Ranking International Law Programs

The blogosphere is abuzz this week with discussion and analysis of the latest round of U.S. News & World Report’s law school rankings (see here and here and here). Most such efforts have concentrated on identifying movement (or lack thereof) in the general rankings of law schools, the methodologies employed in the rankings, or the internal effect the rankings have on law school culture. But what value, if any, do these rankings have for those considering a future in international law?

As a threshold matter, unless you dip into your wallet, U.S. News provides precious little information – looking on-line will tell you only that NYU, Columbia and Harvard have the top 3 international law programs in the country. If you’re willing to spend a few dollars at a newsstand this week, you can get a list of the top ten programs (including schools such as Georgetown, GW, Yale and American). And if you’re willing to spend $14.95, the “premium edition” of the rankings gives you a list of the top-25 (this year, it’s actually the top 26) international law programs. To minimize the chance of my having any conversations with the General Counsel’s office at U.S. News and World Report, I’ve refrained from reproducing their lists here.

Nevertheless, assuming money is no object, it’s worth asking how the prospective international law student should treat the information provided. I, for one, would advise caution for several reasons. First, unlike the more detailed description of its methodologies for generally ranking U.S. law schools, U.S. News’ “specialty” rankings, including international law, appear to be the result of an entirely subjective survey of current U.S. law professors who teach international law. As U.S News describes it:

Specialty Rankings: Legal educators nominated up to 15 schools in each field. Legal educators chosen were a selection of those listed in the Association of American Law Schools Directory of Law Teachers 2004-2005 Directory as currently teaching in the subject. Those schools that received the most nominations appear.

So, basically what you’re getting is a partial peer-assessment of the top-15 international law programs. We are not told how many legal educators participated in the survey, who those professors are, how much experience they have teaching or writing in international law, or how the use of a “top-15 approach” actually allows for more extensive rankings of the top 25/26 programs. Without more information, it’s hard to give these rankings much value, even as a subjective analysis of a school’s stature in international law.

Second, it’s worth emphasizing how law professors likely rank international law programs – i.e., by assessing the quality of the international law scholarship produced by the faculty at any given school. But that approach may not correlate with how a prospective student would like the schools to be ranked – i.e., in terms of their international law curriculums, clinical opportunities, or, most likely, the schools’ ability to get students jobs in international law. Indeed, I think there’s a real risk that students looking at this list will assume that the higher ranked the program, the greater the likelihood of working in the field after graduation. But, absent further empirical research, it’s hard to support such an assumption — we simply don’t know how well any given U.S. law school is doing in producing actual, practicing international lawyers without more data.

Finally, I think it’s important to note the limited scope of the U.S. News’ international rankings – they only survey U.S. law schools. That comes as no surprise for purposes of assessing where you can get a U.S. law degree or go to specialize in U.S.-specific practice areas (e.g., U.S. tax law or U.S. trial advocacy). But it does not make as much sense in ranking international law programs. Indeed, international lawyers can come to the field with plenty of suitable qualifications that do not involve a U.S. law degree. A number of graduate programs in the United States have strong international law offerings comparable to the top schools in U.S. News., e.g., Columbia, Georgetown, Fletcher, and Johns Hopkins (although I’d welcome thoughts on how well that course of study translates into working as an international lawyer). There are also plenty of educational institutions outside the United States offering degree programs in international law that can compete with (or perhaps exceed) the degree of specialization offered by a U.S. law school (Cambridge and Oxford are the easiest, but by no means only, examples).

In other words, to truly rank international law programs we would need more than what U.S. News provides. We would need to cast a wider net in terms of the programs surveyed, and do so in a way that produces more objective data on the schools’ international law programs and placement success. Still, so long as you appreciate its flaws, there is some fun in watching the rise and fall of various U.S. programs. That’s going to be my excuse anyway when I tell folks that my institution, Temple, was ranked among the top-20 international law programs in the country this year.