as a u of mn law student, i can guarantee you that there is virtually no difference in quality of the graduates.

however, "graduates of these schools are indistinguishable from each other" -- that's not true. around here, any one in the top 25% can get a job a lot of places. out of state, it's "william who? ham-wha?" law firms still buy into rankings, so they do show one's national marketability, rather than the actual school's strength.

They're all blowhards, regardless of tier.

Reputation of the school makes the degree far more portable.

Go gophers, we are the smartest. Killer LSAT! Top job offers! Life is good!!!

Rankings are important. The best students go to the top schools. The graduates of the top schools get the best job offers. To deny these correlations and claim rankings are meaningless is pure stupidity.

stopthepresses & ioannes - bunches of people want to do the help-the-poor, community activism, union organizing, types of law ... but loans are awful. many switch, like me.

i will be getting no job offers (crap grades) and have 120,000 in debt. yay gophers

cue the violins...

There is a huge difference in the starting salaries of these schools' graduates. One has a median salary well into six figures (closing in on $200,000), the others start at around $50,000.

Idiotic? I think not.

Just to clarify, Cohen's point wasn't that graduates of these schools have the same job prospects. It was quite the opposite: that given that (as he asserts) the school isn't a good indication of talent/skill level of the individual, it's unfortunate that firms do make decisions based upon which school a prospective hire attended.