Most readers of this blog have heard that Wayne State’s President, Dr. Jay Noren, has announced that he is stepping down from his post after two years. His reasons for doing so are quite understandable; the medical issues his family has had to deal with in the past year would have been burdensome enough without the responsibilities of running a major public university. It is a tribute to Jay that he has kept humming along, moving this institution forward, appearing at any number of events, supporting our schools and colleges (including the Law School), and all the while maintaining his composure. Our own Dr. Jay has much to show for his service at Wayne: establishment of the University Research Corridor, development of Midtown Detroit with Wayne as a major anchor institution, new agreements with the Detroit Medical Center and Henry Ford Hospital, and a firm financial footing for the University and its schools and colleges.

For me, the departure of Jay Noren is a personal as well as a professional loss. We arrived on this campus at about the same time, and together have advanced the agenda of the Law School and the University. Jay, his wife Sheri, my wife Jan, and I have forged a personal friendship that I hope will endure well beyond Jay’s time here at Wayne. (Hope blooms, as Dr. Noren remains a member of our Medical School faculty.)  Of course, Wayne will survive and flourish. We have weathered other transitions; Dr. Noren has helped us establish a firm financial base at the Law School, and we are growing our faculty and programs. Dr. Phyllis Vroom has performed splendidly job as Acting Provost (our new Provost, Dr. Ron Brown, arrives here on August 1), and I am confident that she will continue to perform likewise as Acting President. I know that Phyllis is eager to return to her post as Dean of the School of Social Work, but duty beckons. (This is a rare instance in which someone will decompress by returning to a deanship, if we ever let her.)

Our thanks to Jay Noren for a job well done, along with our best wishes to him and his family for the future.

8:15 am: Arrive at work, a little later than planned. Sign a pile of letters that have accumulated in my in-box. Read and respond to email. Prepare welcome remarks for International Climate Change Symposium.

8:45: Go down to lobby to greet participants before symposium, organized by the very able Mark Bennett of the Miller Canfield law firm, together with Wayne Law’s Environmental Law Society. I’m very proud of the students in the ELS; on their own initiative, they have qualified Wayne Law for the ABA-EPA Law Office Climate Challenge, putting us among the first ten law schools nationally to be awarded this certification. One effort, to which I refer in my welcome remarks: During our December exam period, we saved 10,000 sheets of paper simply by having our students print their exam answers on both sides of each page. A modest example of a theme of the symposium, that of doing well while doing good. I stick around for keynote address of what is shaping up as an excellent program; unfortunately must then leave to tend to other matters.

9:25: Return to office. Coordinate schedule and various matters for coming week with my Assistant (really my boss), Karen Tarnas. Karen keeps me on track, making sure I’m where I’m supposed to be and attending to any number of matters a mere mortal like me cannot keep track of. Revise budget presentation for University’s Board of Governors.

10:30: Meet with three faculty members about Program for International Legal Studies; specifically, prospects for projects in Israel, the Palestinian Territories, Jordan, and India. University is very interested in expanding programs in Middle East; this would enhance our Program for International Legal Studies, and is considered a natural fit for us in light of Detroit area’s large Jewish and Arab-American population. (Proud of way Middle Eastern Law Students Association and Jewish Law Students Association have embarked on project to better understand each other’s cultures.) And India, despite language overlap, common law legal system, and trade ties, is largely untapped territory for American law schools; at least two Wayne Law faculty members now have significant engagements there, and we should enlarge upon them.

11:00: Huddle with Associate Dean John Rothchild regarding various and sundry matters. A good associate dean like John keeps the law school running from day-to-day, serves as trusted adviser, and keeps me from making any number of mistakes. Stop in on a few faculty colleagues to discuss pending matters.

11:50: Head over to conference center across plaza for quick stop at Climate Change Symposium lunch, then go down the hall to meet Teamsters President James Hoffa, Jr., who will be first “Labor Leaders on Labor” award recipient from Labor @ Wayne program. (I sit on L@W’s internal advisory board.) After lunch, Hoffa delivers rousing address (perhaps a little too protectionist for my blood, but a good show nevertheless). These events attract good mix of university officials, and often furnish opportunity to transact business on the fly. Today’s no exception.

1:45 pm: Return to Law School. Catch up on email; it’s relentless (over 100 messages per day, and if you don’t stay on it, you’re hopelessly mired). A number of issues, large and small: program for groundbreaking for Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights; faculty exchange with University of Maastricht; inquiries from students, alumni and faculty, etc. Do a little prep work for my Alternative Dispute Resolution course.

2:30: Impromptu meeting with Vince Wellman, Chair of faculty Budget Advisory Committee. Discuss budget issues, including planning for appearance before Board of Governors in the evening.

3:00: Correspondence. Then prepare for faculty meeting.

3:30: Faculty meeting. New Student Board of Governors officers attend for first time. Curriculum and personnel matters dominate meeting, as they usually do. Fairly “easy” meeting ends at 4:45. Good time to grab a few faculty members to discuss odds and ends.

5:00: Meet with Wayne Governor Eugene Driker, Chair of Wayne State University Foundation, SuperLawyer, and very loyal alum, to discuss Keith Center and other building plans. Walk around building to show how we hope to better accommodate student activities.  Eugene has good idea for locker placement.

5:45: More prep for budget discussion with Board of Governors. Head back to conference center, where deans gather in holding room (not as bad as it sounds – there’s food waiting for us) before each of us goes to plead our case with BOG. Catch up on matters of mutual concern with fellow deans. I’m last in this evening’s line-up of six or seven deans to meet with Board. Notwithstanding late hour, Board is attentive, with good, intelligent questions. Michigan Legislature is looking at further cuts to higher education; together with university administration and Board, we must preserve what’s essential, make incremental improvements to serve our students and support our faculty, without imposing an unreasonable financial burden on students. Board seems to “get it,” and I emerge more hopeful that we will continue to progress and thrive as a law school even in challenging economic environment.

9:10 pm: Leave campus and head for home. Not a perfect day, but on the whole, a satisfying one.

It’s nice when a person you’ve long admired turns out to be as good as advertised. Last week, Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor visited Wayne Law. The occasion was a day-long symposium, Options for an Independent Judiciary in Michigan, co-sponsored by the Law School and the American Board of Trial Advocates. Justice O’Connor delivered a very well-received keynote address, underscoring her preference for merit selection of judges in Michigan and elsewhere. She is no newcomer to this issue; as Arizona’s Senate Majority Leader, she championed merit selection of judges in that state in the early 1970’s.

Justice O’Connor was introduced by our own Marilyn Kelly, Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court. It was fun to watch an instant rapport develop between the two jurists, and it is my sense that Justice O’Connor, the first woman to serve on the United States Supreme Court, has a strong pull on women who have followed her onto the bench. And for good reason. Raised on a ranch straddling the Arizona-New Mexico border, Justice O’Connor is the genuine article: down-to-earth yet scholarly, businesslike yet warm. Upon her arrival (we were lucky to catch her and our other speakers during a brief window between two major snowstorms), she asked me for a quick briefing on the first hour of the day’s program, then proceeded to the auditorium to listen to the other speakers. She was pleased to see former Colorado Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Love Kourlis, and so was I. Many years ago (years that she has worn far better than I), Becky Kourlis and I attended the Colorado Bar Review together; a short time later, we joined forces on a case.

The philosopher Martin Buber once said that “all real living is meeting.” Last week’s assemblage of wise and warm-hearted individuals on our campus confirmed that.

Yesterday was the first day of winter, the shortest day of the year. That means that starting today, the days grow longer. Though it may be cold and cloudy, the lengthening days bring the promise of spring and all its glowing potential.

The turn of the calendar may be seen as a metaphor for the past year in the Detroit region. Things looked mighty bleak a year ago: corruption in city government, the auto industry on the brink of disaster, unemployment on the rise. We’re hardly out of the woods, but it would appear that we’ve turned a corner. A new, no-nonsense mayor and a substantially new city council have brought principled leadership and the potential for businesslike, regional solutions to the city. General Motors and Chrysler have emerged from bankruptcy with new leadership and new determination to provide a product mix suitable for Twenty-first Century conditions. Ford, already one step ahead, is now turning a profit. Moreover, the region seems to have finally realized that it can no longer rely entirely on a single industry. Hence, the New Economy Initiative aims to create as many as 1200 new businesses in Southeast Michigan in the next three years. Wayne Law hopes to play at least a small role in this renaissance, with our Small Business and Non-profit Corporations Clinic providing legal assistance to start-up companies.

But economic recovery will be slow; even if half of the new businesses flourish (a pretty good success rate), they will provide only a fraction of the jobs lost by the domestic auto industry in the past two decades. The same kind of imagination that created the industrial colossus of the Twentieth Century will have to engineer our prosperity in the Twenty-first. If the auto industry could convert to the production of tanks and planes during World War Two, we should likewise look to convert much of our production capacity to railroad locomotives and passenger cars (few of which are currently produced domestically) for the national high speed rail system envisioned by President Obama in the next decade.

Fresh water may well be to the Twenty-first Century what oil was to the Twentieth Century: a precious resource for which there is rising demand. The Great Lakes (four of which abut Michigan) contain about 20% of the earth’s fresh water supply, and we will have to invent sustainable and productive uses of this resource in order to unlock the region’s economic potential. Here, again, Wayne Law hopes to play a constructive role. Our new Environmental Law Clinic, in partnership with the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center, now represents a bipartisan coalition of Michigan legislators attempting to block the migration of Asian carp from the Mississippi River system into the Great Lakes, where they could destroy a flourishing fishing industry.  For background on this issue, see Professor Noah Hall’s Great Lakes Law blog at http://www.greatlakeslaw.org/.

Here at Wayne, we regard it as consistent with our mission to assist in the economic development of the region. This means making efficient, wise use of finite resources. Our progress is likely to be more steady than spectacular. As impatient as we may be, lasting prosperity is more likely to be a product of thoughtful planning, hard work, and perseverence than bold strikes and flashy pronouncements. Detroit will not be rebuilt in a day. But in the years to come, we will look back upon this time when Detroit emerged from the darkness of winter and declare it our finest hour.

The past week has been an eventful one at Wayne Law. From October 9-11, we hosted the Midwest Clinical Teachers Conference. Professor David Moss, our Director of Clinical Programs, built the conference around Kevin Boyle’s book, Arc of Justice. The book details the efforts of an African-American physician, Ossian Sweet, to settle with his family in a southeast Detroit neighborhood in 1925 and the legal aftermath of these efforts. Speakers at the conference included former Detroit Mayor and ABA President Dennis Archer, the author Kevin Boyle, the Hon. Damon J. Keith, and our first Damon J. Keith Visiting Professor, john powell of Ohio State.  (Yes, he prefers that his name be set forth in lower case.)  Professor powell was again the speaker on Tuesday evening, when he delivered the public address that accompanies the professorship (more on this below). On Wednesday evening, October 14, we inaugurated our Program for International Legal Studies with an address by the Hon. Bruno Simma of the International Court of Justice. On Thursday, we hosted the 17th Annual Bernard Gottfried Labor Law Symposium. Across campus that same day, we welcomed noted mediator, teacher and author Bernard Mayer, who delivered the annual Hank Marx Lecture to help us celebrate Conflict Resolution Day. We capped off the week on Friday by hosting a Michigan Roundtable program examining the roots of housing segregation in the Detroit area. We hope to collaborate further with the Michigan Roundtable as this organization addresses a problem that continues to thwart efforts to make Southeast Michigan all that it can be.

A telling theme ran through both john powell’s and Bernie Mayer’s addresses, without any deliberate coordination on their part. On Tuesday, Professor powell discussed how our insistence on seeing things in a binary fashion diminishes our discourse. Is a South Carolina congressman or a Cambridge police officer a racist? The use of pejorative labels like “racist” or “Bolshevik” itself is a conversation-stopper, powell noted.  (The same can be said of racially or ethnically derisive terms, such as the “n” word.)  Throughout his lecture, Professor powell cited research demonstrating that attitudes toward race stem from a variety of sources, conscious and unconscious, and are usually more subtle than a binary classification such as “racist” or “enlightened” admits. What seems to work most effectively is frank, civilized discussion about race, not the branding of labels or use of epithets.

On Thursday, Bernie Mayer discussed five dilemmas in conflict resolution practice. The first of these is the fact that conflict resolution professionals seek integrative solutions in a world that sees things in a distributive manner. More for you means less for me, or so the thinking goes. My extrapolation: The binary view of the world that Professor powell laments is at work again.  Someone’s a racist or she is not; President Obama is either the Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread or the Devil Incarnate. Our insistence that there always be a winner and a loser results in many Republicans trying to gun down the President’s health care proposals simply to deal him a political defeat, and some Democrats seemingly willing to enact most any proposal in order to chalk up a victory. What gets lost is a genuine effort to develop a plan that serves the best interests of the American people.

The insistence on seeing all things in black and white misses not only the shades of gray, but the multiple hues that may color an issue. This has long been the lament not only of mediators but of communitarians. We live in a complex world. While the popular press insists on sound-bite solutions, more sublety is in order. It is time to stop shouting at each other, and to engage in reasoned discourse. We will continue to cultivate such discourse at Wayne, and invite you to join us.

I recently sent a letter to alumni about some notable achievements at Wayne Law.  It may sound like dean-speak, but it’s all true.  An edited version follows:

This year’s edition of Michigan Super Lawyers is now available, and Wayne State University Law School alumni top the list. Three hundred and forty-seven of this year’s Super Lawyers are graduates of Wayne State University Law School. That’s 24% of the total, three more than the University of Michigan and thirteen more than University of Detroit Mercy and Michigan State combined!

While rankings often paint an incomplete picture, I believe that this listing says a great deal about our law school. Year in, year out, Wayne Law graduates are leaders of the bar, in Michigan and elsewhere. And it is easy to see why. Our students are bright, mature, conscientious, and altruistic. (While numbers are not the only indication of quality, credentials are rising, with a 3-point increase in the median LSAT score for this year’s entering class.) They have little of the sense of entitlement that seems to afflict many of their peers; rather, they understand that anything they achieve will be the product of hard work. Our faculty are superb teachers, whose nationally and internationally recognized scholarship adds depth to our students’ understanding of legal theory, doctrine, and practice. Our students and faculty are engaged in the community and the profession, demonstrating that the worlds of academia and practice can be effectively linked. This mixture of motivation and expertise has produced several generations of superb lawyers.

The Super Lawyers is not the only periodical in which Wayne Law has recently received accolades. The September 2009 National Jurist contains three articles of special interest to Wayne lawyers. In one article (“Is Anyone Hiring Now?”), Wayne Law graduates David Galbenski and Patricia Nemeth are singled out as entrepreneurial lawyers who have demonstrated how attorneys can make the most of their unique talents. A second article places Wayne Law in the top fifty Best Value Law Schools. And a third National Jurist article (“The $60,000 Jackpot”) highlights Wayne Law’s Public Interest Law Fellowships, through which we funded ten students who spent the past summer performing public interest work in Detroit and elsewhere.

The Public Interest Law Fellowships underscore Wayne Law’s commitment to both public service and our students. We have significantly expanded our scholarship program in order to attract the best students and to provide relief from some of the debt that might otherwise encumber our students’ careers. We have doubled the size of our Career Services Office, in order to provide more opportunities for both students and alumni. And we are about to add a full time Alumni Director in order to create an effective alumni network, maintain better communication, and strengthen our sense of community at Wayne.

We continue to invest in faculty as well. This past month, we welcomed four new full-time faculty: Adele Morrison, an accomplished scholar and expert in family law and domestic violence; Christopher Lund, a highly regarded expert in law and religion; Aaron Perzanowski, a rising star in intellectual property law; and Rachel Settlage, an experienced clinician who will establish our new Asylum and Immigration Law Clinic. In addition, john powell of Ohio State has been installed as our first Damon J. Keith Visiting Professor, and Professor Sharon Keller, a consummate professional, has also joined us as a visitor. While other law schools are in a hiring freeze, we are conducting national searches for faculty to enhance our offerings in fields as diverse as corporate and securities law, environmental law, labor law, criminal law, civil procedure and trial advocacy. The University has granted us a charter for the Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights, and we have appointed its first faculty director, Professor Peter Hammer. Fundraising for the Keith Center continues, and we hope to break ground for the building that will house the Keith Center next spring. We are also capitalizing on our strengths in international and comparative law by establishing a Program for International Legal Studies, which will be headed up by Professor Gregory Fox. The Honorable Bruno Simma of the International Court of Justice will speak at the International Program’s inaugural event on October 14 at 4:30 p.m. in the Law School’s Spencer Partrich Auditorium.

Even in difficult times, the University recognizes the value of our law school and has assisted us with these strategic investments. At a time of economic challenge we regard Wayne Law as part of the solution, serving as a mechanism to advance the economy of Detroit and the region. We are not awash in funds, but we will continue to invest wisely in programs that will make Wayne Law graduates the Super Lawyers of tomorrow.

The blog has been resting for most of the summer, but now it’s time for a revival. A classic ritual of summer’s end is the state fair; or perhaps we Michiganders should say, was the state fair. The Michigan State Fair, dating back to 1859, is the oldest in the nation. The fairgrounds have seen many a good year; the famed racehorse Seabiscuit won two breakout races there in 1937. But this year’s is apparently the last edition of the fair, at least for awhile; the money is just not there. State fairs are anachronisms: the midway, with its low-tech carny rides and greasy food; the farm displays, recalling a life that most Americans have left behind; the quaint old buildings, dating from a bygone era. Still, it is good to see the country meeting the city for a week or so; farmers awed by the bright lights, urban street kids getting close to farm animals, perhaps for the first time. Something will be lost when the Michigan State Fair closes tomorrow, and my wife Jan and I were overtaken by sadness as we strolled through the fairgrounds at Woodward and 8 Mile on Friday evening.

More upbeat, literally and figuratively, is the Detroit Jazz Festival. Called the largest free jazz festival in the world, this annual event features a mixture of veteran and fledgling talent and brings thousands of people into downtown Detroit. Jan and I caught three excellent acts yesterday. The most captivating was Alfredo Rodriguez, a young pianist billed as the next Art Tatum. I never heard Mr. Tatum perform live, but Mr. Rodriguez lived up to his billing, displaying remarkable virtuosity and skill. The DJF is an affirmation of both an art form and the life of a great city.

Another form of affirmation is found in the Detroit Tigers. Just two weeks ago, the Tigers were clinging to a slim lead in the mediocre American League Central Division, with anemic hitting struggling to support superb starting pitching. But the relief corps has rounded into shape (Fernando Rodney’s closing appearances are like a rollercoaster ride, but one that leaves us deposited safely at the end), and during the past few weeks, the offense has shown signs of life. Injuries have hobbled third-baseman Brandon Inge, such that the All Star’s batting average has sunk below .240. But yesterday Mr. Inge (a gamer to be sure) belted a grand slam, stunning the Tampa Bay Rays and leading the Tigers to another come-from-behind victory. This was the Tigers’ sixth straight road win, a significant accomplishment for a team that had performed creditably at home but had been sub-500 on the road through most of the season. Suddenly, seven games separate them from the second-place Twins. In a city that needs every reason to believe in itself, the Tigers are a welcome surprise and perhaps a harbinger of recovery.

If there was ever a doubt as to whether professional sports can lift the spirit of a city, check out Detroit.  With Chrysler in bankruptcy[1] and General Motors on the verge, the city’s economic prospects, not particularly rosy to begin with, are teetering.  But the defending Stanley Cup Champion Red Wings hold a three-games-to-one edge over the Blackhawks in the Western Division finals[2], and the Tigers show surprising life, leading the American League’s Central Division about a third of the way into the season.  All of this is subject to change, of course, on a moment’s notice.  Until Sunday’s 6-1 blowout, almost all of the Red Wings’ victories had been in tight contests; games two and three against Chicago, one a win, the other a loss, were both decided in sudden-death overtime, with identical 4-3 scores.  The Wings’ second win against Chicago was capped by a beautiful three-way pass sequence.  Different players take turns playing the hero on this mature, balanced, hard-working team.  But the overtime loss in game three (and the seemingly effortless victories by a young Pittsburgh team in the Eastern Division) demonstrated how tenuous Detroit’s hold on the Stanley Cup might be.

The Tigers are a little more surprising, and therefore more of a delight.  Last year was supposed to be their year, but the pitching was horrible, and the team never recovered from an embarrassing 0-7 start.  This year a resurgent Justin Verlander, a reconstituted Dontrelle Willis, a newly-acquired Edwin Jackson and the young Rick Porcello seem to have established a solid starting rotation[3] to complement a potent offense.  (Quick: who is second in extra base hits in the American League since 2007?  Answer below.[4])  The season is long, and I am not yet convinced that Fernando Rodney is a bona fide closer, but right now, the Tigers are fun to watch.[5]

Even in more serious matters, Detroit’s sports heroes bring cause for hope.  The new mayor, Dave Bing (yes, that Dave Bing, the former steel company CEO with the good jump shot) brings maturity and business sense to City Hall.  His first accomplishment may be resurrecting an intergovernmental agreement to renovate Cobo Hall, so that it may remain home to the North American Auto Show.  Histrionics in City Council derailed the deal, but Bing appears on his way to coaxing things back together and reassuring both inner-city and suburban stakeholders.  I am old enough to remember a younger Bing playing for the Pistons in Cobo Arena; it would be especially sweet to see him put this accord in place.  As Rochelle Riley, my favorite local columnist, has pointed out, a Cobo pact may signal a new era of cooperation in Metro Detroit, something we very much need.

Give credit where credit is due: I have complained in the past about the failure of the U.S. News rankings of law schools to take into account the credentials of part-time students. This year’s U.S. News rankings, which became available a short time ago, correct that oversight, and include the LSAT scores and undergraduate GPAs of part-time, as well as full-time students in their calculations. This data more accurately portrays the quality of a law school’s student body and thwarts efforts of some law schools to artificially boost their rankings by diverting their lower-scoring applicants into part-time programs.

For the first time, U.S. News has also published rankings of part-time programs. Wayne Law fared reasonably well in these rankings, finishing 36th out of 87 accredited part-time programs and first in the state of Michigan. But we should pause before putting too much stock in these (and other) rankings. The part-time rankings this year are based solely on a peer assessment survey, and it appears that law schools with part-time programs fell in place pretty much in accord with their overall rankings. One can hope that in future years, the part-time rankings will be a little more sophisticated, taking into account at least the credentials of the part-time students at each law school.

One disappointment for Wayne Law was our absence from the U.S. News rankings of diverse law schools. We are certainly one of America’s most ethnically diverse law schools. Few law schools have more first generation Americans in their student bodies, and I doubt that many other law schools can boast more native speakers of foreign languages. Our tuition and financial aid structure, together with the public service and practice opportunities presented by a city such as Detroit, continue to make us a law school of opportunity. This is evidenced by the increasing number of students who have begun to arrive at Wayne from other states, and who see Detroit as a magnet for those who appreciate the challenge of our nation’s metropolitan communities. Representation of racial minority groups runs from 10-18% of Wayne Law’s students and is about 35% university-wide. About 10% of the students at WSU are from foreign countries. One need only walk through our campus at any time of day to observe this phenomenon; indeed, I would be hard-pressed to think of any campus that looks so much like a cross-section not only of America, but the world.

The racial and ethnic mix at Wayne State was apparent at a performance by Wayne undergraduates that my wife and I were fortunate to attend a few weeks ago. Together with another couple, we saw Ragtime, the musical based on E.L. Doctorow’s historical novel set a century ago. The music in the show was unremarkable (couldn’t they have reworked some Scott Joplin classics, by now in the public domain, rather than writing warmed-over imitations?), but the staging was magnificent, giving depth to a moving story of racial and ethnic conflict and, on precious occasion, harmony. The racial and ethnic mix of performers required to properly stage the show made it altogether appropriate to Wayne State; few other American universities could have pulled it off convincingly. While there were several good performances, most convincing was that of Taurean Hogan, who portrayed Coalhouse Walker. Watch for this young man; he is a good bet to follow in the footsteps of the likes of Epatha Merkerson and Ernie Hudson, Wayne alumni who have had distinguished careers on the stage and screen.

Back at the Law School, in my first year Torts course, I have made it a practice to collect index cards from my students on the first day of class, on which I ask them to place information about themselves, such as colleges attended, undergraduate majors, jobs held, special skills, and foreign languages with which they are familiar. Wayne might be the only law school in America where Arabic speakers outnumber those fluent in French. A sprinkling of Chaldean speakers and even one student fluent in Aramaic graced my class, as well as students conversant in Spanish, Albanian, Thai, etc. But perhaps the most intriguing card was completed by a student from Arizona, who wrote, “I am the first person from my town to attend law school.” It is a privilege to have students like this at our law school, and humbling to have them in my class.

Last month, the world was graced with a new set of law school rankings. Researchers at the University of Michigan ranked American law schools based on the number of their graduates holding tenure-track teaching positions at other law schools. As it turned out, these “outdegree” rankings were remarkably similar to the U.S. News rankings, except that three law schools – Howard, Syracuse, and our very own Wayne State – performed substantially better than their U.S. News rankings might suggest.

I am gratified that twenty-four Wayne Law grads contribute to the work of other law faculties around the nation. But this ranking, like many other rankings efforts, is of dubious merit. Indeed, it would appear to be based on criteria about which only self-absorbed legal academicians would care. This month, as thousands of law school applicants mull over which law schools are deserving of their tuition deposits, they confront rankings that sometimes shed more heat than light. But the reasoning goes that bad information is better than no information, and information cloaked as statistics (however unreliable the survey data or dubious the criteria) bears special weight.

Sometimes the data included in the rankings may be informative, even if the rankings themselves manipulate the data in such as way as to defy logic. It might be helpful, for example, for an aspiring law student to know what percentage of a law school’s recent graduates pass the bar exam. While law school should not be regarded as a three-year bar review course, there is a reasonable expectation that after the investment of three or more years and tens of thousands of dollars, a law school graduate ought to be able to pass the examination that will determine whether or not he/she will get to ply his/her trade.  U.S. News obligingly provides the percentage of first-time takers from each law school who pass the bar of the state where the largest number of its graduates took the bar exam. But this figure is weighted only 2% toward a school’s overall ranking. Compare that with the 40% weight accorded to “quality assessment” by academicians, lawyers and judges. Only about 26 percent of the lawyers and judges surveyed (out of what size sample, U.S. News does not tell) responded to the 2007 survey; how many of them had the information or temerity to rank more than a handful of law schools we don’t know. A few years ago, a student of mine described efforts to quantify this type of data as “subjectivity masquerading as objectivity.” In this instance, I have a hard time disagreeing.

U.S. News reports a 70% response rate from its 2007 survey of academicians. I am told, however, that some people arrive at their “assessments” by referring to the previous year’s U.S. News rankings. The rankings thereby take on a self-sustaining quality. Of such stuff are academic reputations made and lost.

Still, a student might glean worthwhile information from the data. Median LSAT and undergraduate GPAs might be helpful, but for the fact that some schools channel their lower-scoring applicants into part-time programs or accept them only belatedly as transfer students; neither part-time data nor data on transfer students has traditionally been included in the U.S. News calculations. More valuable to the individual applicant may be the grids provided in the ABA/LSAC Official Guide to ABA-Approved Law Schools. These grids indicate the number of applicants and admittees for students within any range of LSAT scores and GPAs; e.g., last year 18 of 47 applicants with LSATs between 150 and 154 and GPAs between 3.00 and 3.24 were admitted to Wayne, whereas the odds improved to 63 out of 70 for applicants with LSATs between 155 and 159 and GPAs between 3.25 and 3.49. The ABA/LSAC Guide provides all sorts of useful information, such as class sizes, tuition, living expenses, scholarship opportunities, attrition rates, transfers, enrollment, and ethnicity breakdowns, along with narrative entries for each law school.

The expanded, on-line version of U.S. News provides interesting information such as the average indebtedness and average starting salary of each law school’s graduates, figures which ought to bear some proportion to each other. But averages are, well, only averages.  Justice Louis Brandeis once remarked, “I abhor averages. I like the individual case. A man may have six meals one day and none the next, making an average of three meals per day, but that is not a good way to live.” Better for the prospective law student to look at the financial package she is being offered by each law school (taking into account tuition, financial aid, and the cost of living in the locality in which the school is located) and the typical salary provided by the type of legal employment to which the applicant aspires. Six-figure starting salaries at Wall Street law firms may sound nice, but they have little meaning to a law student who aspires to work in a Legal Services office in Appalachia or in a small law firm in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

If you are a prospective law student, ultimately you must make a decision that suits your needs and expectations.  Numbers may provide some guidance, but few numbers can replace a visit to a law school, where you can check out the classes, talk to students and professors, and get a sense of whether it feels right for you. Robert Morse, the U.S. News rankings maven, may be good with a calculator, but ultimately you, and not he, will be attending law school.  You might read Consumer Reports before purchasing a car, but you wouldn’t buy a set of wheels without taking it out for a test drive.  Don’t you owe yourself at least as much before investing three or more years and tens of thousands of dollars on this venture?