Another year, another round of the U.S. News Law School Rankings. As Elie notes, schools, professors, and students are likely all scrambling to determine what this year’s changes mean for their schools.

But should they really? U.S. News ranks schools on the same scale all across the country. But this is actually a bad metric as most schools don’t have a national reach. As Kyle McEntee of Law School Transparency noted in a post at Law.com:

Only a handful of schools have a truly national reach in job placement. The rest have a regional, in-state, or even just local reach. The relative positioning of California Western and West Virginia in the rankings is virtually meaningless. Graduates from these schools do not compete with one another… It turns out that 158 schools place at least half of their employed class of 2013 graduates in one state. The top state destination for each school accounts for 67% of employed graduates. A much smaller 8.2% of employed graduates go to a school’s second most popular destination, with just 4.5% of employed graduates working in the third most popular destination. Only 20.4% of employed graduates (16.7% of the entire class) end up in a state other than the top three. Comparing schools across the country just doesn’t make sense.

Outside of the the elite law schools, many of which end up in a tie, the rankings probably don’t actually reflect much useful information about law schools. Furthermore, as Above The Law demonstrated with its own rankings, U.S. News focuses far too much on inputs to law schools, and not where law students end up after law school. People go to law school to get a job, not for intellectual wankery.

With that being said, students are going to law school in some of the lowest numbers in decades. People are getting the hint that maybe law school isn’t exactly the brass ring it used to be. A couple years ago I looked into the patterns of law school enrollment for undergraduates from elite universities. These people likely have the option to attend any graduate school they choose. I recently looked at the new LSAC data to see if top university students were still avoiding law school. The result?

Graduates from top universities don’t need to look at the U.S. News rankings to decide where to go to law school. They’re avoiding law school period. For those that do decide to attend law school, they likely already have their choice of where to go.

But outside of this circle of elite students and law schools, the rankings are likely not very useful. Your average student from an average university is going to attend an average law school. What should matter to that student is:

The cost of the law school,

How well the law school can prepare them for practice,

The extent of the law school’s relationships with alumni and local law firms, and

Their long-term graduate employment statistics.

Outside of that, not much else should really matter.

So if you’re at a top university, congratulations! Look at the U.S. News rankings and pick your school. For everyone else, don’t bother.

Keith Lee practices law at Hamer Law Group, LLC in Birmingham, Alabama. He writes about professional development, the law, the universe, and everything at Associate’s Mind. He is also the author of The Marble and The Sculptor: From Law School To Law Practice (affiliate link), published by the ABA. You can reach him at keith.lee@hamerlawgroup.com or on Twitter at @associatesmind.