BYU law school gets raves

PROVO — The University of Utah's law and business schools and Brigham Young University's law school earned positive reviews from students in two new guides available today from the Princeton Review.

The Princeton Review is well-known for naming BYU the nation's most "stone-cold sober" school for six straight years and publishing other rankings about undergraduate schools, including the 10 biggest party schools.

This is the first time the publishers have ranked graduate schools using student surveys since 2000, senior editor Erik Olson said.

BYU made three top-10 lists in "Best 117 Law Schools." The U. is ranked twice, once in the law school guide and once in "Best 143 Business Schools."

There is little surprise about BYU's third-place ranking among schools where "students lean to the right" politically, but the Princeton Review's algorithms — based on a mixture of survey results and statistics provided by institutions — also revealed that students at the J. Reuben Clark Law School are highly competitive with each other.

Olson said the category "most competitive law students" was ranked based on student responses on how much they study and how little they sleep. BYU students reported studying an average of 5.46 hours a day. Harvard students, in contrast, study 3.63 hours a day.

"I definitely feel a competitiveness, but I don't think it's hostile," said third-year law student Heidi Alder, who is from Farmington. "If my neighbor is going to stick around for the weekend and work on a brief, I feel guilty, but nobody is hiding books or tearing pages from books, the horror stories I hear at other schools."

Alder said the competition is natural as students wrestle over jobs at law firms and for law-clerk positions.

"Some of those Ivy League schools don't rank students," she said. "It's pass-fail, and they are so prestigious it doesn't matter. Here, rank is really important. If you're not in the top 10 or 20 percent, you can't compete for the same jobs."

Olson said BYU ranked No. 4 for best overall academic experience because of its admissions data and student reports about access to professors, research resources, quality of teaching and the balance of legal theory and practical lawyering tools.

First-year law school dean Kevin Worthen said students tell him they work well together and was pleased they gave the school high marks for academics.

"It's gratifying to know the students are working hard and they perceive they are getting a good education," Worthen said.