American law schools are the textbook case of elite overproduction. Every year, they mint around 35,000 Juris Doctorate graduates, a handful of whom get cushy white shoe jobs while most of the rest struggle to repay their loans. This phenomenon has forced law schools into a rigid hierarchy, delineated by the U.S. news rankings: graduates of schools in the coveted “T14” bloc are practically guaranteed white shoe jobs, while other graduates might get them only if they are at the top of their class. As one observer put it, “the rankings have law schools by the throat. No question.”
Recently, some schools have revolted. On November 16th, the dean of Yale Law announced Yale will no longer provide data inputs to U.S. news, a shocking move considering that Yale has held the #1 spot for the rankings’ entire 32 year history. Around 17 additional schools followed, including 9 of the top-ranked 10. U.S. news responded on January 2nd with a letter, promising to address some of schools’ concerns. Most importantly, U.S. news will be decreasing the weight of its annual reputation survey and increasing the weight of employment and bar passage statistics, both positive changes. Law schools, however, are so far gone and so self-deluded at this point that it’s hard to see things getting better. If American legal education has stage 4 cancer, these changes are like a round of aspirin: pain-numbing, perhaps, but not potent enough to be effective.
Yale is likely bailing on U.S. news now because they are about to lose their #1 spot: a series of free speech scandals there has tarnished the school’s reputation. However, Yale’s stated reasons for ditching U.S. news are interesting because they are ridiculous. Per the dean’s original statement, “one of the most troubling aspects” of the rankings is that they disincentivize schools’ efforts to subsidize public interest careers, either by paying a graduate’s entire first year salary (Yale offers $50,000) or financing a graduate’s loan payments while they wait for federal forgiveness. U.S. news is responding to this concern by counting these graduates as “fully employed”, but perhaps that is unwise. Only a dozen or so schools pay first-year salaries, all of them fabulously wealthy. And waiting for loan forgiveness is like signing up for debtor’s prison: you are stuck for 10 years in a low-paying job, quite possibly funded by billionaire patronage, without the option of changing careers and waiting for an act of grace from Uncle Sam. Neither option is appealing or workable for most students.
Yale and other U.S. news objectors also gripe that the rankings “devalues [sic] graduates pursuing advanced degrees” after law school. U.S. news capitulated and agreed to count these graduates as employed going forward, but that is another bad move: ABA data suggests that around 90% of those graduates are pursuing additional degrees because they are unemployed and desperate, and the other 10% graduated from top schools whose rankings aren’t noticeably impacted anyway. Another common complaint is that the rankings force schools to overfocus on LSAT scores and GPA, hindering their ability to (overtly or stealthily) pursue affirmative action. This also forces schools to funnel need-based aid money into merit-based aid programs, a real problem and one U.S. news thinks will “require additional time and collaboration” to address.
Strangely, almost no schools mentioned the rankings’ biggest negative effect: skyrocketing tuition. Law school tuition has ballooned over the past 50 years, with a J.D. now costing as much as a small house; mine will cost around $220,000. This means most graduates of most law schools cannot comfortably afford to repay their loans. U.S. news has encouraged this: their rankings directly reward schools who spend more money on administration and maintain a low student-to-faculty ratio. U.S. news’ reputation survey has also fed a faculty salary and benefits arms race, meaning law professors make more and teach less than ever before. The revised rankings will change some of these perverse incentives but create others. Law schools will no longer be directly rewarded for administration spending, nor will they be penalized for getting students into debt.
Over the past 10 years, the legal education system has made marginal efforts to reform itself. Law schools used to inflate their employment statistics by employing their own students for a few months, but an arcane change to ABA reporting requirements mostly shut this down. Law schools also used to give out conditional scholarships and then revoke most of them after a year, but this practice has been publicized and discouraged, and most schools have stopped. However, these reforms are far from adequate. By my estimate, roughly 107 of the 197 law schools accredited by the ABA are so bad that prospective students should avoid them completely. These schools are either producing graduates who can’t pass the bar, not placing their graduates in jobs, or loading up graduates with more loans than they can comfortably repay.
Fixing legal education would require external pressure and political will. The system cannot change unless lots of tenured professors get pay cuts or get laid off, and there is no easy way to make that happen. Law schools depend on student loans, financed by the U.S. department of education, a potential pressure point. Another potential change agent is the ABA, which accredits law schools, but the ABA has effectively been captured by a guild of tenured law professors who have made the problem worse. A third option is developing an alternative ranking system: the U.S. news rankings are only powerful because prospective law students and legal employers both use them. U.S. news’ only major competition is from a blog called Above the Law, but Above the Law’s rankings are so poorly designed that they are pretty much useless. I’ve tried to design my own rankings here, but I am a law student with limited resources.
An oversupply of lawyers has broader implications for American society. Most recent law graduates are almost religiously progressive and deeply indebted. This is good for progressive NGOs and legal aid groups, who essentially get a cheap labor pipeline: these organizations qualify as public interest employers for federal loan forgiveness, so graduates are literally desperate to work for them. On the other hand, cops, landlords, Christians, small businesses who struggle with HR compliance, and anyone who can’t keep up with the latest woke fad stands the risk of being sued. Legalistic enforcement of progressive norms benefits excess law graduates, who become the woke regime’s police.
It’s hard to see how Yale’s revolt against U.S. news will change things. Law school administrators are fond of droning on about how law schools should be evaluated based on “fit” or “holistic” factors, but in a world where most law graduates don’t get good jobs, rankings and stratification are inevitable. Whatever side you are on, the bottom line always wins.
