Yale remains No. 1 in US News law school rankings; some schools suffer because of new methodology
Yale University’s Sterling Law Building. Image from Shutterstock.
Yale kept its No. 1 spot in law school rankings released on Tuesday by U.S. News & World Report.
Here are the 10 law schools with the highest rankings:
1) Yale University
2) Harvard University
2) Stanford University (up one spot from last year’s rankings)
4) Columbia University
4) University of Chicago
6) New York University
7) University of Pennsylvania
8) Duke University (up two spots from last year)
8) University of California–Berkeley (up one spot from last year)
8) University of Virginia
Making its debut in the U.S. News law school rankings this year was the University of California at Irvine, which claimed the No. 30 spot, the Orange County Register reports.
Above the Law noted law schools with big drops in position. They include Seattle (ranked No. 113, down 26 spots), Hamline (ranked No. 145, down 24 spots), Missouri-Kansas City (ranked No. 127, down 23 spots), Lewis & Clark (ranked No. 94, down 22 spots), and Louisiana State (also ranked No. 94, down 22 spots).
Seattle University law dean Annette Clark told the National Law Journal the drop is due to its employment statistics. She said the school has “taken important, proactive steps, including significantly downsizing our enrollment and strengthening our Center for Professional Development, to help our graduates find employment in what continues to be a challenging legal job market.”
Law schools with big upticks in position include St. John’s (ranked No. 82, up 25 spots), Howard (ranked No. 110, up 25 spots), Wyoming (ranked No. 108, up 21 spots), Tennessee-Knoxville (ranked No. 52, up 20 spots) and Syracuse (ranked No. 87, up 20 spots). St. John’s and Howard both benefited from improved employment numbers, the National Law Journal reports.
U.S. News ranks law schools based on a variety of factors, including assessments by law deans, lawyers and judges; LSAT scores and undergraduate grade point averages; placement success; and faculty resources. Full weight was given for jobs for which a JD was required or an advantage, U.S. News explains here.
U.S. News changed its methodology this year to give schools less credit for hiring their own graduates, U.S. News reported here. School funded jobs were given less weight even if they were positions requiring bar passage, the Wall Street Journal Law Blog says.
One of the law schools that suffered because of hiring its own graduates was the College of William & Mary, the Law Blog says. It is ranked No. 29, a drop of five spots. The school employs 22.1 percent of its law graduates; among graduates in full-time, long-term jobs for which a JD was required or an advantage, 26.4 were employed by the school.
Other schools employing the highest proportion of law graduates among those with full-time, long-term jobs for which a JD was required or an advantage were Emory University (22.7 percent), American University (17.6 percent), University of Virginia (16.7 percent) and George Washington University (16.5 percent).
George Washington University was the only law school to drop out of the top 20 this year, the National Law Journal says. It is ranked No. 22, down from No. 20 last year.
