Rankings. You know you love them. A new set came out last Friday and, although the usual suspects remain at the top, you’ll be happy your school isn’t up there with them this time.
These rankings, prepared by Scott Moss at Concurring Opinions, rank law schools based on alumni corruption. As usual, Yale, Harvard and NYU all occupy spots in the top 5. The real news here is Pepperdine’s rapid assent into the top 10, due mostly to the recent ridiculous activity of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.
Moss’s timing is appropriate, not just because of the Blagojevich scandal (Blago-gate?), but because the results for the November MPRE came out last week.
Last week thousands of law students all over the country found out how badly they over-studied for their profession’s ethics test. If you scored over 115, chances are you were pretty disappointed with your studying performance. Between 90 and 100? Just about right.
The fact that it is reasonable, or even possible, to rank law schools by the number of corrupt public officials they have produced is cause for concern. However, there doesn’t seem to be much we can do about it.
The MPRE is kind of a joke, but few other professions even require that entrants pass an ethics test. Heck, all doctors have to do is mumble some antiquated oath.
What’s more, before they are accepted into the bar (at least in California) law students must complete an invasive and time-consuming Moral Character Application. And on top of that, some law schools require that students take a Professional Responsibility course even if they’ve already passed the MPRE.
So, I’m not sure what else can be done. At this point, I think the only way to preserve the law’s good name is to make sure good lawyers put people like Gov. Blagojevich in jail for a long, long time.
Considering the importance lawyers and law students place in rankings, though, adding an alumni corruption metric to the U.S. News rankings might help curb ethical violations as well. Its all in your hands, Bob Morse.
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