We seriously need an unbiased authority like LI to do a placement ranking or "graduate outcomes" ranking, since certain law schools are cheating at NIRF. If done well the ranking can be a gold standard followed by everyone in India. The ranking can also be submitted to NIRF, which has introduced an open complaints and feedback system. Below is a suggested points system. Would request Kian for feedback on whether the is feasible.

LAW FIRMS;
1. TC: 6 points
2. Big 7: 4 points
3. Tier 2 law firm: 2.5 points
4. Tier 3 law firm: 1.5 points
5. Any other law firm: 1 point

COUNSEL CHAMBERS:
1. Supreme Court chamber in Delhi: 4 points
2. High Court chamber in 4 cities with Original jurisdiction HCs + Bengaluru + Hyderabad + Chandigarh: 2.5 points
3. High Court chamber in any other city: 2 points
4. District court chamber: 1 point

COMPANIES:
1. Fortune 500 or Big 4 consulting: 4 points
2. Fortune 1000 or Fortune India 500: 3 points
3. Any other company or startup: 2 points

NGO/Think Tank:
1. UN agency (excluding internships): 4 points
2. Any other NGO or think tank: 2.5 points

ACADEMICS:
1. Rhodes, Chevening, Cambridge Gates, Fulbright scholarships: 6 points
2. DAAD, Erasmus Mundus scholarships, or any 100% scholarship in a QS/Times top 25 law school abroad: 5.5 points
3. Any 100% scholarship in QS/Times top 50 law school abroad, or 50% scholarship in QS/Times top 25 law school abroad: 4.5 points
4. Any 100% scholarship in QS/Times top 100 law school abroad, or 50% scholarship in QS/Times top 50 law school abroad:: 4 points
5. Any 100% scholarship in QS/Times top 200 law school abroad, or 50% scholarship in QS/Times top 100 law school abroad: 3.5 points
6. Any 100% scholarship anywhere else (including India): 3 points
7. Any 50% scholarship anywhere else (including India): 2 points
8. Any other LLM programme, with or without scholarship: 1 point

JUDICIAL/UPSC PREPARATION:
1. No points can be give, but a not should be made of successful candidates in the past 5 years.

Thanks for the suggestion and exhaustive and well-considered methodology.

In some ways it's similar in principle to our 'recruitment power ranking' from a few years ago: https://www.legallyindia.com/lawschools/law-schools-recruitment-power-rankings-2013-14-20141031-5253

One issue with it is that we have not received very many of the 2020 recruitment results. We have requested some more but getting numbers accounting for the entire batch is hard. On that note, should the metric also account for batch size like it did previously (multiplying the percentage who got jobs in a batch by the average score). On the one hand, it seems fair. On the other hand, many colleges or RCCs don't seem to track the entire batch very effectively and smaller batches have an advantage there.

We have requested several more recruitment figures from several NLUs, so all thoughts on the above would be welcome.

Kian, I think if you start an official ranking all RCCs will collaborate and submit the full data. All students have a vested interested in giving their status so that their college scores more points. Also, if you name the RCCs which did not submit data, it will set off a panic that the concerned college had placements, so that is a kind of warning for everyone to participate.

But one problem with the able points system is batch size. Maybe the answer is the following:

1. Seek only placements for the top 50 rankers of each law school (in fact, this will encourage all NLUs to participate), as the top 50 will usually not be jobless.

2. Divide the total points in each segment by batch size.

Rankings are meaningless. I speak as someone whose alma would 'top' most rankings at this stage in India. They just create bad blood and encourages trolling. If providing info to the stakeholders is the real objective, just release individual stats of each university, and let people figure out for themselves what they want.

At a time of a deadly pandemic, LI and it's readers want to devise a champions league for how many recruitments colleges secure. I have come to expect nothing better from this website. Instead of amplifying calls for resources on its Twitter page and using its reach, LI chooses to respond to this ridiculous suggestion. You've lost a subscriber today Kian. Cheers.

Thanks for your feedback, we are sorry you feel that way. End of the day, as tragic and horrifying as the pandemic is, it can be valuable to remember that things will not be as bad as they currently are, forever. In light of that, if LI in a very limited way can provide some distraction or entertainment from those daily horrors everpresent on television and computer screens everywhere by discussing some admittedly less life-and-death issues, then that can also be an important reminder that life will indeed have to go on, however banal and trite that may seem right now in the circumstances.

Regarding amplifying things on Twitter, LI is not particularly active on Twitter but we are told that 99% of Indian Twitter these days is sadly full of calls for resources and offers of help and lists of places to procure Oxygen from etc, so there we are not sure how we could help with our somewhat limited reach, which mostly goes out to fairly privileged English-speaking lawyers who already have access to many better and more bespoke online networks and resources about how to deal with the pandemic than LI.

All the best, please stay safe and healthy,
LI

If we get enough data for a significant number of NLUs (especially those participating in NIRF), yes possibly. Though a ranking of recruitments may also discourage some to participate or share full figures, and the numbers may also be informative enough by themselves to require a full ranking.

End of the day, it probably doesn't really matter to applicants whether one of the (usually) older NLUs got 20 Tier 1 law firm jobs or 30. The bigger issue for applicants which deserves highlighting and transparency (but doesn't necessarily need a ranking) is that there aren't enough of those popular Tier 1 or even tier 2, 3 or 4 (or whatever) law firm jobs available to even a fraction of graduates.

A qualitative ranking is more helpful than a quantitative ranking. For example, it seems certain law schools are scooping up law firm jobs, but that's because NLSIU and NALSAR are declining such jobs in favour of social lawyering, startups, think tanks, academics and court litigation . In fact, the majority of students at NLSIU and NALSAR do not want to work as mechanical clerks in jobs with low creative thinking skills. Thus, I would suggest that law firm points are capped till a certain point, after which a qualitative metric is used to give points for socially relevant jobs.

Downvotes coming from people who studied in a tennis court sized college in 1970s,80s and are jealous of NLU kids with better campus and opportunities or people who got a 5-digit rank in CLAT. Others would just let NLU's compete and produce placement rankings for aspirants who actually clear CLAT and will be studying to get a job. Why does everyone except people from NLUs get pissed when someone mentions NLUs?

If that assumption feeds your insecurity complex, then so be it. I have graduated years back, and my life does not really revolve around which ranking list my alma mater tops or does not. It is sad to know that yours does, though. I personally do not consider the place that I graduated from to be 'superior' to any other institution.

A placement ranking should be combined with perception score of the college, otherwise it will mislead law aspirants. For example, it means nothing to say that Harvard Law School got 8 White & Case hires while Florida University got 12 White & Case hires without understanding the broader context and the goodwill that Harvard enjoys. How many Supreme Court judges or former Presidents has Florida University produced? LI must understand this. Remember also that many top NLU grads drop out of placements to study for UPSC and certain NLUs have a brilliant success record. A placement ranking will not factor that in, which is why perceptions score is so important.

I would suggest 75% weightage to placement score and 25% weightage to perception score.

Those are two different things. There is absolutely no reason why perception and placement ought to be mixed. Of course, both are important parameters, and should feature in overall evaluation of any university. However, to call something placement ranking and then add a vague 'perception parameter' weightage to it makes no sense. Not that I am in favour of any such ranking. If you want people to know how many law firm jobs, how many LLM scholarships, how many successful UPSC/judiciary candidates, how many litigators a university is producing, it is more than enough to just present all that data in a structured form for every university. Saying that a law firm placement should be considered better over a judiciary selection, or vice versa for the matter, is ridiculous. It is a very personal choice. Those who try to force their own opinion on others about which career choice is 'better'/'worse'/'more prestigious' than others lack in the real values that education is supposed to add. I may think that a person who is working with an NGO on a grassroot level in one of the rural districts, but receives no media coverage or headlines about their work, is doing much more for the society than the partner of a magic circle firm. You might consider the opposite. Who is to say that either of us is wrong?

have rankings on different components and then let the users decide how to do the factorial analysis. so for example there can be scores for employment, moots, infra, faculty, research etc. then the user will decide how much they want to give importance to each of the variables. So, a particular person may give 50% imp to employment and 50% to faculty ignoring the rest of the factors, while another may give equal importance to all factors. Then the ranking will be dynamic based on the choices made by the user.

I think moot ranking is important too, as pi suggests. However, a faculty ranking is tricky. For example, in 2015 Bar & Bench attempted such a ranking and ended up ranking CNLU Patna as #1, by giving lots of points to PhD holders irrespective of the quality of the PhD awarding college!!! Instead, a RESEARCH AND PUBLICATIONS ranking can be more objective, by counting publications in reputed journals and books by reputed publishers.

https://www.barandbench.com/columns/law-school-insights-faculty-special-who-has-best-faculty

An infra ranking is also helpful. Points can be given for access to online resources, AC classrooms, number of people sharing a hostel room, health facilities and presence of a tennis court and football field.

The US website Above the Law does a law school ranking with a focus on placements. Their motto is: "Most people attend law school to obtain jobs as lawyers."

Their ranking is very different to QS/US News Their top 10 is: Duke>Chicago>Virginia>UMich>UPenn>Stanford>Yale>Harvard>Cornell>Northwestern

If LI does a placement ranking, I wonder if it will contradict NIRF.

https://abovethelaw.com/law-school-rankings/top-law-schools-2020/

Kian, my suggestions are as follows:

1. As you tied up with HSF for MPL, it will be good to tie up with a trusted brand for the rankings, such as a law firm, audit agency, newspaper or legal publishing house. Another option is coaching centre, since you will get a lot of traffic from law aspirants. However, coaching centres are known to be corrupt and may try to influence the rankings.

2. Any points system must be adjusted for batch size, especially for JGLS.

3. Please also give points for non-LLM masters, e.g. an MBA, MA in policy etc.