Following up on last week's post, ABA Issues Report on U.S. News Law School Rankings: Robert Morse, Director of Data Research, U.S. News Responds to the ABA's Take on Law School Rankings:

It's clear that the U.S. News law school rankings have a large impact on law schools and prospective law school students. The ABA implies that the U.S. News rankings are behind rapidly rising tuitions at law schools, why law schools are offering more merit-based aid and less need-based aid, and why some law schools aren't enrolling enough at-risk law students with far lower LSAT scores compared to the school's typical LSAT score.

But there are other key factors behind these trends. It also must be pointed out that the ABA does not cite real evidence behind these often-repeated claims of the degree to which U.S. News exerts power over law school behavior. In other words, it's very easy for the ABA and law school academics to blame U.S. News for many of the negative practices at law schools. Law schools and the ABA need to take far more direct responsibility for these trends.

Concerning law school tuition costs, for example, there's basic economics of demand being greater than supply, which is one key reason why law schools can keep raising their tuition. The number of prospective students taking the LSAT test is still at record levels. Many law schools are still receiving very large numbers of applications despite the poor state of the legal job market. This all means that there is still a near record demand for legal education and not enough capacity at the top schools.