Keep rankings in proper perspective
Paul Mattingly
Law School class of '75
I would like to offer a few thoughts in response to the letter from Benjamin Jilek about Notre Dame Law School printed in the April 10 edition of The Observer.
Anyone with an interest in the Law School is disappointed in the recent downward trend in the U.S. News & World Report rating. It is obviously better to be ascending than descending in a ranking widely acknowledged as a statement of quality and prestige. However, is it time to strap on a parachute and head for the door? Hardly. A little dose of perspective is in order.
Notre Dame Law School has been graduating lawyers for over 100 years. It is people, not statistical rankings, who graduate from Notre Dame and enter into the practice of law. Notre Dame graduates have spoken volumes about the quality of the Law School through their service and careers.
I need look only at my own 1975 graduating class for support of the proposition. I am certain that our long term career stories can be repeated by class after class. In our first year, we barely set foot in the Law School building. It was undergoing its first major renovation, so all 120 of us made do learning torts and contracts in the Winingar Kirsch biology building (now called Haggar Hall I believe), literally amid the gas jets, sinks and marble of defunct chemistry labs.
The library and its contents were practically inaccessible across campus, scattered everywhere and covered in layers of dust and plastic. Thought processes there were always drowned by the sounds of jackhammers. It was a mess.
When a third of the class went to London for our second year, it was to one-room basement quarters where for several weeks the lights went out regularly due to power shortages prompted by a British coal miners' strike. Such conditions would not be tolerated by any ABA accreditation group today. In those days, Notre Dame Law School was certainly not highly rated by anything then comparable to the U.S. News survey. Thankfully, things have changed considerably.
I appreciate that to current students my long ago experience might sound like a verse from Weird Al Yankovich's song "When I was Your Age" — walking to school without shoes on broken glass and all that. But what happened to those of us who had to endure such "terrible" conditions at an "unranked" school without the "amenities" to which Mr. Jilek refers?
Ann Claire Williams is a member of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Willie Lipscomb is on the bench in Detroit and is nationally known for his weapons reduction program among inner city youth. Andy Napolitano hosts a nationally syndicated television show on Fox.
We sent lawyers to the most prestigious New York and Chicago firms. We sent lawyers to lifetime public service, to business, to law firms big and small in locations around the world where they are eminently successful today. Space prevents listing them all.
As the person in my 225 attorney firm who for years headed our hiring effort and as the one currently responsible for evaluating career progress for well over 100 associates, I can speak with absolute certainty on one point: While graduation from a "top school" influences initial choices and opportunities, career success is measured by traditional standards of basic intelligence, creativity, work ethic, integrity, interpersonal skills, excellence and many of the other tenets emphasized as Notre Dame educates a "different kind of lawyer."
Few care five years after graduation where you went to law school or how that law school fared in the U.S. News rankings. Everyone who depends on you cares whether you possess those skills and attributes necessary to deliver an outstanding and superlative quality performance in whatever practice or endeavor you elect to pursue. This is far more important than any rating.
The Law School and its administration must obviously continue their tireless efforts to retain and protect the advantages that Notre Dame's drive toward the top over so many years has provided. I do not denigrate Mr. Jilek's concerns.
But while his point may be well taken, I reject the veiled cynicism and lack of perspective I perceive in his letter. Notre Dame Law School is not in a deep downward spiral or going to the dogs. Let us accept the premise that the rankings are vitally important criteria which deserve careful attention and that identifiable problems like poor employment rates need to be solved. However, let us also put the rankings in context and keep the larger picture in mind.
Paul Mattingly
Law School class of '75
Cincinnati, Ohio
April 20, 2001
All Viewpoint Stories for Wednesday, April 25, 2001
