Despite recent disagreements and a pending lawsuit, a study published by U.S. News and World Report ranked the Penn State Dickinson School of Law as the 90th best law school in the country.
Sam Flanigan, deputy director of data research for the magazine, said this year's increase was because of a higher employment rate of those graduating from the law school.
"Last year, Penn State Dickinson reported 51 percent employment after graduation, and this year the number we received was 70 percent," he said.
Gicine Brignola, assistant dean for career services at the law school, said the ranking increase was also caused by 98 percent of the class of 2004 responding to the U.S. News and World Report survey used to compile the data -- a nine percent jump from the response rate of the class of 2003.
"Last year's graduating class was very strong in terms of its LSAT [Law Scholastic Aptitude Test] scores and bar passage rate," she said. "This was obviously very appealing to employers and led to a six percent increase in job placement from our fall recruitment program."
Law school Dean Philip McConnaughay said this year's ranking marked the first time the school has ranked in the top 100 since the year 2000.
Law school spokeswoman Kelly Jones said in 2000, the magazine numerically ranked only the top 50 schools, with the remainder falling into unnumbered tiers of 50.
She said in 2000, Dickinson was in the second 50-school tier, technically putting it in the top 100 but not giving it a specific ranking, and from 2001 until 2004, the school was ranked in the third 50-school tier.
Flanigan said the decision to eliminate the second tier and give specific rankings to the top 100 schools was made in spring 2003, and the rankings for that year were the first to reflect the change, but Dickinson remained unnumbered.
"We know that people like to see more numbers, so we made the decision to numerically rank the top 100 instead of the top 50," he said.
McConnaughay said the rise in rankings this year was also a culmination of the past several years' events.
"In the past few years, the law school has successfully recruited several internationally prominent professors, the diversity of the student body has nearly tripled and the number of applicants for admission has increased by over 50 percent," McConnaughay said.
He added that in the 2004-2005 academic year, 2,562 students applied for admission -- almost 1,000 more than 2003-2004, and the number is expected to increase next year.
Under a new dual-campus agreement approved Feb. 25 between the law school and Penn State, the university has the option of closing the law school campus in Carlisle after 2015.
G. Thomas Miller, one of three law school Board of Governors members who filed a lawsuit Feb. 3 asking Penn State to disclose its plans for the Carlisle campus, said the ranking shows the strength of the Carlisle school and said its closure could be detrimental to the school's competitive ranking.
"Carlisle offers internships that could potentially hurt the law school's admissions and job placement ratings if the campus is closed," he said.
Brignola said the closure of the Carlisle campus would not have a negative impact on the law school's employment or internship rate since students would be willing to commute.
"We already have students that commute to Washington, D.C., from Carlisle, so commuting to an internship from University Park would not be a big deal," she said.
Miller added that he does not think a pending lawsuit would have a negative impact on next year's ranking.
Early last month, a Cumberland County judge denied the request for a preliminary injunction on Penn State's plans, and a full trial for the suit is set to begin May 18.
