Touching a nerve at The National Jurist?

I just received an email from National Jurist:

As you are already aware, in our latest January issue of The National Jurist, we covered the story on law schools and their relationship with the U.S. News & Word Report’s rankings. We seem to have touched a nerve and as a result, many discussions have arisen on the subject. We have posted a link to your blog site on http://www.nationaljurist.com/ on our blogs page. To keep this important discussion going, we would also appreciate if you could post our link as well. You can follow the discussion or join in the conversation yourself by e-mailing comments to Rebecca@CypressMagazines.com.

Sincerely,
Krista Burnett
National Jurist
Marketing Coordinator
858-300-3203 ext. 303

I'm certainly happy to do my part. If you'd like to weigh in on the story, or on my posts about the story (see here for my post on the National Jurist story, here for my MoneyLaw post on the story, and here for my post on the AALS Workshop on The Rankings Game), you can do that here or on The National Jurist's website.

For those whose clicking fingers are already too pooped, here's National Jurist's post about the response to its lead article in the current issue:

Legally Blogged

In our latest issue of The National Jurist, we covered the issue of law schools and their relationship with the U.S. News & World Report's rankings. We seem to have touched a nerve. You can follow the discussion by clicking on the blog links below -- or join in the conversation yourself. E-mail comments to Rebecca@CypressMagazines.com[.]

* CALI’s Pre-Law Blog: "Law School Rankings" (His follow-up post is here.)

* Brian Leiter’s Law School Reports: "How Far will Law Schools Go to Win the Rankings Race?"

* TaxProf Blog: "National Jurist: How Far Will Law Schools Go to Win the Rankings Race?"

* Law School Innovation: "Does US News promote good or bad innovation?"

* MoneyLaw: "National Jurist: How Far Will Law Schools Go to Win the Rankings Race?"

* MoneyLaw: "Am I the poster child for why the USNWR rankings are bad?"

* Nancy Rapoport's Blogspot: "Closure (?) on National Jurist"

* Shangrila Towers: "School: Much ado about nothing"

* Empirical Legal Studies: "USNWR Gaming and the Failure of Self-Regulation"

So please do weigh in: What'd you think about the article? About the comments in all of the blogs?

Closure (?) on National Jurist article

After mulling things over, I sent Rebecca Luczycki, Editor in Chief of Cypress Magazines' National Jurist and preLaw publications, an email to explain that I wasn't exactly thrilled with her description of the meeting in the first paragraph of National Jurist's The Rankings Game article. (If you want to see the Word version of my email and her response, click here.)

Why wasn't I thrilled? Well (and I might be a tad sensitive about this), I wasn't happy (1) that, after two-and-a-half hours of a loaded meeting, I was so emotionally drained and frustrated that I'd ended up shedding a few tears in public (embarrassing enough at the time), and (2) that the stories (Houston Chronicle and National Jurist) reporting the tears might have been a nice hook for the reporters but certainly also added to stereotypes about women executives "not being tough enough" to lead.

In any event, I wrote Ms. Luczycki a letter, she apologized, and life moves on.

On Crying: National Jurist and Wall Street Journal

Today's Wall Street Journal has a piece by Sue Shellenbarger on crying at work--Read This and Weep: Crying At Work Gains Acceptance. I wish it were true that crying in frustration and anger were more acceptable at work, but I just don't agree. If it were true, why would National Jurist still be focusing on tears instead of the issues raised on and after a faculty meeting of more than a year ago?

Perhaps, as more people become comfortable with tears as a legitimate way of expressing anger and frustration, there will be less use of those more violent means of expressing anger (although I doubt that, too).

Figuring out SSRN downloads--and some questions for everyone

There's been a lot of recent blogging going on regarding the rankings (see, e.g., MoneyLaw's recent posts here (Jeff Harrison), here (Al Brophy, also mentioning Brian Leiter's and Anthony Ciolli's links to the Boalt Hall law student's study on which members of the tenured faculty there are publishing articles), here (Paul Caron), and here (my own post about the "joy" of being a poster child in the anti-USNWR rankings fight); see also Paul Caron's post over at the TaxProf Blog about the National Jurist's lead story on the rankings).

Here's a related question, as law schools search for new ways to tout faculty scholarship (preferably at low cost): Does your school tout instances of SSRN notification of "top 10 download paper" status? I know that UHLC used to do that (Doug Moll & Jacqueline Weaver each received notices like this), but I don't know what other schools do. Is this something that your school (1) keeps track of & (2) publicizes (a) to internal (law school & university) audiences or (b) to external audiences? Do any of you mention receiving this type of notice on your CVs? Would it matter to you if you received info about "top 10 downloads" from other schools? (And would it change your opinion of those schools, either for better or for worse?)

Thanks--looking forward to hearing from you!