US News rankings are biased in ways that hurt the U. Miami Law; here's one I would guess is biased in our favor: 2010 Super Lawyers U.S. Law School Rankings by Super Lawyers magazine. They say we are #20 in the country. Would it were so.
I suggest you split the difference between the 71st ranking at USN and this one (71+20)/2 = 45.5. That's probably closer to the truth than either of the other two numbers.
This ranking appears unfair to smaller law schools that don’t graduate nearly as many people as schools like UM.
I understand you’re skeptical about rankings, and you’re certainly not alone. Which makes me question why you think that averaging the two rankings produces a more accurate number. You suggested doing the same with the LawDragon rankings a year or two back. If a third were to emerge ranking UM lower than U.S. News, would you still suggest averaging the rankings? My guess is no.
I think USN is biased against big schools. I think Super Lawyers unduly favors big schools. If one were looking for a logical reason to average, that would be it.
In fact, though, I’d say my suggestion now, and to the extent I recall it then also, was based more on a personal subjective sense of what the ‘true’ ranking of the school today is given that we are currently understaffed — something in the 50-55-60 range — than anything else. I hope that I might revise that number up a bit in a few years, once we’ve hired our new 15 or so additional faculty. I’d like to be able to say some day soon that we should fairly be counted in the top 50 or even top 40, but I honestly don’t think we’re going to be ‘top 20’ any time in the next decade, or more. The very top schools are just that much richer than we are, and unless someone drops a phenomenal amount of money on us, or the economy does something very weird, I don’t think we are going to be there during my career.