Blaming the wrong person.

As I'm reading this story, I'm getting deja vu.  Some students at U Conn's law school somehow believe that the soon-to-be-former dean caused a drop in U Conn's rankings.  How, exactly, would he have done that?  Let's guess:

1.  He called up future employers and told them not to hire U Conn graduates.
2.  He told his dean of admissions to pick some applicants on the basis of things other than UGPA and LSAT.
3.  He conspired with the 779 other people receiving the academic reputation survey to make sure that U Conn was not rated as highly as, say, Yale.  He also made sure that everyone who received the USNWR survey actually returned it.
4.  Ditto with the judges, lawyers, and law firms ranking the schools.
5.  And he cratered the economy, which dried up budgets and donations as if they were so many plums in direct sun in Death Valley.

The problem with the rankings is that deans have horrible choices--and very little power.  They could lie about their statistics.  They could make choices solely designed to maximize their USNWR rankings, without regard to any other effect those choices could have on the school.   Or they can work with their team to run the best school possible with the students, faculty, staff, alumni, and budgets that they have or could reasonably be expected to get.

If reputation is 40% of the score, then deans also have to wrestle with the halo effect, which will give some schools more of a bump than they might otherwise deserve.  ("School X must be better than School Y, because School X has been ranked more highly than School Y for years.")  Deans also have to wrestle with the fact that the other 194 schools being ranked aren't staying static, either. 

So when I read about Dean Paul stepping down, I think that he's being scapegoated.  U Conn students, remember this:  at some point, each of you may be in a position with a lot of responsibility but not a lot of power to effect change.  You'll be blamed for things that are not your fault.  And you'll feel just as frustrated as Dean Paul feels now.

Brent Newton's newest article.

The always interesting Brent Newton has just posted this article (here) about legal education.  Although I don't agree with everything he's said, he sure has moved the discussion forward (and made it more fun to discuss).  It's a must-read.

In other news, Penn State's law review took my forthcoming piece on legal education, so as soon as it's published, I'll post a link to it.

UPDATE:  Bill Henderson's comments about the article are here, and Bill's always another "must read" of mine.

Advice to Erwin Chemerinsky over on Tax Prof site

Once again, the Tax Prof Blog is doing something that's fun to read AND important even to non-tax types: advice to Erwin Chemerinsky about what he should do during his deanship at UC-Irvine's law school. (My post will be up soon, so I'm a tad biased.) These short (250-word limit) posts are intriguing, and they should provide good fodder for honest discussion about the direction of legal education in the U.S. I particularly liked the posts from David Bernstein (make law an undergraduate major--I've been saying that for years), Jeff Lipshaw (be relevant to the profession), and Ben Barton (use the case method that B-schools use), and many of my other perennial favorite folks have good posts, too. Of course, Paul & Bill's posts (which start the series--scroll to the bottom) are wonderful.

This reminds me: I'm working on a book of VERY SHORT essays, tentatively entitled Lemmings: How Legal Education Fails Law Students. I've solicited some essays already, and if you'd like me to consider yours, please send it (or a proposal for one) to me. Thanks!