Once
upon
a
time,
asking
how
many
schools
were
in
the
T14
landed
the
same
as
asking
for
the
number
to
911.
But
once
strict
textualism
died
and
U.S.
News
ranked
17
schools
in
the
top
14,
it
became
harder
to
not
ask
yourself
if
utility
or
inertia
was
the
thing
keeping
the
term
afloat.
As
the
number
discrepancy
suggests,
the
who
of
the
T14
started
changing
too.
There
may
have
been
some
occasional
re-orderings,
but
you
could
count
on
Yale
being
your
dream
school’s
dream
school,
Harvard
and
Stanford
forming
the
prestige
triumvirate,
all
while
Georgetown
and
UT
fought
over
last
place.
Now,
with
Yale
knocked
out
of
the
top
spot
and
new
names
like
Vanderbilt
and
Wash
U.
being
relevant
players,
the
title
is
going
through
a
signification
crisis
that
it
probably
won’t
weather.
Reuters
has
coverage:
“It’s
not
reflective
of
anything
anymore.
It’s
not
a
remotely
coherent
grouping,”
said
Duke
law
professor
Stuart
Benjamin,
who
analyzed
36
years
of
rankings
data
in
a
post
on
the
Volokh
Conspiracy
blog
that
argued
the
T-14
is
obsolete.
…
Law
school
admissions
consultant
Mike
Spivey,
who
closely
tracks
the
rankings,
said
the
T-14
has
outlived
its
usefulness
as
an
indicator
of
which
law
schools
are
consistently
the
best.
A
system
that
groups
law
schools
into
tiers
would
be
more
useful
for
applicants
than
an
ever-changing
ordinal
ranking,
he
said,
noting
that
U.S.
News’
medical
school
rankings
follow
the
tier
model.Benjamin
said
a
single
term
for
the
most
consistently
high-performing
schools
is
still
valuable
and
suggested
the
“T-11,”
since
11
schools
have
remained
more
stable
at
the
top
of
the
rankings.
There’s
been
a
definite
vibe
shift
in
what
meaning
is
left
in
the
term;
we
gave
our
extended
thoughts
on
its
significance
on
last
week’s
episode
of
Thinking
Like
A
Lawyer.
And
there’s
an
open
question
on
what’s
to
blame
here:
are
schools
actually
jumping
around
in
quality
year
to
year
or
does
this
have
more
to
do
with
the
observer?
UC
Berkeley’s
Erwin
Chemerinsky
commented
that
the
school’s
ranking
results
from
shifts
in
U.S.
News’
formula
rather
than
any
meaningful
change
in
his
school.
That’s
also
what
you’d
expect
to
hear
from
a
school
that
fell
out
of
the
T14
—
I
haven’t
come
across
any
naysaying
from
Stanford
about
stealing
Yale’s
spot.
Stuart
Benjamin
over
at
Volokh
made
the
point
much
better
than
I
did
on
the
podcast
that
the
T14
referent
is
heavily
nostalgia-based
—
he
brought
the
data
to
prove
it!
His
proposed
replacement
for
the
T14
is
to
go
with
the
T10.
Doing
so
would
knock
my
alma
mater
out
of
the
conversation,
but
sacrifices
must
be
made
for
nice
round
numbers.
Even
if
the
data
shows
the
T14
is
dead,
I
wager
we
will
witness
its
undying
for
years
to
come.
Former
members
of
the
T14
wouldn’t
benefit
from
giving
up
the
association
(Georgetown
and
UT
come
to
mind).
Newcomers
like
Wash
U.
and
Vandy
have
no
incentive
to
get
off
the
pot
when
they
just
sat
down.
And
do
you
really
think
that
partner
who
is
reticent
to
open
PDFs
is
going
change
the
mental
school
ranking
schema
they’ve
had
for
four
decades
because
someone
showed
them
a
graph?
The
“T14”
will
go
the
way
of
“Ivy
League.”
Ivy
League
wasn’t
even
a
prestige
designation
at
first
—
it
was
a
cohort
of
old
schools
that
played
sports
together.
You
probably
know
the
canon
Ivy
schools:
Brown,
Columbia,
Cornell,
Dartmouth,
Harvard,
Penn,
Princeton,
and
Yale.
But
there
are
many
claimants
to
the
Ivy
title.
You
have
your
public
Ivies
like
Rutgers
and
William
and
Mary
—
with
Rutgers
being
an
especially
strong
candidate
from
a
historical
perspective.
You
have
your
“Ivy
Plus”
schools
like
Stanford
and
MIT.
There’s
even
a
whole
book
written
about
the
63
“Hidden
Ivies”
you
could
read
if
you
need
a
scholastic
break
from
billing
those
hours.
What
will
be
lost
if
U.S.
News
debuts
next
year’s
T14
list
with
20
members?
As
a
practical
matter,
not
much.
Assuming
the
list
tracks
job
placement
after
graduation,
a
list
of
20
well-placing
schools
means
that
applying
students
have
a
wider
safety
net
of
schools
they
can
apply
to
that
will
let
them
pay
off
their
gargantuan
student
loans.
If
you’re
a
data-driven
prestige
hound,
you
can
stick
to
the
T10
to
stem
the
bleeding
for
a
while
but
let’s
not
kid
ourselves
—
isn’t
this
just
a
legal
take
on
the
New
Ivies
rebranding?
Chemerinsky
is
probably
right
in
that
the
rankings
changing
don’t
have
all
that
much
to
do
with
the
schools
themselves.
The
real
change
is
happening
inward
and
our
internal
models
of
where
these
schools
fall
won’t
change
all
that
much.
Law
School
Ranking
Shakeup
Sparks
Calls
To
Retire
‘T-14’
[Reuters]
Earlier:
End
Of
An
Era:
Yale
Booted
From
No.
1
Spot
In
Historic
U.S.
News
Law
School
Rankings
Shakeup
All
You
Need
To
Know
About
The
2025
U.S.
News
Law
School
Rankings
Chris
Williams
became
a
social
media
manager
and
assistant
editor
for
Above
the
Law
in
June
2021.
Prior
to
joining
the
staff,
he
moonlighted
as
a
minor
Memelord™
in
the
Facebook
group Law
School
Memes
for
Edgy
T14s
.
He
endured
Missouri
long
enough
to
graduate
from
Washington
University
in
St.
Louis
School
of
Law.
He
is
a
former
boat
builder
who
is
learning
to
swim
and
is
interested
in
rhetoric,
Spinozists
and
humor.
Getting
back
in
to
cycling
wouldn’t
hurt
either.
You
can
reach
him
by
email
at
[email protected]
and
by
Tweet/Bluesky
at @WritesForRent.