As a long-ago graduate of Columbia Law School, I was pleased to read in the New York Law Journal that along with NYU, it is in the top 10 in the US News and World Report's rankings of the nation's law schools. Kudos to those schools on their achievements.

It is also significant that CUNY Law School ranked third in the nation for its clinical programs. CUNY is committed to experiential learning as a prominent part of its pedagogical mission, yet its bar passage rate on the most recent test was 86.8%, which was above the statewide average.

As a public law school with a diverse student body and quite low tuition, it also consistently turns out amazing public interest lawyers, living up to its motto of “Law in the Service of Human Needs.” We should be sure to celebrate its achievements as well as those of the more elite institutions in the city.