Dropping 23 Spots in U.S. News: Dean of Buffalo Law Responds

[WSJ_law_blog]

In yesterday's discussion of the U.S. News & World Report rankings, we received an interesting comment from an LB reader. The person wrote:

I would like an explanation from the U.S. News as to why they dropped Buffalo 23 spots (77 to 100). That seriously damages the marketability of my degree and I feel like I've been punched in the gut.
I don't know if it's the economic depression of Western NY, the school's refusal to rank/calculate GPA, or our poor (relative) bar passage rate, all of which are fair criticisms, but I'd like to get it straight from U.S. News. If they sent an e-mail to the students, I think we would take it as constructive criticism. As of now I, at least (and I think many others) just hate them.



Indeed, in the op-ed we blogged yesterday, the author, Michael Seringhaus, a Yale One L who criticized the rankings, mentioned that Buffalo's interim dean, Makau Mutua (pictured), sent an e-mail to Buffalo students (which appeared on Above the Law) promising to rectify the situation as quickly as possible. “My goal is to get this law school into the top 50,” wrote Dean Mutua, a Harvard law grad who’s been a visiting prof at, among other law schools, Harvard and Iowa.

So the Law Blog lobbed a call to Dean Mutua to talk about the rankings.

Hi Dean. Thanks for chatting. Your school took a big hit in the U.S. News & World Report rankings this year. What happened?

I think one change in how they calibrate the rankings put us in a difficult position. Now, when they count who is and isn't employed nine months out, they're counting the people who are not looking for jobs. Even if that's only five or six people, it can make a big difference. The other thing that was strange was that our reputation among lawyers and judges, which accounts for 15% of the overall ranking, dropped from 2.8 to 2.4, which means we dropped from 86 to 125 in that ranking category.

Why the reputation fall-off?

Well, we're the same people we were last year. There was no dramatic change in the reputation of our faculty. I think it's a manifestation, clearly, of who voted. Our understanding is that very few people voted. So a very important index is premised on the votes of very few people.

What else happend from last year to this year? One person who commented on the Law Blog mentioned an economic depression in Western New York.

Yes, the depression affects giving by alumni. Resources only account for 15% of the overall U.S. News ranking, but it also affects other ranking categories, like placement success, which accounts for 20%, because you can't spend on your career services office; and student selectivity, which accounts for 25% of the ranking, because you can't give scholarships. So in the placement success category, we dropped from 44 to 102. That's huge.

So what do you think of the rankings?

The rankings methodology is deeply flawed and silly. It seems to measure the amount of money a law school can spend. We all know that resources do not necessarily correspond to the quality of legal education.

But, like them or not, they matter, right?

Yes. Having said that, I do not think any of us are denying the impact of these rankings. Parents and prospective students look at them as one of the measures of desirability for a law school. That's just the nature of the place these rankings play in the marketplace. I understand why students and alumni are concerned about the rankings. Until there's a better way, we're stuck with this methodology and this particular outcome.

How important is money to a school's ability to provide a good education?

Funding is an important part of what allows us to provide students with a good education. You have to be able to offer scholarships to students and have a law school building that's conducive to learning and technology. To do those things, yes, you need resources. There are issues for which the law school needs to progress, and one of those is expanding the resource base.

So how do you do it?

There are three places to get funding: alumni, the central university (if you're part of a research university system), and the state (for schools like us). In our case, we're the only state law school in New York State, and we feel strongly that it'd be helpful if the state government and state assembly were to provide us - since we, for the most part, educate the citizens of New York State - with more support. The drop in rankings should signal to the state and alumni that more support is needed.

Back to the rankings for a minute. Yesterday, a One L at Yale argued that funding shouldn't be such a big part of the rankings because big schools, like Harvard and Yale, will always have more money than everyone else.

I don't think fundraising ought to be the place to compete for legal education. If it's going to be a contest between law schools, it should be about who can prepare citizens to become good lawyers and to support the democracy that we live in. I've taught at Harvard and Iowa, and I can tell you that at Buffalo we have fine students. My faculty here stimulates me. It's a false metric to use dollars as a proxy for excellence, because Harvard and Yale will always come out on top. And that's one argument for just dropping the U.S. News rankings, because they measure resource allocation. I do agree that sometimes there's a connection [between money and quality of education], especially when you start talking about attracting star faculty. The disparities are huge between professors at public and private schools - sometimes on the order of 100%.

Can you give us a ballpark?

It could be $120,000 for a public school professor versus an average of $180,000 or $200,000 at private schools. Those disparities aren't small. So to the extent people can be induced by pay, you create a feeding frenzy among academics.

So if the Law Blog wrote you a check for, say, $50 million, how would you spend it, aside from increasing professors' salaries?

First, I would offer part of that support to students who are well qualified but can't afford to go to law school - excellent minds with access issues. I'd use it to recruit law faculty. And I would establish chairs, which are important for faculty, for when they reach a certain level of excellence. The money would be used for all those purposes, but that's only to trigger academic excellence.

If money and resources don't always equate with academic excellence, what indicia should be used?

It's a mistake to subject oneself to the cruelty of U.S. news rankings. But there are some indicia that one can address, such as LSAT scores and the reputation of the school with academics and judges. One can address, I suppose, questions of placement success. Some of these indicia can be addressed, and they're important. But when one starts measuring the amount of expenditure per student, that's not important as a marker.