Is there a better or more concise way to do this?
the best javascript is no javascript ;-)

you could use css3 columns, see http://jsfiddle.net/bjelline/JWnaz/ for the result

ul {
-moz-column-count: 2;
-moz-column-gap: 20px;
-webkit-column-count: 2;
-webkit-column-gap: 20px;
column-count: 2;
column-gap: 20px;


}

if you are worried about browser support: there's a polyfill for that
http://www.csscripting.com/css-multi-column/
that falls back to javascript if the browser doesn't honor the css yet.