RE: Ranking the AAC Law Schools.
Gang,
I would doubt that there are many LA law schools that would hire a Loyola Law grad over a Tulane law grad of comparable class rank. You might find a few, but I'd bet that they're mostly SMALLER law firms that were founded by and consist primarily of Loyola grads. I can't imagine that there are ANY large law firms (and large law firms generally pay the highest starting salaries) that would hire a Loyola grad over a Tulane grad of comparable class rank. Those large law firms are usually the top choice among most top law school graduates because of their higher starting salaries, and as a result, get the most interest and can afford to be the most selective about who they hire. Given that, they're VERY unlikely to pick a grad from a school that they know was chosen primarily because the person attending it couldn't get into a more selective/prestigious school.
One piece of trivia: after Hurricane Katrina, when Loyola's law school received severe damage, the University of Houston's Law Center actually hosted many of that law school's students and professors for a year while they rebuilt.
As for the whole bar passage rate thing, so much of that depends on the extent to which the school teaches to the test. Law firms certainly don't hire on that basis. Granted, bar passage rates are ONE factor (among several) that the USNEWS rankings consider in their ranking methodology. In that regard, they aren't completely irrelevant to the discussion. But if literally the ONLY thing that a school has to hang its hat on is its bar passage rates (and I suspect that that's the case with Memphis), then it doesn't have much. There's SOOOOO much more to legal education than that. Passing the bar is primarily an individual and not a law school responsibility.
In the same manner as the Loyola example, I would doubt that there are many law firms, and I'd bet that there are virtually NO large law firms (which, once again, are the ones that pay the highest starting salaries, and are generally the most desired among top recent law schools grads), even within the City of Memphis itself, that would rather hire a Memphis law grad over a Vandy or UTenn law grad (or for that matter, almost any law school ranked in the Top 80) of comparable class rank. That speaks far greater volumes than bar passage rates.
Things like academic reputation, reputation among hiring partners at the largest and most prestigious law firms, and selectivity are far, FAR more important factors to consider in law school rankings than a school's passage rate on a test for which the preparation is primarily an individual, and not a law school, responsibility.
I actually agree with the last poster on one point. Anyone that attends a law school ranked below, let's say, the Top 80 these days, does so at their own risk! I know that if I were talking to a college Senior that had just applied to and been accepted into two law schools, and those two law schools just happened to be Tulane and Loyola, I sure as Hell wouldn't be counseling them to pick Loyola. That could be a potentially very bad career move. Same for the Vandy/Tenn vs. Memphis example. The only time I'd counsel someone to go to Memphis is if they literally didn't get in anywhere else.
Schools ranked below the Top 80 are generally ranked where they are because they are regarded as inferior goods, and are most often chosen by students that didn't get into higher ranked schools. Likewise, you'll find that most of the students that are ranked in the Top 10% of the class at schools ranked in that "tier" at the end of their first year end up transferring out of those schools and into higher ranked ones. That definitely happens in Houston. I can remember that at the end of my first year of law school, almost the entire Top 10% at South Texas College of Law (a law school in downtown Houston), transferred out of that school and into the University of Houston. I think that that speaks VOLUMES about the law schools' comparative reputations and desirability among students. In the end, the Top 10% at schools like South Texas and Memphis end up not truly being the Top 10%; they end up simply being the Top 10% of what's leftover after most of the real Top 10% has transferred out at the end of their first year. Large law firms know this, and make hiring decisions accordingly.
(This post was last modified: 06-09-2013 06:59 AM by UH Law '97.)
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