in Law School Curriculum

Last Sunday's NYT had yet another above the fold, law school-related headline: What They Don't Teach Law Students: Lawyering.  In a sustained economic downturn, corporations (and individuals) that have reduced their legal budgets want lawyers with practical knowledge; not theoretical brilliance.

The academic template for law schools has been around, with very little change, since Harvard Law School branded the so-called "case method" in the late 19th Century.  This traditional legal pedagogy was memorialized in the 1973 movie, The Paper Chase.

The Socratic case method calls for students to read and break down cases that illustrate a particular, albeit ancient or esoteric, legal principle.  A law professor calls on students who must answer hard questions about the cases they have briefed.  The law students are forced to reason and think on their feet, like a lawyer in a courtroom.

The Socratic case method does not teach the student, however, how to handle contemporary problems faced by real-life clients in today's unforgiving marketplace.  Today, the cost-conscious consumer makes every effort to avoid the courtroom.

In our era of sustained economic downturn, the traditional law school model is under attack from two sides: there are very few legal jobs waiting for the legions of debt-burdened graduating law students; and clients generally do not want to see first or second year lawyers' time on their monthly invoices.

In response, many law schools have attempted practical innovations, introducing a "legal writing across the curriculum" component, and developing various legal clinics where students represent actual clients.  The effort has been to produce market-tested graduates.

Former Vanderbilt Law School Dean Edward Rubin has isolated the following areas where corporate clients are demanding better training from the academy:

• A better understanding of modern litigation which now includes an e-discovery component, diligent fact gathering, and a settlement process designed to avoid court; 
• Deeper knowledge of transactional law, including how to properly draft, evaluate and challenge a contract; 
• How to perform basic corporate due diligence in the modern government regulatory context; 
• Stronger legal writing skills (age-old complaint); and 
• Getting a clue about the economics of a law practice.

Locally, both the Wayne State University Law School, and the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law (this blogger's alma mater) have robust legal writing programs and have been leaders in developing urban clinics which provide students with practical experience serving real clients.

Like any customer, law clients want excellent service for a reasonable fee.  Hiring a law firm that implements cutting edge, cost-sensitive technique is more important than ever in reducing a corporation's or an individual's legal bills.

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Cooley Law Alumni Sues Alma Mater in Class Action Suit

A class action law suit was filed against the Cooley Law School this week in the United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan.  In addition to legal counsel from Gotham, attorney Steve Hyder from Monroe, MI, himself a Cooley graduate, is local counsel on the suit.

The 45-page complaint reads like an indictment on the issue of student loans versus available law jobs in this protracted economic downturn.  The complaint alleges that Cooley intentionally uses false statistics (i.e. graduate employment rates and graduates' salaries) to lure and retain prospective law students .

The New York law firm handling the heavy lifting in the suit, Kurzon Strauss, is also suing the New York Law School on nearly identical grounds, but in state court.  Each suit seeks hundreds of millions in tuition refunds from the respective law schools.

Last month, Kurzon Strauss was on the receiving end of a law suit filed by Cooley, alleging defamation.  The firm had been trolling around Craigslist and Facebook soliciting candidates for its class action suit.  Understandably, Cooley wanted to get the drop on the firm and steal the negative publicity thunder such a suit would generate.  Always the publicity gurus over there at Cooley.

Cooley will probably use the same law firm on defense as they do on offense; Miller Canfield.  One way or another, this litigation will siphon-off some of Cooley's rich profits as they continue to tap deeply into the American Dream, lawyer-style.

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