Do not fall into the trap of believing that the bar exam is the “great equalizer”, and thus that passing the bar exam means you are as qualified as any other individual who took the bar with you. Passing the bar exam is not considered by legal employers as anything other than a hurdle to be jumped. (And jumped smoothly.) It is not a measure of expertise by law firms, who in any event assume you are absolutely incompetent to represent their clients right out of law school. Firms will not let you anywhere near their clients right out of the gates, but will instead put you through your paces, testing you and training you, before they are satisfied that you’re even ready to begin.

Passing the bar exam will not allow a graduate of a low-ranked school to compete side-by-side with graduates of top-ranked law schools. Yes, you’re taking the exam in the same room, possibly at the same table, but you’re not equal. You may be equal before the law in passing the exam, but in no other way is this true. A degree from a top-ranked school will always be a more attractive qualification to employers than a degree from a low-ranked law school. The importance of this point cannot be overstated. Law schools, well-meaning parents and relatives, and those who don’t know any better will claim that it doesn’t matter which law school you attend because everyone takes the same bar exam at the end of the day. Dangerous advice, even if, on the surface, it’s grounded in common sense. In the world of legal education, common sense is often both deceptive and rare.

The most useless—yet arguably most useful—statistic collected by U.S. News is that relating to “peer reputation.” This refers to the reputations of the law schools in the eyes of lawyers and judges. These are useless because they assume that law professors, prominent lawyers, and judges have knowledge of each and every law school and are qualified to provide meaningful opinions on the subject. This is, of course, absurd. In reality no one can keep tabs on two hundred law schools, and no one except law professors cares. And even if the bulk of lawyers and judges did have time and did care, how could they possible assess the actual quality—the substance behind a reputation—for each of those 200 schools? Despite the pictures we see on TV, lawyers and judges are extremely busy. They have pressing caseloads, and don’t spend time thinking about law schools at all, much less how a distant law school compares to another distant law school—neither of which has any relevance to their office or colleagues or lives. But they do know that the top-ranked schools are the top-ranked schools, and like everyone they rely on brand image. These schools are name-brand schools that everyone instantly recognizes as such. Everyone “knows” that Harvard is very, very, very good—even if that “everyone” went to Stanford. They have no idea what standard of student the West Bohemia J.G. Thompson School of Law admits or churns out, or if it even exists. So that one’s easy: it’s a “low-ranked” law school. It doesn’t count. And there are ever so many law schools that are equally forgettable.

In one sense, peer ratings and “reputation” are not much more than a popularity contest, or a game of “have I ever heard of this law school?” Obviously, the name-brand universities—Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and friends—forever receive impressive reputation rankings from everyone; no one (not even someone from Yale) thinks that Harvard has a weak law school. Powerful, famous universities that one assumes would have a wonderful law school are given high-reputation rankings even if their law schools are mediocre or (no kidding) non-existent. Many assume that a top university must have a great law school when in fact there is no such program. The famous example is of Princeton University, sans law school and about which one dean once quipped, “If asked about Princeton Law School, it would appear on the top 20—but it doesn't exist.” This is the power of “reputation.”

Conversely, unknown local law schools suffer from low recognition—really, no recognition—despite having strong programs. Importantly, powerful lawyers, judges, and legislators tend to be graduates from of name-brand, top-ranked schools or, at the very least, established law schools. There is a certain amount (i.e., a lot) of alma mater favoritism, so the older and more recognized the alma mater, the more institutional momentum that school’s reputation is bound to have. Do not discount the importance of this.

In a second sense, these reputational scores are invaluable. These “What do other people think of my law school?” stats, despite their fragile statistical underpinnings, tell us something useful: They tell us whether the hiring partner or judge will hire you. More precisely, they tell us whether the hiring partner or judge is likely to even consider hiring you. Getting invited to an interview is only a first step, of course, but it’s a first step that not everyone gets. Nowadays, it’s a first step that few get.

Notice what’s missing: a consideration of whether you’re actually going to be a good lawyer. That is, in this second sense, irrelevant. Lawyers and judges are people. And they are busy people with better things to do than fret over how perceptive they’re being to the substantive qualities of Graduate X. So, instead, they will go with what they know. And what they know is a proxy. That proxy we call reputation: Harvard; Yale; their own alma mater; and a handful of others that pass the “everyone knows” reputation test. (It’s not unlikely that either Harvard or Yale is in fact their alma mater, in which case that reputational circle just got tighter.)

If you attend a law school with low peer-recognition, you can safely assume that the important people in the legal industry don’t much know about your law degree, and don’t care. You can safely conclude that they will not consider you, and thus will not hire you. Even if on some cosmic scale your JD from a low-ranked law school is the exact same quality as a JD from Yale (which it isn’t, but let’s pretend for a moment that it is), the fact that no one has heard of your school means that you are at an automatic disadvantage when it comes to competing for jobs. Even this is too polite: “automatic disadvantage” really means “you are not getting past the first glance.” In a perfect world, the employer would research your legal education, see that your degree is of an equal quality to that of the Yale grad, and consider you to be equal to the Yale grad. In the real world, the person whose résumé includes the words “Yale” with “Law School” will rise to the top of the pile, while the one that lists “Southeastern Nebraska College of Law”—is there such a law school, and do you even care?—will end up at the bottom of the pile, and from there to the shredder bin. It is simply safer to hire a known quantity than take a risk and hire someone whose law school name cannot automatically vouch for that person’s legal skills and intelligence. It doesn’t matter that it’s not cosmically right. It is.

This illustrates an important reason why rankings are relevant to you, as a law school applicant. They should not be used for trying to determine whether a particular law school has a great curriculum, or whether a particular law school would be a good fit for your personality and preferences. The rankings should be viewed from the standpoint of the employer, not from the standpoint of a law school student. Employers will use the rankings as a quick and dirty means—as the means—of ensuring that they hire smart, motivated, presentable, and well-credentialed new lawyers. Among other factors, recruiting is extremely expensive. Employers will recruit from a tiny group of top-ranked schools appropriate to their circle, and that’s it.