The University’s Law Center has moved up four slots to 56th in the national ranking system assembled by the U.S. News & World Report.
Health care, intellectual property law and the Law Center’s part-time program ranked in the Top 10 among 190 accredited law schools in the nation.
“There are several ranking systems applied to law schools and they mean different things. UH Law does well in all of them,” UH Law Center’s Dean Raymond T. Nimmer said.
“The US News ranking system (where we rank 56 out of 200) uses its own methods, which include a heavy reliance on opinion polls of a small number of judges, lawyers and academics,” Nimmer said. “It also includes other variables about bar passage rates (where we do very well), entering class statistics (where we do very well) etc.”
The Law Center is ranked 38th out of 200 by the National Law Journal, a US periodical that reports legal information of national importance to attorneys.
“The National Law Journal (where we rank 38 out of 200) focuses on what percent of graduates are employed by major law firms. Another ranking has measured the number of graduates who have become the ‘best lawyers’ in America, where we finish 42nd,” Nimmer said.
Another publication, the National Jurist, ranks law schools in terms of ‘best value’ based on a variety of variables, and the Law Center ranked 26th out of 200.
The University of Washington and Lee ranked the Law Center’s Law Journal in the top 3 percent of over 1400 journals in the country.
“Each group chooses its own measures,” Nimmer said. “UH Law does well on all of them. We do best on objective measures, such as job placement at graduation, quality of entering class, faculty-student ratio, and the like.”
The ranking system does not affect funding changes, however, it does affect the selection process of applicants and faculty members.
“Rankings affect the choices of applicants and of employers. We have been a highly ranked law school for many years and that has helped us attract and retain a strong student body and placement profile,” Nimmer said. “Potential applicants need to understand that the US News Rank is not the only assessment, nor even the best assessment of a law school.”
Historically, the Law Center has always been highly ranked, Nimmer said.
“Six years ago, we had fallen to the ’70s in the US News rank, although we remained high in other rankings,” Nimmer said. “We have steadily moved up in the US News rank and the others since then.”
Associate Dean of the Law Center, Richard Alderman said recent tuition increases have allowed the college to make better accommodations.
“Our Health Law and Intellectual Property Programs are both ranked in the top 10, and that obviously helps the overall ranking of the school.
“Recent tuition increases have allowed us to improve our faculty student ratio and the credentials of our students, both of which also factor into the rankings,” Alderman said. “While making predictions about the US News ranking is like trying to pick the NCAA Final Four, we fully expect that we will continue to move up in the rankings.”
In 2010, the school ranked 60th overall with specialty programs ranked 4th in health care law, 8th in intellectual property and 10th among part-time schools.
