New Ranking Places UB Law in Top 50

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- When based on value for the dollar, LSAT scores and faculty publishing, the University at Buffalo Law School, The State University of New York, ranks 40th in the nation, higher than other well-known schools such as UCLA, Michigan and Temple University, according to a formula devised by renowned journalist Malcolm Gladwell in a recent issue of The New Yorker magazine.

Gladwell is a staff writer for the New Yorker and the best-selling author of The Tipping Point (2000), Blink (2005), Outliers (2008) and What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures (2009). Gladwell's books and articles often deal with the unexpected implications of research in the social sciences and make frequent and extended use of academic work.

In his Feb. 14 New Yorker article, Gladwell suggests more useful criteria than the standards utilized by U.S. News and World Report --such as its ephemeral reputation ranking -- to measure U.S. law schools, and came up with a new ranking methodology that places UB Law in the top 50 law schools. Revised rankings then came out in TaxProf Blog, compiled by Paul L. Caron, Straus Distinguished Visiting Professor at Pepperdine University School of Law.

"Given that the rising cost of college has become a significant social problem in the United States in recent years, you can make a strong case that a school ought to be rewarded for being affordable, " blogged Caron.

This is the second Top 50 ranking for UB Law School this year.

The quality of a UB Law education has also been noted by Thomson Reuters, the largest legal publisher in the U.S. They ranked UB Law School 48th nationwide and No. 1 in upstate New York for the number of Super Lawyer graduates it has produced.

Caron says the favorable rankings show, among other things, how U.S. News' list is skewed in favor of law schools whose Ivy League reputations and large endowments may give them unfair advantage over schools that offer experiences just as valuable.

"The Yales of the world will always succeed at the U.S. News rankings because the U.S. News system is designed to reward Yale-ness," according to Caron.

"Rankings are not benign. They enshrine very particular ideologies, and, at a time when American higher education is facing a crisis of accessibility and affordability, we have adopted a de-facto standard of college quality that is uninterested in both of those factors."

According to an anonymous UB Law student surveyed in the Vault Law School Buzz Book: "The professors have been topnotch, engaging and lively lecturers. Practical education is emphasized along with learning Black Letter Law. The combination of the two has provided me with applicable job skills.

"You cannot get a better education for the price you pay at UB Law."