Law School Rankings and Beneficial Ownership

On this Blog, we enjoy examining assorted issues and developments in signficant detail, often examining the primary materials filed in a case.  Beginning on Monday, we will run two parallel series.  In the morning, each day, the 6:15 am post will be devoted to the materials filed before the Second Circuit in the CSX case.  That case involves the issue of whether a hedge fund can be treated as the beneficial owner of shares held by a counterparty to an equity swap.  Among the material examined in the series are the merit briefs and a number of amicus, including one filed by an assortment of former commissioners from the SEC.

Each day next week, the 11:00 am post will be devoted to proposed changes by US News to the formula for ranking law schools.  US News is talking about ranking law schools based upon a median LSAT and GPA from all students rather than the current system of ranking based on the medians of full time students.  The practical effect of the change will be to force all schools with night divisions to include the night students in the rankings.  Currently about 90 law schools have part time divisions and for all of them the part time division has a lower median LSAT score than for the full time division.  (Median here was imperfectly calculated by averaging the 25th/75th percential lsat).  This suggests that if all other things remain the same, schools with night divisions will take a hit in the rankings.  We will look at this issue and the probable impact on law schools during the week.

Enjoy!