WSJ on Closius and UB Law’s rank

August 26, 2008

For those of you who missed it, the University of Baltimore School of Law was featured prominently today in a Wall Street Journal story about the U.S. News & World Report law school rankings. The magazine is thinking of revamping its ranking criteria to address the widespread practice of admitting inferior applicants as part-timers, since part-time students’ LSAT scores and undergraduate grades don’t count in the rankings.

Amir Efrati writes:

One of the top beneficiaries of the current U.S. News criteria is Phillip Closius, former dean of the University of Toledo’s law school. He led the school’s rise from the list’s fourth tier to its second tier within a few years. After he took the helm of the University of Baltimore law school last year, that school also quickly climbed the rankings, to 125 this year from 170 last year, he says. (Schools in the third and fourth tiers aren’t publicly ranked — instead they are grouped together — but deans can find out where they placed.)

Mr. Closius’s winning strategy in both places: Cut the number of full-time students accepted into the program to boost the median LSAT scores and GPAs, which together account for more than 20% of a school’s ranking. In their place, the schools add more part-time students, who can transfer to full-time the second year.

Closius says the strategy is good for weaker students because it lets them ease into law school. He also tied the improved rank to subsequent “multimillion-dollar grants and donations for a new building.”

The story also has a small chart showing how some schools’ ranks this year would have been different had part-timers been counted. According to that chart, the University of Maryland School of Law, which placed 42nd, would have been ranked a bit lower, in the mid- or high 40s.

Ron Miller over at the Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog posts about this story, too.

CARYN TAMBER, Legal Affairs Writer

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Posted by Jackie Sauter | Filed Under University of Baltimore, law, university of maryland-baltimore 

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