Happiest Law Students on Earth

From: The National Jurist, April/May 1996.

By Shanie Latham

It takes more than prestige and big-name professors to provide a good legal education. And although they're seldom asked, students have plenty to say about how a law school can rise above the crowd.

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Law school rankings often grate on legal educators, who condemn them for failing to look at a school as a whole. And most organizations that publish such lists fail to consider one important factor-- how students feel about their schools.

With that question in mind, The National Jurist has compiled it second biannual rating of best law schools based on student satisfaction. The information is derived from Princeton Review surveys of more than 28,000 law students at 170 schools during the last two years.

The survey data is used to formulate scores in three categories-- faculty, facilities and quality of life --that are added together to achieve an overall score for each school.

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Washburn University School of Law in Topeka, Kan., has been in its newly renovated and expanded building for almost five years, and students are very pleased in their new surroundings. So pleased, in fact, that Washburn took first place in the facilities category.

But it takes more than just a building to keep a student body among the five most satisfied in the country for two years running. Schools like No. 2 Washburn and No. 1 Washington and Lee also have outstanding faculties, administrators and deans, students say.

Responsive Faculty

"I think that the faculty here is quite diverse, so you're exposed to a lot of different viewpoints, a lot of different perspectives, which is nice." said Tris Felix, a third year at Washburn, which occupied the top spot in the faculty category as well.

"They are very responsive to the students," he said. "As a result, the students have a lot of confidence in them."

Good professors can do more than impart valuable knowledge in the classroom-- they can teach lessons by example as well.

"There's a camaraderie with the faculty members amongst themselves, and there's a camaraderie between the faculty and the students," said Washburn's Felix.

Washburn's dean, James Concannon, agrees that having faculty members who work together displays a good model for students at his school.

About once a year, more than a dozen Washburn professors team teach eight-week colloquia on topics that have ranged from professionalism to the North American Free Trade Agreement to race studies, Concannon said.

"The faculty really works as a team [and] students see the positive benefits of everybody working in the common interest," he said.

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[Article includes a photograph labeled: James Concannon, dean of second-ranked Washburn University School of Law, meets with students who won a regional American Bar Association award.]