The Top 100 Law Schools, Based On 5-, 10-, And 15-Year Rolling Average U.S. News Rankings

Bradley A. Areheart (Tennessee), The Top 100 Law Reviews: A Reference Guide Based on Historical USNWR Data:

The best proxy for how other law professors react and respond to publishing in main, or flagship, law reviews is the US News and World Report (USNWR) rankings. This paper utilizes historical USNWR data to rank the top 100 law reviews. The USNWR rankings are important in shaping many – if not most – law professors’ perceptions about the relative strength of a law school (and derivatively, the home law review). This document contains a chart that is sorted by the 10-year rolling average for each school, but it also contains the 5-year and 15-year rolling averages. This paper also describes my methodology and responds to a series of frequently asked questions. The document was last updated in August 2022.

Here are the Top 75 law schools based on their 5-year rolling average overall U.S. News ranking:

Rank	School	5-Year Rank
1	Yale	1.0
2	Stanford	2.0
3	Harvard	3.2
4	Chicago	3.8
5	Columbia	4.4
6	NYU	6.2
7	Penn	6.6
8	Virginia	8.2
9	UC-Berkeley (4.5)	9.2
10	Michigan (4.4)	9.2
11	Duke (4.2)	11.0
11	Northwestern (4.2)	11.0
13	Cornell	13.0
14	Georgetown	14.0
15	UCLA	15.0
16	Texas	16.0
17	Vanderbilt (4.0)	17.0
18	Washington University (3.8)	17.0
19	USC	19.0
20	Boston University	20.0
21	Minnesota	21.0
22	Notre Dame	23.0
23	George Washington	24.0
24	Emory	26.0
25	Arizona State (3.3)	27.0
26	Alabama (3.2)	27.0
27	Iowa (3.4)	28.0
28	Florida (3.3)	28.0
29	UC-Irvine (3.6)	29.0
30	Georgia (3.2)	29.0
31	Boston College	30.0
32	North Carolina	31.0
33	Washington & Lee	32.0
34	William & Mary (3.4)	34.0
35	Wisconsin (3.3)	34.0
36	Illinois (3.2)	34.0
37	BYU (2.9)	34.0
38	Ohio State (3.3)	35.0
38	Fordham (3.3)	35.0
40	UC-Davis	36.0
41	Wake Forest	37.0
42	Indiana (Maurer) (3.2)	38.0
43	George Mason	40.0
44	Washington	42.0
45	Arizona	44.0
46	Utah	45.0
47	Colorado	47.0
48	Florida State	48.0
49	Maryland (3.1)	49.0
50	Pepperdine (2.8)	49.0
51	Richmond	52.0
52	Cardozo (3.0)	53.0
53	Temple (2.8)	53.0
54	Baylor (2.5)	53.0
55	Tulane (3.1)	54.0
56	SMU (2.7)	54.0
57	Connecticut	55.0
58	UC-Hastings	56.0
59	Houston	58.0
60	Villanova (2.7)	61.0
61	UNLV (2.6)	61.0
62	Tennessee (2.6)	62.0
63	Penn State (Dickinson) (2.5)	62.0
64	Texas A&M (2.8)	64.0
65	Penn State (Univ. Park) (2.5)	64.0
66	Seton Hall (2.5)	65.0
66	Missouri (2.5)	65.0
68	Loyola-L.A.	66.0
69	Miami (2.7)	69.0
70	Northeastern (2.6)	69.0
71	Kansas	70.0
72	Kentucky	71.0
73	San Diego (2.9)	72.0
74	Case Western (2.7)	72.0
75	Georgia State (2.8)	73.0