The Coming Ranking of Canadian Law Schools

Later this week, Maclean's in Canada will release its first ever ranking of Canadian law schools.  The magazine retained me to design a ranking system, one that avoids the numerous pitfalls of U.S. News.  The result is a ranking system that can not be gamed, that does not depend on self-reported data, and is not an indecipherable stew of a dozen different ingredients.  It is also a system that puts academic excellence and professional achievements front and center; nonsense criteria like expenditures on utilties and secretaries plays no role at all.  Half the criteria pertain to faculty quality; the other half to the professional success of graduates of the law schools.  (I am sure the extensive data on private sector employment will be of tremendous interest to prospecive students, in particular.)  We will be quite interested in feedback, and with more time to prepare next year, I expect some additional data to be brought to bear in both categories.