Because they’re bogus.

Because they are wildly manipulated by the law schools.

Because they may be destroying legal education.

And because they tell you almost nothing about what you need to know in order to choose a law school that’s right for you.

Imagine a law school ranking in which the University of New Hampshire’s law school outranked Franklin Pierce.  Why would this be funny?  Because UNH is Franklin Pierce — UNH took over the private law school this past fall.  But in a recent survey that included both names, respondents thought that UNH was substantially better than Franklin Pierce!

Of course, UNH can’t be better than Franklin Pierce — they’re the same school.  And that’s the problem with reputation rankings (which, I’ll remind you, represent 40% of US News & World Report’s ranking system).  All form, no substance.

Turns out that only about 646 academics, lawyers and judges determine 40% of each law school’s rank in US News (the reputation portion).  And only about 120 of those are actual lawyers.  Just to repeat: that means that 40% of a school’s rank is determined by just a handful of lawyers and law professors.  And, as Brian Leiter has previously written, the lawyer contingent is dramatically skewed toward lawyers in large firms in the Northeast, who can be presumed to know little about the regional schools that make up the overwhelming majority of ABA-approved law schools in the country.