<p>As we all know, there are a million issues with rankings. As long as UChicago is ranked in top 5 for law and business I feel that it helps more than it hurts. </p>
<p>There are three main ways of ranking law school faculties–reputational surveys, faculty publishing (which faculty publishes the most in the top law journals), and citation accounts (which faculty is cited the most by other scholars in the top journals.)</p>
<p>One of the main defects of reputational surveys is that they are subject to ‘halo affect.’ The tendency to mention certain schools, ‘just because…’</p>
<p>While subjective reputation surveys place UChicago at #5 (or #2 or #3 historically) objective measures such as citations or publications place the school at or near the very top.</p>
<p>This study (below) on page 16 shows this very clearly in their ranking of law schools by various criteria and has an excellent discussion of many of the various issues concerning the rankings.
[Ranking</a> Law Schools: Using SSRN to Measure Scholarly Performance by Bernard Black, Paul Caron :: SSRN](<a href=“http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=784764]Ranking”>http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=784764)</p>
<p>Anyway, so I wouldn’t get too hung up on believing U.S. News reflects ‘where a school really ranks’ until you have seen the how the schools stack up based on various criteria. (Columbia and NYU law schools rank noticeably below UChicago by most measures in the study.)</p>
<p>Again, I am not too concerned because I think in general U.S. News has been helping UChicago more lately than it’s been hurting it, no matter how much it may under-rank the school in any given field.</p>
<p>Let us not forget the rankings are a game–and a self-fulfilling prophecy.</p>
<p>The good news is UChicago Law just snagged someone from Columbia:
[Musical</a> Chairs: Chicago Poaches Prominent Professor from Columbia Above the Law: A Legal Web Site ? News, Commentary, and Opinions on Law Firms, Lawyers, Law School, Law Suits, Judges and Courts](<a href=“http://abovethelaw.com/2012/03/musical-chairs-chicago-poaches-prominent-professor-from-columbia/]Musical”>Musical Chairs: Chicago Poaches Prominent Professor from Columbia - Above the Law)</p>