UMKC Law School earns spot on Top 100 list

Daily Record and the Kansas City Daily News-Press, Apr 5, 2004 by Staff Writer

When the Interim Dean of the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, heard the school had jumped the 4th tier to the Top 100 list of U.S. News & World Report, he ran out to find a copy of the magazine.

Unfortunately, he couldn't find a copy, but that didn't change the importance of the ranking.

If you are ranked high, students will come, Interim Dean Jeffrey Berman said.

In the report, issued last week, UMKC tied for the 99th Top School of Law with Mercer University, Pepperdine University, Seattle University, the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville and the University of New Mexico.

In comparison, Yale University received the number one ranking, the University of Kansas and the University of Missouri-Columbia law schools tied for 63rd while St. Louis University tied for 82nd.

The ranking included an overall score, a peer assessment score, an assessment score by lawyers and judges, the '03 undergrad GPA, the '03 LSAT scores, the '03 acceptance rate, the '03 student to faculty ratio, the percentage of '02 graduates employed at graduation, the percentage of the '02 graduates in nine months of graduation, the school's bar passage rate in jurisdiction and the jurisdiction's overall bar passage rate.

The interesting thing about the ranking is they lag a year behind in reporting the bar exam passage rate, Dean Berman said.

According to the report, the school had a 71.5 percent passage rate. Dean Berman said that number does not include the May bar passage rate which was close to 88 percent.

That number is going to increase and take us higher, he said.

The jump is significant because the magazine rates schools in three categories: Top 100, third tier and fourth tier. The fourth tier is the lowest ranking a school can receive. The school jumped over the third tier and into the Top 100.

Dean Berman attributes the ranking to the school's efforts to try to increase awareness among other law school deans.

We've made a special effort to communicate our strengths more, he said.

Part of that effort included publishing a bi-yearly promotional magazine called Resipsa that is mailed to all alumni and deans of other law schools. The magazine highlights the law school's achievements, advancements and features articles about the staff's commitment to the school.

People are hearing about us, Dean Berman said. The fact that our alumni are being listed as superb by their peers helps,he added referring to five UMKC School of Law Graduates being honored as Legal Leaders by The Daily Record, as well as other top honors from publications and bar associations.

We're letting people know more about our school, he said.

While the ranking is relatively low within the Top 100, Dean Berman said the school is doing the best it can do with the money it has.

In order to get a higher rating, we're going to need a higher budget, he said.

That may not be realistic considering the state's budget, but Dean Berman said the school made the jump in ranking without any additional funds.

Although we can debate whether a high or low U.S. News & World Report ranking means anything in terms of a true assessment of quality, since we have always been a high quality school on every dimension, especially the quality of our student body, it's good to be on top this time, Dean Berman wrote in an e-mail sent out to alumni and media.