Waddling Thunder has a great follow-up on my post about law school rankings and selecting the right school.

I am forced to clarify my offhand remark about specialty areas. I said yesterday "If you care only about one or two specialty areas of law, the focus should be on the quality of the curriculum and faculty in those areas, not on data like volumes in the library." First, I was more making a sideways jab at U.S. News than advocating selecting a school based on specialty areas. Second, I was attempting to address some concerns that law school related ramblings are too elitist in nature. Obviously, since I do not have the regional perspective, I've done a poor job of it. I shall adhere to my snobby ways in the future so as not to create any confusion!

This sort of concern should really only be used to evaluate two very similar schools. For instance, if you've been admitted to both Harvard and Columbia, you might compare the two on the strengths of their intellectual property curricula and faculty. This comparison, of course, should only occur if, after your evaluation of other relevant criteria, you did indeed decide that Harvard and Columbia were virtually interchangeable.