Osgoode Hall Law School

Dean Sossin's Blog

The Unbearable Lightness of Rankings

October 4, 2010

In September 2010, Maclean’s magazine published its fourth annual survey of Canadian law schools. As some of you will know, Maclean’s ranks Canada’s common law and civil law schools according to criteria of its own choosing, which includes selective approaches to“elite firm hiring,” “faculty citations” and “national reach,” among others. Canadian Lawyer, in its last survey in 2008, ranked law schools according to the results of wide-ranging student surveys. For the past number of years, Osgoode has enjoyed relative success in these rankings, regularly finishing as the first, second or third highest-rated common law school in Canada. While I would never pass up an opportunity to bask in the glow of positive news for Osgoode, I bring real ambivalence to rankings, and I want to explain why.

I believe we should be committed to excellence in everything we do, and as part of that commitment, we need to rely on quantitative and qualitative evaluation, benchmarks and both internal and external assessments of our performance. I am deeply skeptical, though, as to what those who conduct surveys tend to value in legal education. The Maclean’s list of criteria does not include, for example, the quality of graduate programs, the number or depth of clinical/experiential learning opportunities, the success or breadth of a school’s mooting and advocacy programs, the diversity of the entering class, or the commitment to innovative pedagogy among faculty, just to scratch the surface of what is left out.

To be sure, there are a wide variety of measures that could define what makes a law school excellent. A law school could be judged on its competitiveness (so that students vote with their feet and the hardest school to get in “wins”) or by the relative impact of our alumni (so that whichever school’s graduates predominate in the leadership of legal, political, social, and economic life “wins”). Any attempt to rank law schools, of course, will be subjective; and my instincts on what distinguishes the best from the rest, at the end of the day, will be no more or less legitimate than someone else’s. The real value of comparative assessment, in my view, is not that it provides a truth about which school is better, but rather that it gauges our aspiration to perform to the highest degree possible in the areas we care most about.

For example, students come to Osgoode not just to receive a stellar legal education but also as a jumping-off point for a diverse array of ambitious career goals. The percentage of Osgoode graduates who secure the best positions in the field of their choice after graduation (whether a dream job with a firm, clinic or government office, a clerkship, an internship overseas, or a spot in a well-funded graduate program), relative to other schools, would be a comparative measure that makes sense to me, because it is an aspiration we care about. It is an outcome which depends not just on the reputation of the school, or the resources a school invests in career development, but also the effectiveness of the school’s mentorship program and alumni network, the quality of the curriculum in preparing students for whatever might come next and the impact of law school debt on career choice. Of course, this is just a single measure and does not speak to many of the other missions of Osgoode, from city-building through community leadership, to reimagining ideas of law through research, scholarship and the alchemy of the classroom. The list could (and should) be a long one, and measurement is not (and should not) be uncomplicated.

While we may never find the perfect mix of categories and criteria to arrive at an optimal ranking, our commitment to pursuing the values we share as a law school community, and our willingness to dedicate ourselves to improve any area in which we do not excel, define Osgoode more than any first, second or third placing ever will.


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  • http://www.noelsemple.ca Noel Semple

    Agreed. To me, the most glaring absence from the Maclean’s ranking methodology (http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/09/16/ranking-canadas-law-schools/) is student and alumni satisfaction. Asking students about their experience with the law school seems like an obvious first step. Asking alumni whether they realized their career aspirations (as Dean Sossin suggests) and about the role their law school played in their career would also make sense. Of course, surveys cost money which Maclean’s probably didn’t care to spend.

    • http://www.changetomorrowsworld.com Fariya Walji

      I particularly like Mr. Semple’s point about talking to students about their experience, and following up with the experience of alumni.

      As a graduate from the University of Toronto, I often noticed how the rankings posted in renown magazines often failed to capture the true undergraduate experience described by the students. This is not to suggest that the University of Toronto failed to provide students with an excellent education, but merely that the examined criteria may not have accurately assessed the learning experience at the University.

      A mark of a strong institution – much like the mark of an excellent teacher – often lies in the progress and the success of the students. That is, resources as only as good as the way they are used, and education is only as strong as the students who have benefited from it. As a student aspiring to attend Osgoode Hall law school, I can attest that rankings are only one aspect in a student’s assessment of a school. In the end, it is the students, faculty and alumni who represent the strength of a school, and that inspire me much more than the ranking in a magazine.

  • http://www.osgoode.yorku.ca/careers Mya Bulwa, Assistant Dean, Recruitment, Admissions & Career Development

    I agree wholeheartedly with Dean Sossin’s critique of the use of rankings as a measure of quality or success of a law school… or anything else for that matter. With respect to the Maclean’s ranking – I take particular issue with the “Elite Firm Hiring” measure, which purports to calculate the number of graduates who are serving as associates at law firms on Lexpert’s list of the largest firms in Canada across all regions. I note, however, that Lexpert’s list includes not only those firms with national reach.. but also includes the largest firm(s) in a single geographical area – and then comes up with a number based on proportional representation based on the law school’s first year class size. This probably explains why UNB – with a class size of 80 and an obvious relationship with the 3 major east coast firms- ranks 2nd in this metric. Osgoode students and graduates have always been recruited by the country’s top legal employers. More importantly, Osgoode’s students are encouraged to pursue careers that will give them professional satisfaction – whether at an “elite firm” or at a legal clinic, government branch, small rural office or international NGO, just to name a few. I take greater pride in our success on this measure than the superficial and artificial measure in the Maclean’s survey. And from the comments posted online in response to the Maclean’s survey (http://oncampus.macleans.ca/education/2010/09/16/ranking-canada%E2%80%99s-law-schools-3/#respond), I think Canadian law students agree.

  • http://twitter.com/ylevitan Y. Levitan – Class of 2010

    Very thoughtful post. A refreshing perspective on the rankings compared to how the school has treated them in previous years. This makes me excited to see where Dean Sossin leads Osgoode in the years to come!

    When speaking to an associate dean at the end of my first year, one of the concerns I raised was how the school treated the rankings which were so obviously flawed. I told him how I thought it ironic that a set of rankings that would not hold up in court as strong evidence were given so much credence by the administration. A grade 12 statistics student could point out the myriad of flaws in the rankings (although I recognize no ranking of law schools will ever be perfect).

    I couldn’t care less how much a professor is cited if they give boring lectures that don’t engage me. Some may disagree, but I think the primary role of a professor is to teach. Some of the best professors I had at Osgoode were adjuncts like Stan Benda, Dale Lastman and Howard Black. The best courses I took were those with innovative pedagogy, such as Professor Zemans’ Negotiation course.

    Lastly, as touched upon by Dean Sossin, the most positive experience I had at Osgoode was the international mediation competition I competed in (it was similar to a moot). I gained more practical experience preparing for and competing in that competition than I did in any course.

  • http:.//omarha-redeye.com Omar Ha-Redeye

    I’m honoured to be the first to welcome you to the blogging legal community.

  • http://slaw.ca Simon Fodden

    Welcome to the blogosphere, Lorne.

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