[Bumped to top. -ed.]
The Observer asks…
(Hat tip: Anonymous, who asks, “Is this a prelude to a forthcoming hit piece on NDLS’s precipitous fall from 20 to 28 in the USNWR rankings?”)
UPDATE: The article is up. Excerpt:
According to the rankings, 5.2 percent of 2005 Notre Dame Law School graduates failed to earn legal employment within nine months of graduating. Of schools ranked in the top 30, only Washington and Lee University had a worse employment rate than Notre Dame, and only four schools in the top 50 were lower than Notre Dame in the category. …
Student reaction varied, with some students attributing the drop to O’Hara’s leadership and others saying the change should be viewed as a slight fluctuation with limited insight into the future of the Law School.
“Initially I guess I was disappointed but not that surprised, and now I guess it’s just caused me to think about why it happened,” said Melissa Nunez, a third-year law student. “There’s a lot of reasons the school … isn’t doing its best to be a university law school.”
Nunez cited what she called a limited number of academically rigorous courses and a high number of cancelled courses as problems that have hurt students’ training and, indirectly, the rankings.
Third-year law student Derek Muller, however, said the Law School’s problems are noteworthy but not germane to the rankings.
He noted a turnover in the Law School’s admissions office for the relevant incoming class and the unusually high number of admitted students that year. Notre Dame accepted 24.4 percent of applicants in 2006.
“The numbers, I think, they reflected the class,” Muller said.
Melissa and Derek are the only people quoted. I wonder if the Observer reporter even tried to talk to any faculty members, or the dean herself?
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Categories: Notre Dame, Law School
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April 1st, 2007 at 10:28:52 pm
If you have to ask the question, that’s not a good sign! Can you imagine the Crimson ever taking such a poll?
April 1st, 2007 at 11:31:10 pm
the answer is yes…an observer reporter contacted a few law students for comment.
April 1st, 2007 at 11:51:17 pm
The results from the poll have dropped pretty steadily since you put it on your website. Is your blog frequented by unhappy law students?
April 1st, 2007 at 11:53:56 pm
What an idiotic poll question. “Well respected” in comparison to what?
April 2nd, 2007 at 8:34:43 am
The observer is writing an article about the rankings drop right now.
April 2nd, 2007 at 9:34:59 am
Great. Now ND’s lame, bottom-tier graduate-school departments can feel smug and superior.
April 2nd, 2007 at 10:32:49 am
It is respected. But is it as respected as Princeton Law School?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princeton_Law_School
…Heh.
April 2nd, 2007 at 10:37:34 am
The article is up.
http://media.www.ndsmcobserver.com/media/storage/paper660/news/2007/04/02/News/Law-School.Drops.In.National.Rankings-2817494.shtml
April 2nd, 2007 at 10:44:54 am
Not a bad article, but why were there no comments from the faculty and why didn’t it get into the specific issue about how the Dean has negatively impacted NDLS?
April 2nd, 2007 at 11:25:12 am
Letter to the editor needed! Something about how open professors about their disapproval. In class, office, and Father Mike Show!
April 2nd, 2007 at 11:26:11 am
i’d like to add one comment to this convo that no one has raised yet– the lack of an actual commitment to public interest law is a significant factor in the law school’s drop in the rankings. the observer article places much emphasis on the low employment rate after graduation and i think a large percentage of those people are the PILFers who get very little support from the current administration (both in terms of job finding and LRAP issues)
April 2nd, 2007 at 11:43:52 am
I would disagree with anonymous-11:26 only to the extent that I think the law school encourages and tolerates public interest work (e.g. with “It’s good for the soul,” “work-life balance,” and “We like it that ND is all over,” lauding South Bend and Grand Rapids hints) and non-big-market work as a way of not having its students totally disappointed in their search for NY-Chicago-Los Angeles-San Francisco-D.C.-Boston private firm work. Lower expectations –> raise satisfaction.
April 2nd, 2007 at 11:44:27 am
Who cares - you went to ND that that alone more than makes up for any ranking.
April 2nd, 2007 at 12:58:52 pm
I realize you guys are sensitive about this because you (or your parents) are spending a lot of dough on ND Law. But, seriously, do you think an employer is going to be “wowed” more by Washington and Lee University, University of Iowa and University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign or by Notre Dame? Please. ND has cache these other schools don’t, regardless of rank.
April 2nd, 2007 at 1:18:49 pm
Brendan, I’m under the impression (which admittedly may be mistaken) that another article in the near-future addressing administrative matters is coming. Or I’m just reading too much into the interview questions. I think the author has spoken to several more people than the article suggests, which implies, at least to me, that more is coming.
April 2nd, 2007 at 1:22:24 pm
Or, to be kind of a dick, law firms that are that concerned with rank probably aren’t looking at applicants who aren’t from the top 5 or 10 schools, so why get your panties in a wad about being 20-whatever?
April 2nd, 2007 at 2:40:57 pm
I nominate our own Mr. Loy to offer a letter-to-the-editor.
April 2nd, 2007 at 2:42:34 pm
I am an NDLS grad and a partner at a large and well known East Coast law firm. I can assure SoDamnInsane and other previous posters that ND’s ranking DOES matter to employers who are not otherwise familiar with the school. Many large law firms, mine included, very much take rankings into account when deciding which new law schools to real out to when expanding their on campus interviewing horizons. Iowa, for example, is faring much better on the East Coast than it ever has been, and not by accident.
The “cache” of Notre Dame cuts both ways. Notre Dame is, in a very real sense, handicapped on the East and West coasts because of its reputation for being rigidly conversative and wholly lacking in diversity (something which the over-the-top statements in its recruiting brochure regarding gays and lesbians only perpetuates). As such, when it comes to rankings, ND has to do better than — not merely keep up with
– its midwest peers in the rankings in in order to fare well as well as them on the coasts. I am very disappointed with ND’s showing in the latest rankings and think that some major introspection on the part of the administration is in order.
April 2nd, 2007 at 2:48:33 pm
sorry for the typos in my post above . . . but you get my drift
April 2nd, 2007 at 2:58:02 pm
Sorry, Buckpasser, but I don’t feel sufficiently well-informed about these issues to write the letter. I’m not real involved in the inner politics of the law school. Most of my knowledge of these matters is based on second-hand information, much of it passed along by anonymous commenters on this blog. :)
In other news, I think it’s kind of cool that my blog has partners at large and well known East Coast law firms reading it.
April 2nd, 2007 at 3:20:59 pm
But, seriously, do you think an employer is going to be “wowed” more by Washington and Lee University, University of Iowa and University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign or by Notre Dame?
So you’re saying the football team isn’t the only ND institution that relies on brand name to hide its warts? ;)
April 2nd, 2007 at 3:48:53 pm
“In other news, I think it’s kind of cool that my blog has partners at large and well known East Coast law firms reading it.”
I smell job offer.
April 2nd, 2007 at 4:00:48 pm
One of the anonymous posters above suggesting the letter to the editor makes a good point regarding the faculty’s opinion and open criticism of Patty in the Father Mike show. I actually mentioned both of these things to the guy who wrote the article. I agree with Derek and think that there may be a second article about this focusing more on her fault in the matter. At least I hope that is the case because only one sentence of that article mentions her.
Thank you for the perspective, anonymous grad in NY. I think that if you look at job prospects in Indianapolis or Chicago, this drop won’t really matter much, but when you look at firms that have to fly people out from far away to get to the school, a significant rankings drop definitely will cause some employers to reconsider.
Additionally, I asked someone who works for ND (not the law school) about why they thought the ranking dropped so significantly in the category of NDLS’s reputation among other academics and the response I got was a bit surprising. They told me that academics get certain academic journals with stories about what goes on at different universities and that one of the biggest stories in the last year or so was about ND and academic freedom (stemming from the Vagina Monologues debate/controversy). They said that stuff like that severely hurts ND’s reputation as a research university because people start to think of it as too conservative and question the amount of control administration has over individual professors. I have no data to back this up, but it makes sense that it would play a factor, especially in light of comment #18 above re: ND’s reputation as “rigidly conservative and wholly lacking in diversity.”
April 2nd, 2007 at 4:13:37 pm
Mellissa, well said. ND doesn’t only have the reputation as “rigidly conservative”, it is fact that way. Everything from the Dean to the building to the type of student NDLS attracts (obviously with a few exceptions) is stuck in the past. Schools like NYU jump in the rankings because they take bold risk and allow their professors greater public advocacy powers and the power to run ambitious clinics. What is NDLS known for? Not much…
April 2nd, 2007 at 4:35:34 pm
Well, they used to have a great reputation for their immigration clinic :)
April 2nd, 2007 at 4:39:17 pm
NDLS is badly administered, definitely, but “rigidly conservative”? ND doesn’t discriminate against conservative ideas, students, and faculty, but that just means that, unlike most places, it actually has diversity.
April 2nd, 2007 at 5:40:33 pm
Anonymous-
My comment about ND being “rigidly conservative” and lacking in diversity was not meant to cast aspersions on conservatives or conservative thinking. Rather, my point was meant to be more practical.
Generally speaking, large law firms on both coasts tend to be more left-leaning than large midwest firms, and like it or not the political leanings of large law firms can influence, however subtly, policy decisions such as where to interview on campus. Moreover, large law firms are more determined than ever to increase diversity among their associate ranks –if, for no other reason, than because their clients are demanding it — and white male conservatives of the ND variety aren’t exactly the kind of “diversity” the firms have in mind.
The hard reality is that when a liberal leaning law firm considering whether to interview on the ND campus reads a recruiting brochure that trips all over itself to justify not including gays and lesbians in its non-discrimination policy it it less likely to want to interview there — especially when it also sees that ND’s ranking isn’t very good.
The point is that if ND wants to be a conservative law school, educating a “different kind of lawyer,” while at the same time compete with the big boys on both coasts, then it cannot afford to tread water on the rankings. It needs to worker harder than everybody else because unlike everybody else it’s swimming against the tide.
April 2nd, 2007 at 6:02:50 pm
Anonymous, I’m not entirely sure I buy into those classification, which, I admit, I may not fully comprehend not having worked on a coastal law firm. I do know that some of the more “conservative” law firms do exist on the coasts, and Notre Dame graduates do relatively well. Additionally, they even do well at some of the New York firms that may or may not interview on campus, regardless of their political affiliation. Notably, one of the more liberal firms in Chicago, after coming up empty last year, made a noticeable push to hire ND students, and it ended up with 4 this year. Anecdotal, but informational.
In short, while Notre Dame’s reputation may come up as “conservative,” I’m not entirely convinced that it leads to negative impressions at law firms. Indeed, it appears that while our peer institutional ranking has sunk from 3.4 to 3.3 in the last 8 years, our lawyer/judge ranking has improved from 3.6 to 3.8, suggesting that practitioners are, of late, more impressed with the caliber of students and their work product than the school’s purported ideological image.
I’m slightly more convinced by Melissa’s explanation that controversies like the Vagina Monologues are more likely to harm ND’s image among peer institutions, but that doesn’t explain why the positive accomplishments (e.g., young faculty who frequently produce legal scholarship printed in flagship top-tier law journals, significant recent textbook authorship, etc.) isn’t highlighted in a meaningful fashion to peer institutions. It’s one thing to blame our reputation on some of the negative publicity around the University; it’s another to explain why the positive characteristics of the law school are so utterly lacking in popular academic circles.
April 2nd, 2007 at 9:44:32 pm
Does anyone know what NDLS was ranked when the current 3Ls accepted admissions offers? I think it was 20, but is anyone sure?
April 2nd, 2007 at 9:55:42 pm
20th when we entered. Here, for reference sake, are the rankings since 1990. The outlier in 1995 is because of a different peer ranking scoring system that altered a significant number of schools’ positions; I think that was the only time that unusual system was used. Note that ND has never been as low as 28, with that 1995 39 the sole exception.
1990: 19
1991: 24
1992: 20
1993: 20
1994: 26
1995: 39
1996: 25
1997: 21
1998: 25
1999: 21
2000: 26
2001: 27
2002: 24
2003: 22
2004: 20
2005: 24
2006: 22
2007: 28
April 3rd, 2007 at 1:48:07 pm
Nothing in the Observer today.
April 5th, 2007 at 12:09:04 am
“I smell job offer.”
I smell the opposite.
April 5th, 2007 at 3:03:05 am
If students are wondering why services for employment may seem limited, clinical programs are disapearing and there are a ridiculous number of bodies running around in the 1L class - talk to the adminstration. And I mean the ones who actually make the decisions - not the Directors.
Ask why with annually increasing class sizes, the budget for the CSO has not been increased to compensate for this fact. Less money and more students with two or three staff to handle it all- hmmmm.
Ask why a well-respected Admissions Director, coming from another first-tier law school to work at ND, would leave mid-year to work at an unaccreddited law school.
Ask why highly-repsected law professors are “visitng” other schools in droves and why an institution who cares so much about rankings allows its limited clinics to become even more so, considering that clinical offerings also factor into the rankings.
Wake up ND. If you want to play with the big boys, put your money where your mouth is. Not just into a new and overly-expensive building, but into departments, programs, faculty and staff or soon the faculty and staff attrition will trickle down to students as well.
April 5th, 2007 at 8:37:12 am
Anonymous, you made some exaggerations that don’t help advance the concerns. The increasing class sizes are not “annual,” but cyclical. The Class of 2005 was 203, for instance, but the Class of 2006 was 184, the Class of 2007 178, and the Class of 2008 175. The “unaccredited law school,” while a fourth-tier law school, was actually accredited in 2005, several months before the admissions directed departed. Highly-respected professors often desire to visit other schools because it’s a fantastic career opportunity, and without needing the motive to flee the administration (I can think of one beloved Civil Procedure professor who visited Harvard several years ago, for instance)–visiting professors are just a career opportunity, not a flight risk.
There’s no question that several concerns, like CSO’s budget, the departure of the admissions director, and clinical offerings are all serious concerns, but hyperbolic claims about those concerns don’t advance the runner much.