From: Jack Boger
Date: Thu, Mar 27, 2008 at 5:29 PM
Subject: US News Rankings: 2009/ Carolina Law
To: Law Students</p>
<p>March 27, 2008</p>
<p>Dear Carolina Law Students,</p>
<p>Tomorrow, March 28th, the US News & World Report will officially release its 2009 ranking of law schools. Because those numbers have been widely reported during the past 24 hours on websites throughout the nation, we are sharing them with you today, after the close of business. The results for Carolina Law are mixed; we slipped slightly from 36th to 38th overall. The data nonetheless show big positive developments since last year – our student/faculty ratio has improved dramatically, from 20.1/1 to 15.7./1; the GPAs of our 2007 entering class are up from 3.39-3.77 (25th and 75th percentiles) to 3.45-3.80; and first-time North Carolina bar passage rates for our May, 2006 graduates are up from to 83.4% to 86.5%. Moreover, we have significantly more resources per student (thanks to the University, the North Carolina General Assembly, and our generous alumni). We have also retained the outstanding scholarly reputational ranking we’ve long held among other scholars and academics (still 17th in the nation) and among lawyers and judges (still 19th in the nation).</p>
<p>I fully appreciate that rankings do matter to many, including students. Let me assure you that we at Carolina Law will be working every single day during this coming year to strengthen our already excellent faculty, to augment the quality and usefulness of our students’ preparation for law practice, and to deepen the assistance we afford each student throughout the academic year and upon graduation.</p>
<p>We will further enlarge the size of our faculty with wonderful new hires. We will continue to attract extraordinarily talented students from North Carolina and throughout the nation. And once our students arrive in Chapel Hill, they will continue do inspired work – in their classes, in 55 student organizations, in five law reviews and journals, in nationally competitive moot court teams, in splendid lectures and conferences, and in selfless public service activities. We now have a special new source of focus and energy: the University’s commitment to build a splendid new law building at Carolina North in the near future, which will reflect the finest in 21st century legal training and community outreach. In sum, there is much of which to be proud.</p>
<p>So how then can we have lost a little ground? Most obvious are US News’ reported figures for “employed 9 months after graduation,” which at 88.8% seem lower than many of our peers. Yet this year’s US News relies on figures for our May, 2006 graduates that are now nearly two years old. During the ensuing two years, Carolina Law has undertaken a major, yearlong study and subsequent reorganization of our Career Services Office. We have made the outstanding hire of Brian Lewis as Assistant Dean. We have increased the CSO professional staff from 2 to 6. Alas, these tremendous changes are not reflected in the new US News data, nor is the placement rate for the most recent, May, 2007 class (which is 93.3%). Thus Carolina Law finds itself judged by a metric that reflects the CSO office of two years ago, before our new CSO leadership, our much improved staffing, and our much clearer mission.</p>
<p>According to US News, Carolina Law also appears to have slipped ever so slightly in our raw reputational score among lawyers and judges. Yet a ‘3.8’ score still places us 19th in the nation, exactly where we stood last year. Indeed, earlier this week, we were heartened when another national survey conducted among 100+ law firms ranked Carolina Law graduates 23rd among all law schools in their knowledge of law, level of skills, and readiness for law practice.</p>
<p>Finally, although we met the US News deadline of October for reporting our total finances per student, that deadline came just BEFORE we actually received a generous and crucial $2 million appropriation in recurring State funds from the North Carolina General Assembly – new funds that are already having a major, positive impact on student and faculty programs.</p>
<p>North Carolina’s state motto, as many of you know, is Esse Quam Videre, to be rather than to seem. We know in our hearts and we experience every day how outstanding and perfectly wonderful this venerable public university law school is. (That’s precisely what the ABA site inspection team assured us after their four-day visit in February). We’d very much hope in the future not only to be outstanding (as we are), but also to SEEM so to everyone who glances in our direction. Regrettably, US News has still not fully captured either our present worth or our future trajectory. We will work hard to assure that our ‘being’ and our ‘seeming’ will soon coincide. Best wishes to all.</p>
<p>Jack Boger</p>
<p>John Charles Boger
Dean and Wade Edwards Distinguished Professor of Law
School of Law, CB# 3380, University of North Carolina