I perfectly get your point.
And they can do that. It’s their Uni, they decide.
But they just shouldn’t claim to have an admissions sustém based on academic merit if that’s how admissions unfold. If you’re gonna cut some slack for applicants because they didn’t go into top law schools, that’s alright, just not meritocratic.
What bothers me is the lying. The falsehood about the selection criteria. The lack of intellectual honesty on their website and the whole pretending to be serious and decent act they play.
I suggest that your view of 'merit' is rather narrow if you define 'merit' as 'going to a top law school'.
I go to Cambridge. I've met Cambridge (and Oxford) students who wouldn't be able to reason their way out of a paper bag even if their life depended on it. Likewise, I've met and interacted with many students from many other universities around the world — some of which I daresay are quite a bit less 'prestigious', if you will — who are amazingly competent and would absolutely put me to shame.
Going to a 'top university' isn't everything, and viewing someone's application more favourably on the basis that they went to a top university (or vice versa, as you propose) sure as hell isn't meritocratic either.