2022 U.S. News Omnibus Specialty Rankings v. Overall Rankings

Following up on yesterday's post, 2022 U.S. News Omnibus Specialty Rankings:

Here are the law schools whose U.S. News Omnibus Specialty Ranking most exceeds their overall U.S. News Ranking:

	School	Specialty Rank	Overall Rank	Difference
1	American	22	81	+59
2	Suffolk	75	129	+54
2	UIC-John Marshall	93	147	+54
4	Seattle	74	126	+52
5	Rutgers	46	91	+45
6	Denver	34	78	+44
7	Pace	97	139	+42
8	Pacific	100	141	+41
8	Santa Clara	85	126	+41
10	Mitchell-Hamline	107	147	+40
11	Loyola-New Orleans	105	144	+39
12	Hofstra	81	119	+38
13	Baltimore	94	129	+35
14	Brooklyn	49	81	+32
14	UC-Hastings	18	50	+32
16	San Diego	57	86	+29
17	Loyola-Chicago	50	78	+28
18	Houston	33	60	+27
18	Loyola-L.A.	45	72	+27
20	Chicago-Kent	66	91	+25
20	Miami	47	72	+25
22	New York Law School	95	119	+24
22	San Francisco	123	147	+24
24	Georgia State	55	78	+23
24	Howard	68	91	+23
24	Indiana (McKinney)	88	111	+23
27	Syracuse	80	102	+22
28	DePaul	90	111	+21
28	Ohio State	19	40	+21
28	South Texas	126	147	+21
28	UC-Irvine	14	35	+21
32	Widener (DE)	127	147	+20
33	Stetson	92	111	+19
33	Tulane	41	60	+19
33	Vermont	128	147	+19
33	Univ. of Washington	26	45	+19
37	George Washington	9	27	+18
38	Temple	36	53	+17
39	Southwestern	131	147	+16
40	Case Western	58	72	+14
40	Fordham	21	35	+14
40	Georgetown	1	15	+14
40	South Carolina	82	96	+14
44	Willamette	135	147	+12
45	Golden Gate	136	147	+11
45	Gonzaga	118	129	+11
45	Maryland	39	50	+11
48	Quinnipiac	119	129	+10
49	Widener (PA)	138	147	+9
50	UNLV	52	60	+8

Here are the law schools whose U.S. News Omnibus Specialty Ranking most trails their overall U.S. News Ranking:

Continue reading

2022 U.S. News Omnibus Specialty Rankings

The new 2022 U.S. News Specialty Rankings include the rankings for 13 specialty programs at 193 law schools. Here are the Top 100 law schools, determined by giving equal weight to each of the 13 separate specialty rankings:

1. Business/Corporate Law
2. Clinical Law
3. Constitutional Law
4. Contracts/Commercial Law
5. Criminal Law
6. Dispute Resolution 
7. Environmental Law
8. Health Care Law
9. Intellectual Property Law
10. International Law
11. Legal Writing
12. Tax Law
13. Trial Advocacy

	School	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	Avg.
1	Georgetown	12	1	9	11	7	24	7	7	13	5	9	3	15	9.5
2	Stanford	3	15	3	5	4	13	10	7	1	10	114	11	42	18.3
3	NYU	3	4	3	7	1	32	4	45	3	1	68	1	67	18.4
4	Michigan	9	6	13	7	10	32	37	23	15	6	9	8	67	18.6
5	Northwestern	12	9	15	13	13	7	44	37	19	26	25	4	21	18.8
6	Harvard	1	24	1	2	2	1	7	7	19	2	159	8	30	20.2
7	UC-Berkeley	3	9	6	7	2	32	1	45	1	6	121	23	17	21.0
8	UCLA	8	24	9	13	10	32	4	32	19	14	100	8	7	21.5
9	George Washington	22	24	27	26	27	24	10	20	4	6	34	28	54	23.5
10	Duke	12	50	9	13	13	52	16	23	15	10	34	16	67	25.4
11	Virginia	9	56	8	7	4	32	30	41	19	10	80	4	61	27.8
12	Texas	17	40	9	11	17	19	30	29	26	18	68	16	67	28.2
13	Penn	3	32	15	5	7	32	48	20	13	14	68	21	105	29.5
14	UC-Irvine	44	6	20	34	27	24	32	37	19	22	9	6	105	29.6
15	Washington Univ.	25	9	20	23	30	19	48	29	44	22	80	28	19	30.5
16	Columbia	2	22	6	1	7	15	7	45	15	3	159	11	105	30.6
17	Yale	9	4	1	4	4	32	20	15	52	3	154	14	90	30.9
18	UC-Hastings	28	19	33	34	30	8	24	13	30	26	121	16	21	31.0
19	Ohio State	44	56	27	18	13	2	65	18	44	49	25	34	54	34.5
20	Boston Univ.	19	40	24	26	23	63	57	4	12	32	68	16	67	34.7
21	Fordham	18	19	33	23	18	17	65	77	19	18	100	39	8	34.9
22	American	70	3	52	56	23	63	37	11	8	6	61	53	12	35.0
23	Arizona State	48	56	35	45	30	13	20	16	71	32	3	28	67	35.7
24	Minnesota	19	32	27	18	18	48	24	20	38	29	46	25	124	36.0
25	Vanderbilt	12	40	17	17	13	32	15	32	26	22	121	39	105	37.8
26	Univ. of Washington	48	32	46	26	36	19	34	41	15	39	41	34	105	39.7
27	Boston College	36	24	35	34	50	41	24	41	33	35	46	14	105	39.8
28	North Carolina	28	50	20	18	18	77	37	37	52	58	9	25	90	39.9
29	Chicago	7	40	3	2	10	63	73	45	38	18	159	6	79	41.8
30	Cornell	16	50	13	13	22	45	65	77	38	13	61	28	105	42.0
31	William & Mary	36	74	18	26	18	52	57	66	52	29	46	53	42	43.8
32	UC-Davis	22	90	18	26	23	24	24	57	44	26	132	27	61	44.2
33	Houston	52	90	67	45	61	52	20	5	8	43	46	53	42	44.9
34	Denver	64	9	71	56	36	41	24	83	63	58	9	60	12	45.1
35	Emory	22	107	24	22	40	112	48	23	38	32	46	34	42	45.4
36	Temple	52	74	60	53	61	63	90	18	63	16	7	39	1	45.9
37	Georgia	28	24	35	41	40	87	82	41	75	18	68	39	30	46.8
38	Florida	28	90	46	34	50	24	20	57	52	49	121	2	42	47.3
39	Maryland	52	9	41	56	50	15	16	7	97	68	114	73	30	48.3
40	USC	19	79	27	23	40	24	65	45	63	49	68	23	105	48.5
41	Tulane	36	32	46	34	50	52	18	71	63	39	80	47	67	48.8
42	Arizona	52	64	35	56	40	77	32	45	75	35	21	60	67	50.7
43	Indiana (Maurer)	25	79	52	26	40	77	37	57	26	35	68	16	124	50.9
44	Wisconsin	36	56	27	26	30	41	42	45	85	35	100	53	90	51.2
45	Loyola-L.A.	52	99	60	62	36	48	90	57	30	92	46	11	4	52.8
46	Rutgers	64	15	52	68	60	52	73	37	85	49	9	85	42	53.2
47	Miami	48	24	46	56	50	102	48	77	63	29	80	28	42	53.3
48	Colorado	44	79	46	45	36	77	10	66	33	62	80	39	79	53.5
49	Brooklyn	36	24	41	34	27	87	121	71	75	49	34	60	42	53.9
50	Loyola-Chicago	60	74	67	79	81	45	111	3	44	68	25	47	15	55.3
51	Notre Dame	28	74	24	41	66	112	48	83	33	22	100	47	42	55.4
52	UNLV	73	40	67	45	66	5	73	32	71	110	1	60	79	55.5
53	Texas A&M	64	32	76	62	97	8	34	83	7	68	25	73	124	57.9
54	Wake Forest	52	107	52	41	30	112	48	27	102	86	5	68	28	58.3
55	Georgia State	60	40	46	68	66	95	82	1	63	92	100	39	24	59.7
56	Utah	44	64	60	53	30	112	10	32	33	58	80	60	142	59.8
57	San Diego	28	135	20	45	40	112	65	57	19	43	144	21	54	60.2
58	Case Western	78	56	52	74	77	77	57	11	52	16	80	95	67	60.9
59	Cardozo	64	40	41	45	23	8	127	83	10	49	132	68	105	61.2
60	Northeastern	89	22	83	109	50	63	90	5	38	78	25	114	42	62.2
61	Washington & Lee	36	64	60	34	50	52	90	45	85	39	100	34	124	62.5
62	Illinois	28	107	35	18	40	95	82	71	38	62	100	53	90	63.0
63	Alabama	60	50	27	26	40	87	65	71	114	78	132	39	36	63.5
64	Florida State	52	135	41	45	40	77	18	83	75	43	132	28	61	63.8
65	Iowa	28	90	35	41	40	112	121	66	52	43	46	47	124	65.0
66	Chicago-Kent	78	120	52	68	81	63	90	57	10	92	46	85	4	65.1
67	SMU	60	64	76	68	50	102	90	45	44	49	138	53	42	67.8
68	Howard	73	32	52	62	50	95	104	110	52	86	41	95	30	67.8
69	BYU	36	120	60	56	72	95	57	108	44	62	80	47	67	69.5
70	Seton Hall	78	56	71	79	77	87	82	13	90	78	61	60	90	70.9
71	Pittsburgh	78	99	71	62	61	112	90	29	44	43	68	47	124	71.4
72	Richmond	52	129	52	68	50	77	57	77	44	68	68	68	124	71.8
73	St. John's	78	90	67	87	61	24	136	71	75	68	46	114	30	72.8
74	Seattle	73	24	89	87	97	112	48	110	63	86	7	95	90	75.5
75	Suffolk	125	15	121	109	108	32	104	45	52	104	4	141	24	75.7
76	Villanova	70	64	76	68	91	112	90	110	52	92	41	34	90	76.2
77	Connecticut	64	90	60	62	66	102	73	45	90	58	80	68	142	76.9
78	Pepperdine Caruso	64	64	60	74	113	3	136	136	97	49	132	39	36	77.2
79	Tennessee	25	19	83	53	72	112	111	83	114	110	41	77	105	77.3
80	Syracuse	96	90	76	94	81	102	90	83	75	68	61	95	11	78.6
81	Hofstra	89	74	83	101	72	63	127	96	90	86	46	82	21	79.2
82	South Carolina	78	50	110	87	72	112	44	71	121	104	100	53	30	79.4
83	Oregon	78	120	76	62	81	12	10	182	121	68	1	60	162	79.5
84	Drexel	78	64	89	94	108	52	147	32	97	110	21	129	12	79.5
85	Santa Clara	89	107	89	79	81	77	111	123	4	39	100	68	90	81.3
86	Lewis & Clark	111	90	89	101	97	52	1	123	75	68	21	114	124	82.0
87	Michigan State	70	79	71	79	81	87	100	123	52	78	121	82	54	82.8
88	Indiana (McKinney)	89	129	89	79	97	112	82	16	102	68	16	77	124	83.1
89	St. Louis	96	56	83	74	97	112	136	2	90	100	80	77	90	84.1
90	DePaul	89	107	103	109	91	110	151	23	30	100	41	82	61	84.4
91	George Mason	36	129	41	45	81	100	136	108	26	78	159	73	90	84.8
92	Stetson	117	107	103	94	81	24	73	143	151	121	5	95	2	85.8
93	UIC-John Marshall	135	50	143	109	127	41	147	96	33	78	16	129	24	86.8
94	Baltimore	125	15	83	131	66	48	104	123	97	78	46	85	162	89.5
95	New York Law School	105	64	89	131	81	63	127	123	85	68	46	108	79	89.9
96	CUNY	117	1	103	109	61	77	57	104	137	104	46	187	67	90.0
97	Pace	125	79	121	131	113	63	1	83	137	78	144	77	24	90.5
97	SUNY-Buffalo	89	79	89	101	72	112	82	96	102	92	100	108	54	90.5
99	Penn State-Dickinson	96	79	103	94	97	87	82	66	109	62	80	108	124	91.3
100	Pacific	117	135	131	109	127	48	57	143	109	43	21	141	8	91.5

If anyone at a law school outside the Top 100 would like the data for their school's rank, email me.

Continue reading

2022 U.S. News Trial Advocacy Rankings

The new 2022 U.S. News Trial Advocacy Rankings include the trial advocacy programs at 187 law schools (the faculty survey had a 56% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	Score	School
1	4.4	Temple
2	4.2	Baylor
2	4.2	Stetson
4	3.9	Chicago-Kent
4	3.9	Loyola-L.A.
4	3.9	South Texas
7	3.8	UCLA
8	3.7	Fordham
8	3.7	Pacific
8	3.7	Samford
11	3.6	Syracuse
12	3.5	American
12	3.5	Denver
12	3.5	Drexel
15	3.4	Georgetown
15	3.4	Loyola-Chicago
17	3.3	St. Mary's
17	3.3	UC-Berkeley
19	3.2	Campbell
19	3.2	Washington Univ.
21	3.1	Hofstra
21	3.1	Northwestern
21	3.1	UC-Hastings
24	3.0	Georgia State
24	3.0	Pace
24	3.0	Suffolk
24	3.0	UIC-John Marshall
28	2.9	Akron
28	2.9	Wake Forest
30	2.8	Georgia
30	2.8	Harvard
30	2.8	Howard
30	2.8	Maryland
30	2.8	South Carolina
30	2.8	St. John's
36	2.7	Alabama
36	2.7	Golden Gate
36	2.7	Mitchell-Hamline
36	2.7	Nova SE
36	2.7	Ohio Northern
36	2.7	Pepperdine Caruso
42	2.6	Brooklyn
42	2.6	Emory
42	2.6	Florida
42	2.6	Houston
42	2.6	Miami
42	2.6	Northeastern
42	2.6	Notre Dame
42	2.6	Quinnipiac
42	2.6	Rutgers
42	2.6	SMU
42	2.6	Stanford
42	2.6	William & Mary

2021 U.S. News Trial Advocacy Rankings

2022 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

Continue reading

2022 U.S. News Legal Writing Rankings

The new 2022 U.S. News Legal Writing Rankings include the legal writing programs at 176 law schools (the faculty survey had a 60% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	Score	School
1	4.3	Oregon
1	4.3	UNLV
3	4.1	Arizona State
4	4.0	Suffolk
5	3.9	Stetson
5	3.9	Wake Forest
7	3.8	Seattle
7	3.8	Temple
9	3.7	Denver
9	3.7	Drake
9	3.7	Georgetown
9	3.7	Michigan
9	3.7	North Carolina
9	3.7	Rutgers
9	3.7	UC-Irvine
16	3.6	Indiana (McKinney)
16	3.6	Marquette
16	3.6	Nova SE
16	3.6	UIC-John Marshall
16	3.6	Washburn
21	3.5	Arizona
21	3.5	Drexel
21	3.5	Lewis & Clark
21	3.5	Pacific
25	3.4	Arkansas-Little Rock
25	3.4	Duquesne
25	3.4	Loyola-Chicago
25	3.4	Northeastern
25	3.4	Northwestern
25	3.4	Ohio State
25	3.4	South Texas
25	3.4	Texas A&M
25	3.4	Texas Tech
34	3.3	Arkansas-Fayetteville
34	3.3	Brooklyn
34	3.3	Duke
34	3.3	Elon
34	3.3	George Washington
34	3.3	Mercer
34	3.3	Missouri-Kansas City
41	3.2	DePaul
41	3.2	Howard
41	3.2	Tennessee
41	3.2	Univ. of Washington
41	3.2	Villanova
46	3.1	Boston College
46	3.1	CUNY
46	3.1	Baltimore
46	3.1	Chicago-Kent
46	3.1	Emory
46	3.1	Hofstra
46	3.1	Houston
46	3.1	Iowa
46	3.1	Loyola-L.A.
46	3.1	Minnesota
46	3.1	New York Law School
46	3.1	St. John's
46	3.1	Touro
46	3.1	William & Mary
46	3.1	Wyoming

2021 U.S. News Legal Writing Rankings

2022 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

Continue reading

2022 U.S. News International Law Rankings

The new 2022 U.S. News International Law Rankings include the international law programs at 185 law schools (the faculty survey had a 56% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	Score	School
1	4.7	NYU
2	4.5	Harvard
3	4.4	Columbia
3	4.4	Yale
5	4.3	Georgetown
6	4.1	American
6	4.1	George Washington
6	4.1	Michigan
6	4.1	UC-Berkeley
10	4.0	Duke
10	4.0	Stanford
10	4.0	Virginia
13	3.9	Cornell
14	3.8	Penn
14	3.8	UCLA
16	3.6	Case Western
16	3.6	Temple
18	3.5	Chicago
18	3.5	Fordham
18	3.5	Georgia
18	3.5	Texas
22	3.4	Notre Dame
22	3.4	UC-Irvine
22	3.4	Vanderbilt
22	3.4	Washington Univ.
26	3.3	Northwestern
26	3.3	UC-Davis
26	3.3	UC-Hastings
29	3.2	Miami
29	3.2	Minnesota
29	3.2	William & Mary
32	3.1	Arizona State
32	3.1	Boston Univ.
32	3.1	Emory
35	3.0	Arizona
35	3.0	Boston College
35	3.0	Indiana (Maurer)
35	3.0	Wisconsin
39	2.9	Santa Clara
39	2.9	Tulane
39	2.9	Univ. of Washington
39	2.9	Washington & Lee
43	2.8	Florida State
43	2.8	Houston
43	2.8	Iowa
43	2.8	Pacific
43	2.8	Pittsburgh
43	2.8	San Diego
49	2.7	Brooklyn
49	2.7	Cardozo
49	2.7	Florida
49	2.7	Florida Int'l
49	2.7	Ohio State
49	2.7	Pepperdine Caruso
49	2.7	Rutgers
49	2.7	SMU
49	2.7	USC

2021 U.S. News International Law Rankings

2022 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

Continue reading

2022 U.S. News Intellectual Property Law Rankings

The new 2022 U.S. News Intellectual Property Law Rankings include the intellectual property law programs at 187 law schools (the faculty survey had a 65% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	Score	School
1	4.6	Stanford
1	4.6	UC-Berkeley
3	4.3	NYU
4	4.0	George Washington
4	4.0	New Hampshire
4	4.0	Santa Clara
7	3.9	Texas A&M
8	3.8	American
8	3.8	Houston
10	3.7	Cardozo
10	3.7	Chicago-Kent
12	3.6	Boston Univ.
13	3.5	Georgetown
13	3.5	Penn
15	3.4	Columbia
15	3.4	Duke
15	3.4	Michigan
15	3.4	Univ. of Washington
19	3.3	Fordham
19	3.3	Harvard
19	3.3	Northwestern
19	3.3	San Diego
19	3.3	UC-Irvine
19	3.3	UCLA
19	3.3	Virginia
26	3.2	George Mason
26	3.2	Indiana (Maurer)
26	3.2	Texas
26	3.2	Vanderbilt
30	3.1	DePaul
30	3.1	Loyola-L.A.
30	3.1	UC-Hastings
33	3.0	Boston College
33	3.0	Colorado
33	3.0	UIC-John Marshall
33	3.0	Notre Dame
33	3.0	Utah
38	2.9	Chicago
38	2.9	Cornell
38	2.9	Emory
38	2.9	Illinois
38	2.9	Minnesota
38	2.9	Northeastern
44	2.8	BYU
44	2.8	Loyola-Chicago
44	2.8	Ohio State
44	2.8	Pittsburgh
44	2.8	Richmond
44	2.8	SMU
44	2.8	UC-Davis
44	2.8	Washington Univ.

2021 U.S. News Intellectual Property Law Rankings

2022 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

Continue reading

2022 U.S. News Health Care Law Rankings

The new 2022 U.S. News Health Care Law Rankings include the health care law programs at 181 law schools (the faculty survey had a 54% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	Score	School
1	4.3	Georgia State
2	4.2	St. Louis
3	4.1	Loyola-Chicago
4	4.0	Boston Univ.
5	3.9	Houston
5	3.9	Northeastern
7	3.8	Georgetown
7	3.8	Harvard
7	3.8	Maryland
7	3.8	Stanford
11	3.7	American
11	3.7	Case Western
13	3.6	Seton Hall
13	3.6	UC-Hastings
15	3.5	Yale
16	3.4	Arizona State
16	3.4	Indiana (McKinney)
18	3.3	Ohio State
18	3.3	Temple
20	3.2	George Washington
20	3.2	Minnesota
20	3.2	Penn
23	3.1	DePaul
23	3.1	Duke
23	3.1	Emory
23	3.1	Michigan
27	3.0	Mitchell-Hamline
27	3.0	Wake Forest
29	2.9	Pittsburgh
29	2.9	Texas
29	2.9	Washington Univ.
32	2.8	Drexel
32	2.8	UCLA
32	2.8	UNLV
32	2.8	Utah
32	2.8	Vanderbilt
37	2.7	North Carolina
37	2.7	Northwestern
37	2.7	Rutgers
37	2.7	UC-Irvine
41	2.6	Boston College
41	2.6	Georgia
41	2.6	Virginia
41	2.6	Univ. of Washington
45	2.5	Arizona
45	2.5	Chicago
45	2.5	Columbia
45	2.5	Connecticut
45	2.5	NYU
45	2.5	SMU
45	2.5	Suffolk
45	2.5	UC-Berkeley
45	2.5	USC
45	2.5	Washington & Lee
45	2.5	Wayne State
45	2.5	Wisconsin

2021 U.S. News Health Care Law Rankings

2022 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

Continue reading

2022 U.S. News Environmental Law Rankings

The new 2022 U.S. News Environmental Law Rankings include the environmental law programs at 181 law schools (the faculty survey had a 59% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	Score	School
1	4.5	Lewis & Clark
1	4.5	Pace
1	4.5	UC-Berkeley
4	4.3	NYU
4	4.3	UCLA
4	4.3	Vermont
7	4.1	Columbia
7	4.1	Georgetown
7	4.1	Harvard
10	4.0	Colorado
10	4.0	George Washington
10	4.0	Oregon
10	4.0	Stanford
10	4.0	Utah
15	3.9	Vanderbilt
16	3.8	Duke
16	3.8	Maryland
18	3.7	Florida State
18	3.7	Tulane
20	3.6	Arizona State
20	3.6	Florida
20	3.6	Houston
20	3.6	Yale
24	3.5	Boston College
24	3.5	Denver
24	3.5	Hawaii
24	3.5	Minnesota
24	3.5	UC-Davis
24	3.5	UC-Hastings
30	3.4	Texas
30	3.4	Virginia
32	3.3	Arizona
32	3.3	UC-Irvine
34	3.2	Texas A&M
34	3.2	New Mexico
34	3.2	Univ. of Washington
37	3.1	American
37	3.1	Indiana (Maurer)
37	3.1	Michigan
37	3.1	North Carolina
37	3.1	Widener (DE)
42	3.0	Montana
42	3.0	Wisconsin
44	2.9	Northwestern
44	2.9	Penn State-Univ. Park
44	2.9	South Carolina
44	2.9	Widener (PA)
48	2.8	Emory
48	2.8	Loyola-New Orleans
48	2.8	Miami
48	2.8	Notre Dame
48	2.8	Penn
48	2.8	Seattle
48	2.8	Wake Forest
48	2.8	Washington Univ.
48	2.8	Wyoming

2021 U.S. News Environmental Law Rankings

2022 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

Continue reading

The U.S. News Law School Rankings Failed Diversity 101

Vivia Chen (Bloomberg Law), Why U.S. News & World Report Failed Diversity 101:

Its foray into law school diversity ranking has been a fiasco. Is this emblematic of how even some sophisticated institutions mishandle diversity?

This is not the most politic thing to say but here I go: We should stop putting old White men in charge of decisions about diversity.

I know that’s a comment that will raise eyebrows but that was my gut reaction when I heard about U.S. News & World Report’s embarrassing foray into law school diversity. That august publication just came out with its latest law school rankings, and this year’s birth was a bit of a disaster. And yes, the chieftain behind the enterprise happens to be an older White guy. ...

The effort at U.S. News also started off with good intentions. For the first time, U.S. News decided to launch a diversity scorecard based on racial and ethnic data provided by the nation’s law schools.

Then, it went off the rails. For unexplained reasons, it dropped both Asian and multiracial students from its diversity count. Law schools protested, and U.S. News recategorized Asian students as diverse. However, it continued to omit multiracial students, prompting 162 law school deans to pen a letter dated March 24 to U.S. News in protest. ...

Good grief. Does anyone at U.S. News, which commands a fearsome empire that decides the prestige of higher education institutions worldwide, need this memo that multiracial people and Asians aren’t White? ...

Continue reading

2022 U.S. News Dispute Resolution Rankings

The new 2022 U.S. News Dispute Resolution Rankings include the dispute resolution programs at 111 law schools (the faculty survey had a 49% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	Score	School
1	4.4	Harvard
2	4.3	Ohio State
3	4.2	Pepperdine Caruso
4	4.0	Missouri (Columbia)
5	3.9	Mitchell-Hamline
5	3.9	UNLV
7	3.8	Northwestern
8	3.7	Cardozo
8	3.7	Marquette
8	3.7	Texas A&M
8	3.7	UC-Hastings
12	3.6	Oregon
13	3.5	Arizona State
13	3.5	Stanford
15	3.4	Columbia
15	3.4	Maryland
17	3.3	Fordham
18	3.2	Creighton
19	3.1	Quinnipiac
19	3.1	South Texas
19	3.1	Texas
19	3.1	Univ. of Washington
19	3.1	Washington Univ.
24	3.0	Florida
24	3.0	George Washington
24	3.0	Georgetown
24	3.0	St. John's
24	3.0	Stetson
24	3.0	UC-Davis
24	3.0	UC-Irvine
24	3.0	USC
32	2.9	Michigan
32	2.9	NYU
32	2.9	Penn
32	2.9	Suffolk
32	2.9	UC-Berkeley
32	2.9	UCLA
32	2.9	Vanderbilt
32	2.9	Virginia
32	2.9	Yale
41	2.8	Boston College
41	2.8	Denver
41	2.8	UIC-John Marshall
41	2.8	Wisconsin
45	2.7	Cornell
45	2.7	Loyola-Chicago
45	2.7	Kansas
48	2.6	Baltimore
48	2.6	Loyola-L.A.
48	2.6	Minnesota
48	2.6	Pacific

2021 U.S. News Dispute Resolution Rankings

2022 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

Continue reading

2022 U.S. News Criminal Law Rankings

The new 2022 U.S. News Criminal Law Rankings include the criminal law programs at 187 law schools (the faculty survey had a 57% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	Score	School
1	4.5	NYU
2	4.3	Harvard
2	4.3	UC-Berkeley
4	4.2	Stanford
4	4.2	Virginia
4	4.2	Yale
7	4.1	Columbia
7	4.1	Georgetown
7	4.1	Penn
10	4.0	Chicago
10	4.0	Michigan
10	4.0	UCLA
13	3.9	Duke
13	3.9	Northwestern
13	3.9	Ohio State
13	3.9	Vanderbilt
17	3.8	Texas
18	3.7	Fordham
18	3.7	Minnesota
18	3.7	North Carolina
18	3.7	William & Mary
22	3.6	Cornell
23	3.5	American
23	3.5	Boston Univ.
23	3.5	UC-Davis
23	3.5	Cardozo
27	3.4	Brooklyn
27	3.4	George Washington
27	3.4	UC-Irvine
30	3.3	Arizona State
30	3.3	UC-Hastings
30	3.3	Utah
30	3.3	Wisconsin
30	3.3	Wake Forest
30	3.3	Washington Univ.
36	3.2	Colorado
36	3.2	Denver
36	3.2	Loyola-L.A.
36	3.2	Univ. of Washington
40	3.1	Alabama
40	3.1	Arizona
40	3.1	Emory
40	3.1	Florida State
40	3.1	Georgia
40	3.1	Illinois
40	3.1	Indiana (Maurer)
40	3.1	Iowa
40	3.1	San Diego
40	3.1	USC
50	3.0	Boston College
50	3.0	Florida
50	3.0	Howard
50	3.0	Maryland
50	3.0	Miami
50	3.0	Northeastern
50	3.0	Richmond
50	3.0	SMU
50	3.0	Tulane
50	3.0	Washington & Lee

2021 U.S. News Criminal Law Rankings

2022 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

Continue reading

Leiter: U.S. News Issues 4th 'Corrected' Law School Rankings

Brian Leiter (Chicago), US News Releases Yet a 4th "Corrected" Ranking, Retracting the One Issued on Tuesday!:

According to a statement from US News.com editor Bob Morse: ... 

These revisions changed the rank of every law school, excerpt Mercer (which remained at #127). Yale even dropped from #1 to #14. The full revised rankings are here.

2022 U.S. News Contracts/Commercial Law Rankings

The new 2022 U.S. News Contracts/Commercial Law Rankings include the contracts/commercial law programs at 187 law schools (the faculty survey had a 48% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	Score	School
1	4.7	Columbia
2	4.6	Chicago
2	4.6	Harvard
4	4.5	Yale
5	4.4	Penn
5	4.4	Stanford
7	4.3	Michigan
7	4.3	NYU
7	4.3	UC-Berkeley
7	4.3	Virginia
11	4.2	Georgetown
11	4.2	Texas
13	4.1	Cornell
13	4.1	Duke
13	4.1	Northwestern
13	4.1	UCLA
17	3.8	Vanderbilt
18	3.7	Illinois
18	3.7	Minnesota
18	3.7	North Carolina
18	3.7	Ohio State
22	3.6	Emory
23	3.5	Fordham
23	3.5	USC
23	3.5	Washington Univ.
26	3.4	Alabama
26	3.4	Boston Univ.
26	3.4	George Washington
26	3.4	Indiana (Maurer)
26	3.4	UC-Davis
26	3.4	Univ. of Washington
26	3.4	William & Mary
26	3.4	Wisconsin
34	3.3	Boston College
34	3.3	Brooklyn
34	3.3	Florida
34	3.3	Tulane
34	3.3	UC-Hastings
34	3.3	UC-Irvine
34	3.3	Washington & Lee
41	3.2	Georgia
41	3.2	Iowa
41	3.2	Notre Dame
41	3.2	Wake Forest
45	3.1	Arizona State
45	3.1	Cardozo
45	3.1	Colorado
45	3.1	Florida State
45	3.1	George Mason
45	3.1	Houston
45	3.1	San Diego
45	3.1	UNLV

2021 U.S. News Contracts/Commercial Law Rankings

2022 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

Continue reading

2022 U.S. News Constitutional Law Rankings

The new 2022 U.S. News Constitutional Law Rankings include the constitutional law programs at 187 law schools (the faculty survey had a 52% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	Score	School
1	4.8	Harvard
1	4.8	Yale
3	4.6	Chicago
3	4.6	NYU
3	4.6	Stanford
6	4.5	Columbia
6	4.5	UC-Berkeley
8	4.4	Virginia
9	4.2	Duke
9	4.2	Georgetown
9	4.2	Texas
9	4.2	UCLA
13	4.1	Cornell
13	4.1	Michigan
15	4.0	Northwestern
15	4.0	Penn
17	3.6	Vanderbilt
18	3.5	UC-Davis
18	3.5	William & Mary
20	3.4	North Carolina
20	3.4	San Diego
20	3.4	UC-Irvine
20	3.4	Washington Univ.
24	3.3	Boston Univ.
24	3.3	Emory
24	3.3	Notre Dame
27	3.2	Alabama
27	3.2	George Washington
27	3.2	Minnesota
27	3.2	Ohio State
27	3.2	USC
27	3.2	Wisconsin
33	3.1	Fordham
33	3.1	UC-Hastings
35	3.0	Arizona
35	3.0	Arizona State
35	3.0	Boston College
35	3.0	Georgia
35	3.0	Illinois
35	3.0	Iowa
41	2.9	Brooklyn
41	2.9	Cardozo
41	2.9	Florida State
41	2.9	George Mason
41	2.9	Maryland
46	2.8	Colorado
46	2.8	Florida
46	2.8	Georgia State
46	2.8	Miami
46	2.8	Tulane
46	2.8	Univ. of Washington

2021 U.S. News Constitutional Law Rankings

2022 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

Continue reading

2022 U.S. News Clinical Training Rankings

The new 2022 U.S. News Clinical Training Rankings include the clinical training law programs at 182 law schools (the faculty survey had a 64% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	Score	School
1	4.6	CUNY
1	4.6	Georgetown
3	4.5	American
4	4.4	NYU
4	4.4	Yale
6	4.2	Michigan
6	4.2	District of Columbia
6	4.2	UC-Irvine
9	4.1	Denver
9	4.1	Maryland
9	4.1	New Mexico
9	4.1	Northwestern
9	4.1	UC-Berkeley
9	4.1	Washington Univ.
15	4.0	Baltimore
15	4.0	Rutgers
15	4.0	Stanford
15	4.0	Suffolk
19	3.9	Fordham
19	3.9	Tennessee
19	3.9	UC-Hastings
22	3.8	Columbia
22	3.8	Northeastern
24	3.7	Boston College
24	3.7	Brooklyn
24	3.7	George Washington
24	3.7	Georgia
24	3.7	Harvard
24	3.7	Miami
24	3.7	Seattle
24	3.7	UCLA
32	3.6	Howard
32	3.6	Loyola-New Orleans
32	3.6	Minnesota
32	3.6	Mitchell-Hamline
32	3.6	Penn
32	3.6	Texas A&M
32	3.6	Tulane
32	3.6	Univ. of Washington
40	3.5	Albany
40	3.5	Boston Univ.
40	3.5	Cardozo
40	3.5	Chicago
40	3.5	Georgia State
40	3.5	St. Thomas (MN)
40	3.5	Texas
40	3.5	UNLV
40	3.5	Vanderbilt
40	3.5	Washburn
50	3.4	Alabama
50	3.4	Cornell
50	3.4	Duke
50	3.4	North Carolina
50	3.4	South Carolina
50	3.4	UIC-John Marshall

2021 U.S. News Clinical Law Rankings 

2022 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

Continue reading

2022 U.S. News Business/Corporate Law Rankings

The new 2022 U.S. News Business/Corporate Law Rankings include the business/corporate law programs at 187 law schools (the faculty survey had a 54% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	Score	School
1	4.8	Harvard
2	4.6	Columbia
3	4.5	NYU
3	4.5	Penn
3	4.5	Stanford
3	4.5	UC-Berkeley
7	4.3	Chicago
8	4.2	UCLA
9	4.1	Michigan
9	4.1	Virginia
9	4.1	Yale
12	4.0	Duke
12	4.0	Georgetown
12	4.0	Northwestern
12	4.0	Vanderbilt
16	3.8	Cornell
17	3.7	Texas
18	3.6	Fordham
19	3.5	Boston Univ.
19	3.5	Minnesota
19	3.5	USC
22	3.4	Emory
22	3.4	George Washington
22	3.4	UC-Davis
25	3.3	Indiana (Maurer)
25	3.3	Tennessee
25	3.3	Washington Univ.
28	3.2	Florida
28	3.2	Georgia
28	3.2	Illinois
28	3.2	Iowa
28	3.2	North Carolina
28	3.2	Notre Dame
28	3.2	San Diego
28	3.2	UC-Hastings
36	3.1	Boston College
36	3.1	Brooklyn
36	3.1	BYU
36	3.1	George Mason
36	3.1	Tulane
36	3.1	Washington & Lee
36	3.1	William & Mary
36	3.1	Wisconsin
44	3.0	Colorado
44	3.0	Ohio State
44	3.0	UC-Irvine
44	3.0	Utah
48	2.9	Arizona State
48	2.9	Miami
48	2.9	Univ. of Washington
48	2.9	Widener (DE)

2021 U.S. News Business/Corporate Law Rankings 

2022 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

Continue reading

2022 U.S. News Tax Rankings

The new 2022 U.S. News Tax Rankings include the tax programs at 186 law schools (the faculty survey had a 58% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	Score	School
1	4.8	NYU
2	4.4	Florida
3	4.3	Georgetown
4	4.2	Northwestern
4	4.2	Virginia
6	4.0	Chicago
6	4.0	UC-Irvine
8	3.9	Harvard
8	3.9	Michigan
8	3.9	UCLA
11	3.8	Columbia
11	3.8	Loyola-L.A.
11	3.8	Stanford
14	3.7	Boston College
14	3.7	Yale
16	3.6	Boston Univ.
16	3.6	Duke
16	3.6	Indiana (Maurer)
16	3.6	Texas
16	3.6	UC-Hastings
21	3.5	Penn
21	3.5	San Diego
23	3.4	UC-Berkeley
23	3.4	USC
25	3.3	Minnesota
25	3.3	North Carolina
27	3.2	UC-Davis
28	3.1	Arizona State
28	3.1	Cornell
28	3.1	Florida State
28	3.1	George Washington
28	3.1	Miami
28	3.1	Washington Univ.
34	3.0	Emory
34	3.0	Ohio State
34	3.0	Villanova
34	3.0	Univ. of Washington
34	3.0	Washington & Lee
39	2.9	Alabama
39	2.9	Colorado
39	2.9	Fordham
39	2.9	Georgia
39	2.9	Georgia State
39	2.9	Pepperdine Caruso
39	2.9	Temple
39	2.9	Vanderbilt
47	2.8	BYU
47	2.8	Iowa
47	2.8	Loyola-Chicago
47	2.8	Notre Dame
47	2.8	Pittsburgh
47	2.8	Tulane

Among the law schools in the tax rankings last year, here are the biggest upward moves:

• +24: Colorado (#39)
• +21: Iowa (#47)
• +16: Tulane (#47), Georgia State (#39)
• +14: Cornell (#28), George Washington (#28), Emory (#34)
• +9: Arizona State (#28), Florida State (#28), Vanderbilt (#39)

Here are the biggest downward moves:

• -21: Pittsburgh (#47)
• -15: BYU (#47)
• -8: USC (#23)
• -7: Alabama (#39), Fordham (#39)
• -6: Pennsylvania (#21)

Here are the rankings of law schools with graduate tax programs:

Continue reading

U.S. News Ranking Metrics Stifle Law Libraries, Tie Hands of Law Schools

TaxProf Blog op-ed:  U.S. News Ranking Metrics Stifle Law Libraries, Tie Hands of Law Schools, by Amanda Runyon (Pennsylvania), Leslie A. Street (William & Mary), & Amanda Watson (Houston):

USNWR has released the 2022 Best of Law School rankings, including a new set of questions and methodology for law libraries. As library directors at schools that perform objectively well in these new calculations, we feel obligated to voice our concerns. We believe the unintended consequences and potential outcomes of these metrics are highly problematic for law libraries and the institutions that we serve. Specifically, we are concerned that the new metrics may erode the value of libraries and push libraries to focus resources on US News data points, rather than on the services and outcomes that are most beneficial to our institutions, as the ABA requires.

Law library questions are included in the Faculty Resources portion of the ranking methodology and differ significantly from prior years’ data collection. Recognizing that the library-related US News questions used outdated metrics, a group of volunteers solicited through four law library organizations developed these new metrics beginning in early 2020.[1]  In November 2020, US News announced the immediate implementation of these metrics.

Continue reading

2022 U.S. News Law School Peer Reputation Rankings (And Overall Rankings)

Continuing a TaxProf Blog tradition (see links below for 2009-2021), here is the full list of the 193 law schools ranked by academic peer reputation, as well as their overall rank, in the new 2022 U.S. News Law School Rankings (methodology here):

Peer Rank	Peer Score	School	Overall Rank
1	4.8	Harvard	3
1	4.8	Stanford	2
1	4.8	Yale	1
4	4.7	Columbia	4
5	4.6	Chicago	4
5	4.6	NYU	6
7	4.5	UC-Berkeley	9
8	4.4	Michigan	10
8	4.4	Penn	6
8	4.4	Virginia	8
11	4.3	Cornell	13
12	4.2	Duke	10
12	4.2	Georgetown	15
12	4.2	Northwestern	12
15	4.1	Texas	16
15	4.1	UCLA	14
17	4.0	Vanderbilt	16
18	3.7	Washington Univ.	16
19	3.6	Emory	29
19	3.6	Minnesota	22
19	3.6	UC-Irvine	35
19	3.6	USC	19
23	3.5	Boston Univ.	20
23	3.5	George Washington	27
23	3.5	North Carolina	24
23	3.5	Notre Dame	22
23	3.5	UC-Davis	35
28	3.4	Boston College	29
28	3.4	Fordham	35
28	3.4	William & Mary	35
28	3.4	Wisconsin	29
32	3.3	Alabama	25
32	3.3	Arizona State	25
32	3.3	Florida	21
32	3.3	Georgia	27
32	3.3	Indiana (Maurer)	43
32	3.3	Iowa	29
32	3.3	Ohio State	40
32	3.3	Univ. of Washington	45
40	3.2	Arizona	46
40	3.2	Colorado	48
40	3.2	Illinois	29
40	3.2	Tulane	60
40	3.2	UC-Hastings	50
45	3.1	Florida State	48
45	3.1	Wake Forest	41
45	3.1	Washington & Lee	35
48	3.0	American	81
48	3.0	Howard	91
48	3.0	Maryland	50
48	3.0	Utah	43
52	2.9	BYU	29
52	2.9	Cardozo	53
52	2.9	Connecticut	58
52	2.9	Miami	72
56	2.8	Denver	78
56	2.8	Georgia State	78
56	2.8	Houston	60
56	2.8	Loyola-L.A.	72
56	2.8	Oregon	72
56	2.8	Richmond	53
56	2.8	San Diego	86
56	2.8	Temple	53
64	2.7	Brooklyn	81
64	2.7	George Mason	41
64	2.7	Kansas	70
64	2.7	Pepperdine Caruso	46
64	2.7	Pittsburgh	67
64	2.7	Rutgers	91
64	2.7	SMU	52
64	2.7	Texas A&M	53
64	2.7	UNLV	60
73	2.6	Case Western	72
73	2.6	Chicago-Kent	91
73	2.6	Hawaii	98
73	2.6	Loyola-Chicago	78
73	2.6	Northeastern	67
73	2.6	Oklahoma	67
73	2.6	Penn State-University Park	60
73	2.6	Santa Clara	126
73	2.6	Tennessee	60
73	2.6	Villanova	53
83	2.5	Baylor	58
83	2.5	Indiana (McKinney)	111
83	2.5	Kentucky	81
83	2.5	Lewis & Clark	88
83	2.5	Michigan State	91
83	2.5	Missouri (Columbia)	60
83	2.5	Nebraska	87
83	2.5	New Mexico	102
83	2.5	Penn State-Dickinson	60
83	2.5	Seattle	126
83	2.5	Seton Hall	70
83	2.5	South Carolina	96
95	2.4	Arkansas-Fayetteville	96
95	2.4	Cincinnati	81
95	2.4	CUNY	102
95	2.4	Drexel	81
95	2.4	St. John's	72
95	2.4	St. Louis	91
95	2.4	Syracuse	102
102	2.3	DePaul	111
102	2.3	Marquette	102
102	2.3	Mississippi	98
102	2.3	SUNY-Buffalo	98
102	2.3	Wayne State	72
107	2.2	Baltimore	129
107	2.2	Catholic	102
107	2.2	Gonzaga	129
107	2.2	Hofstra	119
107	2.2	Louisiana State	109
107	2.2	Louisville	98
107	2.2	Loyola-New Orleans	144
107	2.2	Maine	124
107	2.2	Missouri-Kansas City	111
107	2.2	Stetson	111
107	2.2	UIC-John Marshall	Tier 2
107	2.2	West Virginia	116
119	2.1	Albany	116
119	2.1	Arkansas-Little Rock	141
119	2.1	Florida Int'l	88
119	2.1	Idaho	139
119	2.1	Montana	134
119	2.1	New Hampshire	88
119	2.1	Suffolk	129
119	2.1	Willamette	Tier 2
127	2.0	Creighton	141
127	2.0	Drake	102
127	2.0	Memphis	144
127	2.0	Mercer	124
127	2.0	New York Law School	119
127	2.0	Pace	139
127	2.0	Pacific	141
127	2.0	Quinnipiac	129
127	2.0	San Francisco	Tier 2
127	2.0	Texas Tech	102
127	2.0	Tulsa	111
127	2.0	Vermont	Tier 2
127	2.0	Washburn	109
127	2.0	Wyoming	119
141	1.9	Akron	134
141	1.9	Chapman	134
141	1.9	Cleveland-Marshall	116
141	1.9	Dayton	119
141	1.9	Duquesne	119
141	1.9	Mitchell-Hamline	Tier 2
141	1.9	Southwestern	Tier 2
141	1.9	St. Thomas (MN)	126
141	1.9	Toledo	129
150	1.8	Florida A&M	Tier 2
150	1.8	North Dakota	Tier 2
150	1.8	South Dakota	134
150	1.8	St. Mary's	Tier 2
150	1.8	Widener (DE)	Tier 2
155	1.7	Detroit Mercy	Tier 2
155	1.7	District of Columbia	Tier 2
155	1.7	Elon	Tier 2
155	1.7	Northern Illinois	Tier 2
155	1.7	Roger Williams	Tier 2
155	1.7	South Texas	Tier 2
155	1.7	Southern	Tier 2
155	1.7	Southern Illinois	Tier 2
155	1.7	Widener (PA)	Tier 2
164	1.6	Cal-Western	Tier 2
164	1.6	Campbell	Tier 2
164	1.6	Massachusetts	Tier 2
164	1.6	Mississippi College	Tier 2
164	1.6	New England	Tier 2
164	1.6	North Carolina Central	Tier 2
164	1.6	Northern Kentucky	Tier 2
164	1.6	Nova SE	Tier 2
164	1.6	Ohio Northern	Tier 2
164	1.6	Samford	144
164	1.6	St. Thomas (FL)	Tier 2
164	1.6	Texas Southern	Tier 2
164	1.6	Touro	Tier 2
177	1.5	Belmont	134
177	1.5	Golden Gate	Tier 2
177	1.5	Oklahoma City	Tier 2
177	1.5	Western New England	Tier 2
181	1.4	Capital	Tier 2
181	1.4	John Marshall (GA)	Tier 2
181	1.4	Regent	Tier 2
184	1.3	Appalachian	Tier 2
184	1.3	Charleston	Tier 2
186	1.2	Ave Maria	Tier 2
186	1.2	Barry	Tier 2
186	1.2	Faulkner	Tier 2
186	1.2	Florida Coastal	Tier 2
186	1.2	Liberty	Tier 2
186	1.2	Lincoln Memorial	Tier 2
186	1.2	Western Michigan	Tier 2
186	1.2	Western	Tier 2

• ABA Journal, US News Releases its 2022 Law School Rankings; Which Schools Had Lowest Student Debt?
• Above the Law, The 2022 U.S. News Law School Rankings Are Here: 1-50
• Above the Law, The 2022 U.S. News Law School Rankings Are Here: 52-98
• Above the Law, The 2022 U.S. News Law School Rankings Are Here: 102-193
• Above the Law, The Law Schools Flying Up The Rankings
• Above the Law, The Law Schools With The Highest LSAT Scores (2020)
• Above the Law, This Law School Took A Ratings Tumble
• Steven Chung (Tax Lawyer, Los Angeles), The New U.S. News Law School Rankings Should Have Used Tuition As A Ranking Metric Instead Of Student Loans
• Forbes, America’s Best Law Schools, According To U.S. News & World Report
• LawProfBlawg, OMG, The Rankings … I Mean, Uh, Rankings Don’t Matter
• Brian Leiter (Chicago), Derek Muller (Iowa) on the US News Rankings Disaster This Year
• Brian Leiter (Chicago), US News Seems Intent on Driving Home the Fact That the Ranking Formula Is Arbitrary and Meaningless
• Brian Leiter (Chicago), Your Annual Reminder That Movements in the US News.com Rankings Are Almost All Meaningless
• Law360, Grads From Top Law Schools Are Shouldering The Most Debt
• Brian Leiter (Chicago), US News Releases Yet a 4th "Corrected" Ranking, Retracting the One Issued on Tuesday!
• Kyle McEntee (Law School Transparency), The Law School Rankings Rat Race Has New Cheese
• Derek Muller (Iowa), Indebtedness Metrics and USNWR Rankings
• Derek Muller (Iowa), The USNWR Law School Rankings Are Deeply Wounded—Will Law Schools Have the Coordination to Finish Them Off?
• Derek Muller (Iowa), New USNWR Metric Favors $0 Loans Over $1 Loans For Graduating Law Students
• Reuters, UCLA Breaks Into Top 14 in New U.S. News Law School Rankings
• Karen Sloan (Law.com), Unpacking the U.S. News Rankings Turmoil
• Karen Sloan (Law.com), The US News Law School Rankings Are Here, But Has Their Credibility Taken a Hit?
• Mike Spivey (Spivey Consulting), 2022 vs. 2021 USNWR Law School Rankings (+/-)
• U.S. News & World Report, Key Changes in How the 2022 Best Graduate Schools Rankings Were Calculated

Prior Years' U.S. News Peer Reputation And Overall Rankings:

Continue reading

U.S. News Issues THIRD Version Of Law School Rankings In Advance Of Their Public Release On Tuesday (12:01 AM ET)

At 3:53 PM ET on Sunday, U.S. News emailed Deans and other law school administrators the following:

Best Law Schools
For the overall ranking, U.S. News removed the metric for ratio of credit-bearing hours of instruction provided by law librarians to full-time equivalent law students [.25%, reducing the library weighting to 1.75%] and increased the weighting for the bar passage rate indicator [by .25%, for a new total of 2.25%]. As a result, we recalculated the rankings.

This change affected the overall ranking of 35 law schools, including 9 law schools in the Top 30.

Update: Karen Sloan (Law.com), US News' Rough Year Just Got Worse: Law School Rankings Changed a Third Time:

U.S. News & World Report has modified its closely watched law school rankings yet again—marking the third time the rankings have changed in the two weeks prior to their official March 30 release. ...

In a March 28 message to law school administrators, U.S. News said it removed a controversial metric regarding the number of credit hours taught by law librarians, and shifted the 0.25% weight that metric was given over to the bar pass rate indicator. As a result, the total weight given to law library measures in the overall rankings dropped from 2% to 1.75%, while the weight given to the bar pass rate increased from 2% to 2.25%, the message said. U.S. News recalculated the overall rankings with the new weighting, which changed the overall ranking of 35 schools, according to Pepperdine University Law Dean Paul Caron, who wrote about the latest changed on his TaxProfBlog. Nine of the schools in top 30 saw their rankings change, according to Caron, though several law faculty confirmed that there were no changes among the top 20 schools.

Continue reading

Former Temple Dean Faces Criminal Charges For Submitting False Data To Inflate U.S. News Ranking

Following up on my previous posts (links below):  Philadelphia Inquirer, Criminal Charges Expected For Ousted Temple Dean in Rankings Scandal, Lawyers Say:

A long-running criminal probe into efforts by Temple University’s business school to boost its national rankings with false data is expected to conclude in the coming weeks with prosecutors recommending criminal charges against its former dean, according to recent court filings and interviews with sources familiar with the matter.

Attorneys for M. Moshe Porat — who led the Fox School of Business for more than two decades until his 2018 ouster when the school’s misrepresentations came to light — said the U.S. Attorney’s Office had recently informed them that it was pursuing a grand jury indictment against him and others in the coming weeks. ...

Porat’s lawyers, who did not return requests for comment, accused Temple in court papers Tuesday of stoking the criminal probe and trying to turn their client into a “scapegoat.”

But, in a filing in the defamation case last week, the university for the first time laid the blame squarely on Porat. Not only did the fraud occur under his watch, the school’s lawyers said, he was its “mastermind.”

Continue reading

How To Juice Your Citations In The HeinOnline/U.S. News Rankings

Following up on last week's post, U.S. News Denies Report That It Will Replace The 40% Reputation Component With HeinOnline Citations In Next Year's Law School Rankings:  Rob Willey (George Mason) & Melanie Knapp (George Mason), Hein, U.S. News, and How to Increase Citations:

Using nearly 250,000 law review articles published on HeinOnline in a five-year period, the authors analyze citation patterns and characteristics of the articles such as title length, number of authors, article length, publication format, and more. The authors describe past citation studies and best practices in Search Engine Optimization (SEO). The authors find that factors beyond article quality likely impact scholarly citations. Drawing from the lessons in the citation patterns, article characteristics, and SEO best practices, the authors offer techniques to increase the article citation counts of articles published in U.S. law journals.

Based on data pulled from Hein, U.S. News will introduce a new scholarly impact ranking later this year. While this new ranking has the potential to improve the overall law school rankings, it opens the door to a wide-range of potential issues from citation cartels to keyword stuffing to less focus on important but less well-known areas of the law. Using lessons from the SEO world, the authors conclude with a detailed discussion of these potential problems.

Continue reading

U.S. News Makes Last-Minute Changes to Law School Rankings, Fueling Criticism And Concern

Karen Sloan (Law.com), US News Makes Last-Minute Changes to Law School Rankings, Fueling Criticism and Concern:

U.S. News & World Report said Thursday that it’s removing a controversial diversity ranking from its law school rankings package that is set to be released March 30.

That decision comes after deans from 162 law schools asked for a last-minute revision to the standalone “Most Diverse Law Schools Ranking,” citing the exclusion of students of more than one race from its calculation of “underrepresented minorities.” The deans requested that the ranking be recalculated to include multiethnic students—which would mark the second time the diversity ranking was changed in the past week. U.S. News this week recalculated that ranking after initially failing to include Asian students.

“After receiving feedback from law schools, we’ve removed the law diversity ranking and will publish it at a later, as yet undetermined date in order to include students of two or more races,” wrote U.S. News Chief Data Strategist Bob Morse in an email.

The deans' letter to Morse said that excluding multiethnic law students from the diversity rankings is “simply wrong and unacceptable.”

Continue reading

U.S. News Denies Report That It Will Replace The 40% Reputation Component With HeinOnline Citations In Next Year's Law School Rankings

Following up on this morning's post, The New U.S. News Law School Rankings Methodology: Implications And Predictions:  Seth Barrett Tillman (National University of Ireland, Maynooth - Faculty of Law), The Future of U.S. News and World Report’s Law School Rankings: A Letter from A Friend:

[T]he HeinOnline] ScholarRank score is about to become the single most important metric in American legal academia. Starting next year, 40% of each American law school’s U.S. News [and World Report] ranking will be based on HeinOnline’s cumulative ScholarRank of the school’s faculty (which apparently will consist of the combined faculty score divided by the number of tenured and tenure-track faculty). It’s going to have a huge impact on our field. Interestingly, however, most law school faculty (at least in my neck of the woods) seem unaware of ScholarRank.

I checked with Robert Morse (Chief Data Strategist, U.S. News & World Report) and he provided this response:

U.S. News will not replace the peer assessment score and assessment score by lawyers and judges with HeinOnline citation metrics in the 2023 law school rankings. We don’t have any announcements for future editions of the rankings.

 

Continue reading

The New U.S. News Law School Rankings Methodology: Implications And Predictions

Following up on my previous post, 2022 U.S. News Law School Rankings:  Mike Spivey (Spivey Consulting), Understanding and Implications of the New USNWR Law School Rankings Methodology:

For the first time in years, U.S. News & World Report has changed their law school ranking methodology. Starting this year, the metrics will include a new factor: graduate debt. This new factor will be assigned a 5% overall weight. The metric has two components.

First, 3% weight will be applied to the average amount of graduate debt incurred by students in the previous year’s graduating class. Only students who have taken on law school debt will be counted in this metric. Higher average debt will hurt; lower average debt will help.

Second, 2% weight will be applied to the proportion of a school’s graduating class who incurred law school debt. Again, higher proportions will hurt; lower proportions will help.

To make room for these new factors, U.S. News has reduced the weighting of two categories. The “Selectivity” factors have been reduced from 25% weight to 21%. Median test scores will now count for 11.25% of rankings, median GPA will count for 8.75%, and acceptance rate will count for 1%.

The Faculty Resources metric has been reduced from 15% weight to 14%.

There are absolutely some positives coming from these changes. First, they reduce the influence of admissions metrics. ... It is the first time that the rankings have, in any real way, addressed the cost of law school. ...

These new metrics are a step in the right direction, but they aren’t without downside.

Continue reading

The Ten Smallest Towns With Law Schools

Continue reading

March Madness Law School Bracket

Here is the March Madness Law School Bracket, with outcomes determined by the 2021 U.S. News Law School Rankings (using academic peer reputation as the tiebreaker). The Final Four are Virginia (8), Michigan (9), Florida (24), and Illinois (31), with Virginia beating Florida in the championship game.

2022 U.S. News Law School Rankings

Robert Morse (Chief Data Strategist, U.S. News & World Report) has announced that the new 2022 law school rankings will be released on Tuesday, March 30:

[N]ew with the 2022 edition will be U.S. News' first standalone ranking based on the percentage of a law school's enrollment who are underrepresented minorities. This Most Diverse Law Schools ranking takes into account Black, Hispanic, Native American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander enrollment.

Here is my coverage of the current 2021 law school rankings:

• 2021 U.S. News Law School Peer Reputation Rankings (And Overall Rankings) (Mar. 17, 2020)
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Pepperdine’s Place In The 2021 U.S. News Law School Rankings (Mar. 17, 2020)
• 2021 U.S. News Tax Rankings (Mar. 18, 2020)
• 2021 U.S. News Business/Corporate Law Rankings (Mar. 19, 2020)
• 2021 U.S. News Clinical Training Rankings (Mar. 20, 2020)
• 2021 U.S. News Constitutional Law Rankings (Mar. 21, 2020)
• 2021 U.S. News Contracts/Commercial Law Rankings (Mar. 23, 2020)
• 2021 U.S. News Criminal Law Rankings (Mar. 24, 2020)
• 2021 U.S. News Dispute Resolution Rankings (Mar. 25, 2020)
• 2021 U.S. News Environmental Law Rankings (Mar. 26, 2020)
• 2021 U.S. News Health Care Law Rankings (Mar. 27, 2020)
• 2021 U.S. News Intellectual Property Law Rankings (Mar. 30, 2020)
• 2021 U.S. News International Law Rankings (Mar. 31, 2020)
• 2021 U.S. News Legal Writing Rankings (Apr. 1, 2020)
• 2021 U.S. News Trial Advocacy Rankings (Apr. 2, 2020)
• 2021 U.S. News Omnibus Specialty Rankings (Apr. 7, 2020)
• 2021 U.S. News Omnibus Specialty Rankings v. Overall Rankings (Apr. 8, 2020)
• Law School Rankings By Salary Of Graduates (Apr. 14, 2020)
• Law School Rankings By Debt Of Graduates (Apt. 15, 2020)
• Law School Rankings By Debt-To-Income Ratios Of Graduates (Apr. 16, 2020)
• GMAC, Accreditors Seek To Postpone Business School Rankings During COVID-19 (Apr. 27, 2020)
• 2020 World Law School Rankings (Apr. 30, 2020)
• Bradley A. Areheart (Tennessee), The Top 100 Law Schools, Based On 5-, 10-, And 15-Year Rolling Average U.S. News Rankings (Apr. 30, 2020)
• The 250 Most-Cited Legal Scholars (May 1, 2020)
• Noah Chauvin (J.D. 2019, William & Mary), U.S. News Law School Rankings And College Football (May 2, 2020)
• Robert L. Jones (Northern Illinois), U.S. News Law School Academic Reputation Scores, 1998-2020 (May 5, 2020)
• Businessweek Suspends MBA Rankings Due To COVID-19; Will US News Follow Suit? What About Law School Rankings? (May 12, 2020)
• The Ten Law Schools With The Most Discounted Tuition (May 25, 2020)
• Movement Builds To Suspend U.S. News Rankings During COVID-19 Pandemic (May 28, 2020)
• Caroline Osborne (West Virginia) & Stephanie Miller (West Virginia), Use Of Google Scholar And Hein Author Profiles Boosts Citations (May 28, 2020)
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Bob Morse Discusses The U.S. News Law School Rankings Today At Texas A&M Virtual Conference (Jun. 5, 2020)
• The Best Law Schools For Practical Training (Jun. 9, 2020)
• Law School Rankings By Class Of 2019 Job Placement (Jun. 10, 2020)
• The 20 Law Schools With The Most Improved Bar Passage Rates (Jun. 11, 2020)
• Robert Morse (Chief Data Strategist, U.S. News) & Eric Brook (Senior Data Analyst), After 7 Of 8 Ivy League Schools Drop SAT/ACT For Class of 2025, U.S. News Will Start Ranking Test-Blind Colleges (Jun. 19, 2020)
• Andy Thomason (Chronicle of Higher Education), College Fall 2020 Plans And U.S. News Rankings: Higher Ranked Schools Are More Likely Online, Lower Ranked Schools Are More Likely On-Ground (Jun. 29, 2020)
• Bryce Clayton Newell (Oregon), 2020 Meta-Ranking Of Flagship U.S. Law Reviews (Jul. 20, 2020)
• James C. Phillips (Chapman), Which Law Schools Will Thrive (46), Survive (65), Struggle (23), Or Perish (18) In The Age Of COVID-19? (Jul. 31, 2020)
• Miami And AALS Host Free Virtual Symposium Today On Power, Privilege, and Transformation: Lessons From The Pandemic For Online Legal Education (Aug. 5, 2020)
• Rory Bahadur (Washburn), Attrition And Bar Performance (Sept. 14, 2020)
• 2021 U.S. News College Rankings (Sept. 14, 2020)
• The Cost Of The University Of Florida's Ascent Up The U.S. News Rankings, From #52 (#17 Among Public Universities) To #30 (#6) (Sept. 21, 2020)
• Law Firm Climate Change Rankings (Oct. 1, 2020)
• 2021 U.S. News Global Universities Rankings (Oct. 21, 2020)
• U.S. News To Publish Law Faculty Scholarly Impact Ranking In 2021 (Nov. 9, 2021)
• October 2020 Florida Bar Exam Results: Florida International Is #1 For 6th Year In A Row (Nov. 21, 2020)
• 2019 Tax Journal Rankings: Tax Notes #1, Florida Tax Review #2 (Dec. 1, 2020)
• October 2020 Ohio Bar Exam Results: Case Western #1 (Dec. 2, 2020)
• Online MBA Rankings Scandal Costs Temple $17 Million; After Ranking #1 In 2015-2018 With False Data, Business School Now Ranks #88 (Dec. 6, 2020)
• Michael Conklin (Angelo State University), The Curious Case Of Howard Law School’s Peer Ranking (Dec. 7, 2020)
• Princeton Review's Best 164 Law Schools (2021 Edition) (Dec. 9, 2020)
• Jerry Organ (St. Thomas (MN)), 2020 Legal Ed Data Show Rebound In Transfer Market (Dec. 21, 2020)
• October 2020 Georgia Bar Exam Results: Georgia #1 For 7th Consecutive Year (Dec. 21, 2020)
• Derek Muller (Iowa), Non-JD Enrollment Continues To Climb (Dec. 23, 2020)
• October 2020 Tennessee Bar Exam Results: Vanderbilt, Tennessee Tie For #1 (Dec. 26, 2020)
• Derek Muller (Iowa), Law Schools With The Best And Worst Debt-To-Income Ratios Among Recent Graduates (Jan. 4, 2021)
• 2021 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Admissions Selectivity (Jan. 11, 2021)
• 2021 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Academic Experience (Jan. 12, 2021)
• 2021 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Professors (Teaching) (Jan. 13, 2021)
• 2021 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Professors (Accessibility) (Jan. 14, 2021)
• 2021 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Career Rating (Jan. 15, 2021)
• 2021 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Professors (Teaching And Accessibility) (Jan. 18, 2021)
• 2021 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Overall Ranking (Jan. 19, 2021)
• Michael Conklin (Angelo State University), Political Ideology And The U.S. News Law School Rankings: Measuring The Conservative Penalty And Liberal Bonus (Jan. 20, 2021)
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Preview Of The 2022 U.S. News Law School Rankings: Acceptance Rate (Jan. 20, 2021)
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Preview Of The 2022 U.S. News Law School Rankings: UGPA (Jan. 21, 2021)
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Preview Of The 2022 U.S. News Law School Rankings: LSAT (Jan. 22, 2021)
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Preview Of The 2022 U.S. News Law School Rankings: Admissions (Jan. 26, 2021)
• A New Study Identifies Law Schools Whose Graduates Overperform And Underperform On The Bar Exam (Feb. 1, 2021)
• Jeffrey S. Kinsler (Belmont), The Best Law Schools For Passing The Bar Exam (Feb. 1, 2021)
• The Most Diverse Law Schools (Feb. 16, 2021)
• Harvard, Stanford, Other Elite Business Schools Skip Some Rankings This Year Due To COVID-19, But Not The U.S. News Rankings To Be Released Next Month (Feb. 16, 2021)
• Law School Rankings By Female Enrollment (2020) (Mar. 3, 2021)
• 2021 Law School Rankings By Graduates In BigLaw Jobs (Mar. 5, 2021)
• 2021 World Law School Rankings (Mar. 9, 2021)

2021 World Law School Rankings

Quacquarelli Symonds has released the 2021 World Law School Rankings as part of its World University Rankings. The methodology is 50% academic reputation, 30% employer reputation, 15% h-index per faculty member, and 5% citations per paper.  The rankings consist of 320 law schools, 50 in the United States.  Here are the U.S. law schools, along with each school's position in the latest SSRN Top 750 Law School Faculty Rankings -- Total Downloads):

QS Ranking	School	SSRN Ranking
1	Harvard	1
4	Yale	4
5	Stanford	2
7	Columbia	6
8	NYU	3
9	UC-Berkeley	5
11	Chicago	7
19	Georgetown	9
26	UCLA	15
30	Michigan	13
31	Pennsylvania	11
32	Duke	18
38	Cornell	27
46	Virginia	20
49	Northwestern	14
75	George Washington	8
98	Boston University	30
101-150	American	46
101-150	Fordham	16
101-150	UC-Irvine	28
101-150	USC	31
101-150	Texas	33
101-150	Univ. of Washington	70
151-200	Arizona State	60
151-200	Emory	57
151-200	Michigan State	81
151-200	Penn State (Univ. Park)	97
151-200	Notre Dame	55
151-200	Wisconsin	99
151-200	Vanderbilt	17
151-200	Washington Univ.	41
201-250	Boston College	84
201-250	George Mason	23
201-250	Indiana (Maurer)	36
201-250	Loyola-Chicago	54
201-250	Arizona	49
201-250	UC-Davis	32
201-250	Florida	50
201-250	Illinois	34
201-250	Minnesota	25
201-250	North Carolina	67
251-300	Florida State	59
251-300	Ohio State	37
251-300	Tulane	207
251-300	Colorado	72
251-300	UIC-John Marshall	172
251-300	Miami	69
301-320	CUNY	171
301-320	Missouri	130
301-320	San Diego	38

Continue reading

2021 Law School Rankings By Graduates In BigLaw Jobs

Law.com, The Top 50 Go-To Law Schools:

We have ranked the 50 law schools that sent the highest percentage of their 2020 juris doctor graduates into associate positions at the largest 100 law firms in the country [methodology].  Columbia Law School tops the list for the eighth straight year, with 65% of its recent graduate class now working in Big Law.

1. Columbia
2. Northwestern
3. Cornell
4. Pennsylvania
5. NYU
6. Duke
7. Chicago
8. Virginia
9. UC-Berkeley
10. Harvard
11. Georgetown
12. USC
13. Stanford
14. Michigan
15. UCLA
16. Yale
17. Fordham
18. Texas
19. Boston College
20. Boston University

Columbia Reigns Supreme in Big Law Hiring, But Northwestern, Cornell Came on Strong in 2020
Columbia Law School lands at the top of our 2021 Go-To Law Schools ranking of Big Law feeder schools, marking the eighth straight year the school tops the list.

Go-To Law Schools: All Schools Data
See hiring stats for every law school that sent a 2020 graduate to one of the largest 100 firms.

Go-To Law Schools: Search By School
Search our Go-To Law Schools data by school to see the firms where 2020 graduates found associate jobs.

Go-To Law Schools: Search By Firm
Search our Go-To Law Schools hiring data by firm to see the schools from which they hired new associates.

Explore the Data Behind The Go-To Law Schools
Our interactive database allows you to delve into all the Go-To Law Schools School associate hiring and alumni partner promotion data.

Continue reading

Law School Rankings By Female Enrollment (2020)

Law School Rankings by Female Enrollment (2020):

Women outnumbered men in law school classrooms across the United States in 2020 for the 5th year in a row.

Here at Enjuris, we've spent 5 years tracking gender enrollment in law schools because studies show that female representation is important in the legal field.

With that in mind, let's take a closer look at the gender composition of law schools in 2020 based on the most recent data released by the American Bar Association (ABA), as well as how gender demographics have changed since we first started tracking the data and what the future might look like. ...

[W]omen have been making steady gains in top-ranked law schools. Thirteen of the top 20 law schools in 2020 increased the percentage of female attendees from 2019. What's more, 13 of the top 20 law schools had more female attendees than male attendees. ...

Overall law school rankings by female enrollment:

Continue reading

Harvard, Stanford, Other Elite Business Schools Skip Some Rankings This Year Due To COVID-19, But Not The U.S. News Rankings To Be Released Next Month

Following up on my previous posts:

• Businessweek Suspends MBA Rankings Due To COVID-19; Will US News Follow Suit? What About Law School Rankings?
• Bob Morse On The Possible Suspension Of The U.S. News Law School Rankings Due To COVID-19

Wall Street Journal, What’s the Best Business School? For This Year’s M.B.A. Rankings, It’s Not Who You Think.:

As Harvard, Stanford, other elite schools skip some rankings this year, European universities top lists, lesser-known programs get a boost.

Several top U.S. business schools are skipping popular M.B.A. rankings this year, upending an annual rite for programs and prospective students.

Harvard Business School, the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, Columbia Business School and the Stanford Graduate School of Business, among others, opted to skip the most recent rankings by the Economist and the Financial Times. Several schools said Covid-19 made it difficult to gather the data they must submit to be ranked. ... 

Overall, 62% of programs plan to participate in some rankings, while 10% don’t plan to cooperate for any lists this year, according to a survey of business-school admissions officials by Kaplan, the education subsidiary of the Graham Holdings Co.

Bloomberg Businessweek suspended its 2020 ranking, the only major list to do so. Dozens of notable schools were missing from the Economist’s list published last month. Nine schools that normally take part in the FT’s list chose not to participate, a spokeswoman said. ...

U.S. News & World Report will publish its popular ranking as usual in March, said its chief data strategist, Robert Morse. He declined to say whether any schools had opted out.

Harvard, Stanford and Columbia, which have frequently ranked in the top 10, said they are participating in the U.S. News ranking, in part, because it is less time-consuming.

Poets & Quants, B-School Rankings Boycott Begins To Collapse For Financial Times:

Continue reading

The Most Diverse Law Schools

preLaw, Most Diverse Law Schools:

[W]e honor the nation’s Most Diverse Law Schools, which we do every other year. ... Methodology: Our grades are based on how well each school matches with the U.S. average for each minority population. For students, we look at Asian (which includes native Hawaiian), Black, Hispanic, Caucasian and American Indian populations. For faculty, we compare overall U.S. minority percentages with the percentage of minority faculty. A school receives full credit when it matches the national average and can receive up to 40% added value when its percentage is higher than the national average for each population. Faculty accounts for 25% of the final grade, with each student population accounting for 16.67%, except for American Indian, which accounts for 8.32%. We’ve used this methodology since 2013. All data is from the American Bar Association. ...

The study rewards schools for providing a mix of races. That is why Howard University, with a student body that is 94.2% Black, does not make the list. It’s the top law school in the nation for Black students and racial justice, but it fares poorly when it comes to overall diversity. ...

Pepperdine Caruso School of Law, which just missed our honor roll with a grade of B, recently created a scholarship for students who are graduates of a Historical Black College or University (HBCU). Qualifying students who choose the Malibu, Calif., school get a 50% scholarship. Five will receive full scholarships.  ...

Continue reading

Kinsler: The Best Law Schools For Passing The Bar Exam

TaxProf Blog op-ed:  The Best Law Schools For Passing the Bar Exam, by Jeffrey S. Kinsler (Belmont):

According to the American Bar Association, bar passage rates are “the single best outcome measure . . . in assessing whether a law school is maintaining a ‘rigorous program of legal education.’”[1]  Bar passage rates are better measures of the quality of legal education than graduation rates or employment results, for these outcomes “are not as directly relevant . . . to determining whether a law school is offering an educational program that is comprehensive and sufficiently rigorous. . . .”[2]  Bar passage rates are—and should be—important to all law students and potential law students.  Students “are entitled . . . to an education that provides them with a reasonable chance of passing the bar and entering the profession. . . . [L]aw students often incur substantial debt to earn a law degree.  Whether students pass the bar influences their future livelihood and quality of life immensely, including their abilities to pay back their loans while maintaining an acceptable quality of life.”[3] 

Undergraduate GPAs (UGPAs) and LSAT scores are the two primary factors considered by law school admissions offices.[4]  Statistically, students with higher UGPAs and LSAT scores are more likely to pass the bar exam than students with lower UGPAs and LSAT scores.[5]  As a consequence, a predicted bar passage rate may be calculated for each law school based upon its UGPA and LSAT scores.  Once a predicted bar passage rate is calculated, it is possible to determine which law schools are over-performing or under-performing in terms of preparing their students to pass the bar exam.  In other words, it is possible to show which law schools are adding the most bar-passage value to (or subtracting the most from) their students. 

Utilizing linear regression models, the performance of 187 ABA-approved law schools was assessed using four metrics (reported by the ABA) for each calendar year for the five-year period of 2015-2019: [6] (1) Median LSAT and Composite Average First-Time Bar Pass Rate;[7] (2) Median UGPA and Composite Average First-Time Bar Pass Rate; (3) Median LSAT and Composite Average First-Time Bar Pass Rate Differential;[8] and (4) Median UGPA and Composite Average First-Time Bar Pass Rate Differential.  An annual rank was then calculated for each law school based on its over-performance (or under-performance) of predicted expectations for bar passage.  An average annual rank was then calculated based on each law school’s performance over the period of 2015-2019.

Best Law Schools.  Based upon this analysis, the top 15 law schools in terms of over-performing predicted expectations for bar passage based upon UGPA and LSAT scores of incoming students are as follows [the spreadsheet with 5-year bar passage ranking data for 187 law schools is here]:

Rank	Top 15 Law Schools for Bar Passage
1	BELMONT UNIVERSITY
2	FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY
3	LIBERTY UNIVERSITY
4	CAMPBELL UNIVERSITY
5	TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY
6	DUQUESNE UNIVERSITY
7	LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY
8	GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY
9	TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY
10	UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
11	REGENT UNIVERSITY
12	UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
13	SETON HALL UNIVERSITY
14	CLEVELAND STATE UNIVERSITY
15	UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA

Continue reading

A New Study Identifies Law Schools Whose Graduates Overperform And Underperform On The Bar Exam

Bar Exam Standouts: A New Study Identifies Law Schools Whose Graduates Overperform on the Crucial Test, Nat'l  Jurist, Jan./Feb. 2021, at 16: 

The bar exam is the price of admittance for those who want to practice law, and passing the dreaded exam, particularly on the first try, is far from a given.

In 2019, statistics show, 79.6% of first-time test-takers passed the bar in their states. That means more than 20% of law grads failed, and that’s a big number given how much time and money they had invested.

When Paul Caron became dean of Pepperdine Caruso School of Law in Malibu, Calif., in 2017, improving the school’s bar passage rate was a top priority.

“Historically our students had done much better on the California bar exam than their incoming LSAT scores and undergraduate GPAs would have predicted,” Caron said. “But around 2015, we had begun to see a slump.”

In an effort to turn things around, Caron hired a new director of academic excellence to expand the school’s bar prep efforts and provide additional support and mentorship to students.

And it worked. The school’s bar passage rate went from 87.2% within two years of graduation in 2015 to 91.4% within one year of graduation in 2018.

“While it helps to have entering 1Ls with top LSAT scores and undergraduate GPAs, there is also a definite correlation between how well a school prepares its students and the school’s bar passage rate,” Caron said.

Indeed, a recent study by Jeffry Kinsler, founding dean of Belmont University College of Law in Nashville, Tenn., confirms the important role schools play in their students’ ability to pass the bar [The Best Law Schools For Passing the Bar Exam].

Using linear regression models — translation: serious math — Kinsler and his colleague, professor Jeffrey Usman, assessed the performance of graduates from 187 ABA-approved schools for a five-year period (2015-19) to determine which schools were providing the most bar-passage value to their students. (Twenty schools were excluded because of missing or inconsistent data.)

Continue reading

Preview Of The 2022 U.S. News Law School Rankings: Admissions

The 2022 U.S. News Law School Rankings (based in part on 2020 admissions data) will be released in March (the 2021 rankings are here). In the current methodology, law school admissions count 25% in the overall ranking. Last week, I blogged the ABA data comprising the three components of the admissions ranking:

• Acceptance Rate (2.5%)
• Median Undergraduate GPA (10%)
• Median LSAT (12.5%) (omits GRE due to lack of data)

Below are two admissions rankings. The first is a simple ranking using the above weights. The second uses Z-scores with the above weights to better approximate the U.S. News methodology.

	Law School	Acceptance Rate Rank	UPGA Rank	LSAT Rank	Weighted Ranks
1	Yale	1	1	1	1.0
2	Harvard	3	7	1	3.6
3	Stanford	2	4	4	3.8
4	Chicago	9	4	4	4.5
5	Virginia	4	3	6	4.6
6	Pennsylvania	5	4	6	5.1
7	Columbia	7	14	3	7.8
8	Washington Univ.	19	7	9	9.2
9	Northwestern	13	10	9	9.8
10	NYU	21	14	6	10.7
11	Cornell	12	9	14	11.8
12	Duke	23	19	9	14.4
13	USC	8	12	18	14.6
14	UCLA	26	22	9	15.9
15	UC-Berkeley	20	18	14	16.2
16	Michigan	6	30	9	17.1
16	Vanderbilt	25	14	18	17.1
18	Georgetown	16	24	14	18.2
19	Florida	15	11	26	18.9
20	Boston Univ.	28	19	18	19.4
21	Texas	11	30	14	20.1
22	Arizona State	29	12	26	20.7
23	Alabama	56	1	30	21.0
24	Emory	40	19	22	22.6
25	BYU	65	14	22	23.1
26	Georgia	14	24	26	24.0
27	Notre Dame	17	34	18	24.3
28	George Washington	49	30	22	27.9
29	George Mason	27	27	30	28.5
30	Minnesota	62	27	26	30.0
31	Wake Forest	10	34	34	31.6
32	Boston College	39	40	30	34.9
33	North Carolina	22	41	34	35.6
34	UC-Davis	43	37	34	36.1
35	Ohio State	54	22	49	38.7
36	Indiana-Bloom.	88	24	42	39.4
37	UC-Irvine	18	67	22	39.6
38	Utah	45	27	49	39.8
39	Fordham	31	55	30	40.1
40	Pepperdine	33	41	42	40.7
41	Texas A&M	24	30	55	41.9
42	SMU	77	34	42	42.3
43	Colorado	63	48	34	42.5
44	Washington	52	41	42	42.6
45	Florida State	35	37	49	42.8
46	Northeastern	55	48	42	45.7
47	Washington & Lee	66	58	34	46.8
48	Cardozo	70	48	42	47.2
49	Penn State-Univ. Park	69	37	55	49.2
50	Arizona	32	76	34	50.6

Continue reading

Preview Of The 2022 U.S. News Law School Rankings: LSAT

Update:  Preview Of The 2022 U.S. News Law School Rankings: Admissions

The 2022 U.S. News Law School Rankings (based in part on 2020 admissions data) will be released in March (the 2021 rankings are here). In the current methodology, a law school's median LSAT and GRE scores count 12.5% in the overall ranking. Because the ABA only reports GRE scores for law schools with 10 or more admitted students with GRE scores, the ranking below are based solely on median LSAT scores: 

Rank	School	2020 LSAT	2019 LSAT
1	Harvard	173	173 (1)
1	Yale	173	173 (2)
3	Columbia	172	172 (3)
4	Chicago	171	170 (5)
4	Stanford	171	171 (4)
6	NYU	170	170 (5)
6	Pennsylvania	170	170 (5)
6	Virginia	170	170 (5)
9	Duke	169	169 (9)
9	Michigan	169	169 (9)
9	Northwestern	169	169 (9)
9	UCLA	169	168 (13)
9	Washington Univ.	169	169 (9)
14	Cornell	168	168 (13)
14	Georgetown	168	168 (13)
14	Texas	168	168 (13)
14	UC-Berkeley	168	168 (13)
18	Boston Univ.	167	166 (19)
18	Notre Dame	167	165 (22)
18	USC	167	166 (19)
18	Vanderbilt	167	167 (18)
22	BYU	166	164 (26)
22	Emory	166	165 (22)
22	George Washington	166	166 (19)
22	UC-Irvine	166	165 (22)
26	Arizona State	165	164 (26)
26	Florida	165	164 (26)
26	Georgia	165	164 (26)
26	Minnesota	165	165 (22)
30	Alabama	164	164 (26)
30	Boston College	164	164 (26)
30	Fordham	164	164 (26)
30	George Mason	164	164 (26)
34	Arizona	163	162 (37)
34	Colorado	163	163 (34)
34	North Carolina	163	161 (46)
34	UC-Davis	163	162 (37)
34	Wake Forest	163	162 (37)
34	Washington & Lee	163	163 (34)
34	William & Mary	163	163 (34)
34	Wisconsin	163	162 (37)
42	Cardozo	162	162 (37)
42	Illinois	162	162 (37)
42	Indiana-Bloom.	162	162 (37)
42	Northeastern	162	162 (37)
42	Pepperdine	162	161 (46)
42	SMU	162	161 (46)
42	Washington	162	162 (37)
49	Florida State	161	160 (54)
49	Iowa	161	161 (46)
49	Ohio State	161	161 (46)
49	Richmond	161	161 (46)
49	Temple	161	161 (46)
49	Utah	161	160 (54)

Continue reading

Preview Of The 2022 U.S. News Law School Rankings: UGPA

Update:  Preview Of The 2022 U.S. News Law School Rankings: Admissions

The 2022 U.S. News Law School Rankings (based in part on 2020 admissions data) will be released in March (the 2021 rankings are here). In the current methodology, a law school's median undergraduate GPA counts 10% in the overall ranking. Here are the rankings by median UGPA from ABA data:

Rank	School	2020 UGPA	2019 UGPA
1	Alabama	3.94	3.91 (2)
1	Yale	3.94	3.93 (1)
3	Virginia	3.90	3.90 (4)
4	Chicago	3.89	3.90 (4)
4	Pennsylvania	3.89	3.89 (6)
4	Stanford	3.89	3.91 (2)
7	Harvard	3.88	3.89 (6)
7	Washington Univ.	3.88	3.83 (9)
9	Cornell	3.86	3.81 (11)
10	Northwestern	3.85	3.85 (8)
11	Florida	3.84	3.80 (15)
12	Arizona State	3.83	3.81 (11)
12	USC	3.83	3.80 (15)
14	BYU	3.82	3.82 (10)
14	Columbia	3.82	3.80 (15)
14	NYU	3.82	3.80 (15)
14	Vanderbilt	3.82	3.80 (15)
18	UC-Berkeley	3.81	3.81 (11)
19	Boston Univ.	3.80	3.78 (23)
19	Duke	3.80	3.78 (23)
19	Emory	3.80	3.80 (15)
22	Ohio State	3.79	3.76 (26)
22	UCLA	3.79	3.79 (21)
24	Georgetown	3.78	3.78 (23)
24	Georgia	3.78	3.73 (31)
24	Indiana-Bloom.	3.78	3.79 (22)
27	George Mason	3.77	3.75 (28)
27	Minnesota	3.77	3.75 (28)
27	Utah	3.77	3.60 (67)
30	George Washington	3.76	3.73 (31)
30	Michigan	3.76	3.81 (11)
30	Texas A&M	3.76	3.62 (60)
30	Texas	3.76	3.72 (35)
34	Notre Dame	3.75	3.74 (30)
34	SMU	3.73	3.70 (36)
34	Wake Forest	3.73	3.68 (39)
37	Florida State	3.72	3.73 (31)
37	Penn State-Univ. Park	3.72	3.65 (43)
37	UC-Davis	3.72	3.61 (63)
40	Boston College	3.69	3.64 (48)
41	North Carolina	3.68	3.63 (54)
41	Pepperdine	3.68	3.66 (41)
41	Washington	3.68	3.68 (39)
44	UNLV	3.67	3.69 (38)
45	Kansas	3.66	3.65 (43)
45	Maryland	3.66	3.66 (41)
45	Missouri-Columbia	3.66	3.64 (48)
48	Cardozo	3.65	3.60 (67)
48	Cincinnati	3.65	3.64 (48)
48	Colorado	3.65	3.61 (63)
48	Florida Int'l	3.65	3.61 (63)
48	Northeastern	3.65	3.63 (54)
48	San Diego	3.65	3.57 (74)
48	Wayne State	3.65	3.56 (76)

Continue reading

Preview Of The 2022 U.S. News Law School Rankings: Acceptance Rate

Update:  Preview Of The 2022 U.S. News Law School Rankings: Admissions

The 2022 U.S. News Law School Rankings (based in part on 2020 admissions data) will be released in March (the 2021 rankings are here). In the current methodology, a law school's acceptance rate counts 2.5% in the overall ranking. Here are the rankings by acceptance rate from ABA data:

Rank	School	2020 Acceptance Rate	2019 Acceptance Rate
1	Yale	7.40	8.22 (1)
2	Stanford	10.48	9.72 (2)
3	Harvard	13.00	12.49 (3)
4	Virginia	14.05	14.69 (5)
5	Pennsylvania	14.30	14.51 (4)
6	Michigan	16.36	16.63 (7)
7	Columbia	16.69	15.86 (6)
8	USC	17.18	17.69 (9)
9	Chicago	17.86	18.61 (11)
10	Wake Forest	17.99	40.45 (70)
11	Texas	18.43	17.53 (8)
12	Cornell	19.03	21.33 (19)
13	Northwestern	19.20	18.01 (10)
14	Georgia	19.35	20.77 (16)
15	Florida	19.77	20.65 (15)
16	Georgetown	20.10	19.54 (13)
17	Notre Dame	20.28	24.05 (24)
18	UC-Irvine	20.30	20.81 (17)
19	Washington Univ.	20.31	24.82 (25)
20	UC-Berkeley	21.53	19.68 (14)
21	NYU	21.58	21.60 (20)
22	North Carolina	21.62	33.87 (45)
23	Duke	22.34	18.91 (12)
24	Texas A&M	22.43	28.73 (32)
25	Vanderbilt	22.57	21.91 (21)
26	UCLA	22.75	22.41 (22)
27	George Mason	22.80	20.85 (18)
28	Boston Univ.	24.93	23.14 (23)
29	Arizona State	26.19	29.41 (34)
30	Florida Int'l	27.33	28.59 (31)
31	Fordham	27.37	27.25 (28)
32	Arizona	27.74	26.29 (26)
33	Pepperdine	28.20	29.81 (35)
34	Georgia State	28.57	29.30 (33)
35	Florida State	29.70	32.67 (41)
36	Villanova	29.75	34.18 (47)
37	Texas Southern	30.43	28.17 (30)
38	UNLV	31.07	27.24 (27)
39	Boston College	31.84	31.31 (40)
40	Emory	32.21	31.00 (37)
41	Chapman	32.55	33.96 (46)
42	District of Columbia	32.63	35.78 (54)
43	UC-Davis	33.06	31.03 (38)
44	Tennessee	33.33	34.36 (49)
45	Utah	33.45	40.87 (74)
46	Houston	33.59	35.05 (51)
47	Florida A&M	33.82	50.17 (112)
48	Baylor	34.02	35.45 (52)
49	George Washington	34.15	31.03 (38)
50	Howard	34.22	38.19 (61)

Continue reading

Political Ideology And The U.S. News Law School Rankings: Measuring The Conservative Penalty And Liberal Bonus

Michael Conklin (Angelo State University), Political Ideology and Law School Rankings: Measuring the Conservative Penalty and Liberal Bonus:

U.S. News & World Report conducts overall rankings and peer rankings of law schools. This Article reports the findings of a first-of-its-kind study designed to measure whether peer rankings are affected by a law school’s ideological reputation. The extreme disparity uncovered — combined with consistent findings in studies that measure other forms of ideological bias in legal academia — make a strong case for the existence of a conservative penalty and liberal bonus in law school rankings. This Article concludes by proposing a simple solution to circumvent this particular manifestation of ideological bias.

Continue reading

2021 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Overall Ranking

I previously blogged the lists of the Top 5 law schools in fourteen categories in the 2021 edition of the Princeton Review's Best Law Schools. Last week, I highlighted the Top 50 schools in the five categories for which the Princeton Review provides individual law school data:

• Admissions Selectivity
• Academic Experience
• Professors: Teaching
• Professors: Accessibility
• Career Rating

Yesterday, I blogged the Top 50 law school professor rankings, equal weight (50%) to the Professors: Teaching and Professors: Accessibility rankings.

Today, in my concluding post, I blog the Princeton Review's overall law school rankings, giving equal weight (20%) to each of the Admissions Selectivity, Academic Experience, Professors: Teaching, Professors: Accessibility, and Career Rating rankings:

Continue reading

2021 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Professors (Teaching And Accessibility)

I previously blogged the lists of the Top 5 law schools in fourteen categories in the 2021 edition of the Princeton Review's Best Law Schools. Last week, I highlighted the Top 50 schools in the five categories for which the Princeton Review provides individual law school data:

• Admissions Selectivity
• Academic Experience
• Professors: Teaching
• Professors: Accessibility
• Career Rating

Here are the Top 50 law school professor rankings, giving equal weight (50%) to the Professors: Teaching and Professors: Accessibility rankings:

Continue reading

2021 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Career Rating

I previously blogged the lists of the Top 5 law schools in fourteen categories in the 2021 edition of the Princeton Review's Best Law Schools. In a series of posts this week, I will highlight the Top 50 schools in the five categories for which the Princeton Review provides individual law school data:

• Admissions Selectivity
• Academic Experience
• Professors: Teaching
• Professors: Accessibility
• Career Rating

Career Rating:  This rating measures the confidence students have in their school's ability to lead them to fruitful employment opportunities, as well as the school's own record of having done so. This rating takes into account both student survey responses and school-reported statistical data. We ask students about how much the law program encourages practical experience; the opportunities for externships, internships, and clerkships; and how prepared to practice law they expect to feel after graduating. We ask law schools for the median starting salaries of graduating students; the percentage employed in a job that requires bar passage (and not employed by the school); and the percentage of these students who pass the bar exam the first time they take it. This rating is on a scale of 60–99.

Continue reading

2021 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Professors (Accessibility)

I previously blogged the lists of the Top 5 law schools in fourteen categories in the 2021 edition of the Princeton Review's Best Law Schools. In a series of posts this week, I will highlight the Top 50 schools in the five categories for which the Princeton Review provides individual law school data:

• Admissions Selectivity
• Academic Experience
• Professors: Teaching
• Professors: Accessibility
• Career Rating

Professors: Accessible:  This rating is based on how law students rate the accessibility of law faculty members at their school. The rating is on a scale of 60 to 99. 

Continue reading

2021 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Professors (Teaching)

I previously blogged the lists of the Top 5 law schools in fourteen categories in the 2021 edition of the Princeton Review's Best Law Schools. In a series of posts this week, I will highlight the Top 50 schools in the five categories for which the Princeton Review provides individual law school data:

• Admissions Selectivity
• Academic Experience
• Professors: Teaching
• Professors: Accessibility
• Career Rating

Professors: Interesting:  This rating is based on how students rate the quality of teaching at their law school. This rating is on a scale of 60-99.

Continue reading

2021 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Academic Experience

I previously blogged the lists of the Top 5 law schools in fourteen categories in the 2021 edition of the Princeton Review's Best Law Schools. In a series of posts this week, I will highlight the Top 50 schools in the five categories for which the Princeton Review provides individual law school data:

• Admissions Selectivity
• Academic Experience
• Professors: Teaching
• Professors: Accessibility
• Career Rating

Academic Experience:  This rating measures the quality of the school's learning environment on a scale of 60 to 99. Factors taken into consideration include the Admissions Selectivity Rating, as well as how students rate each of the following: the quality of teaching and the accessibility of their professors, the research resources at their school, the range of available courses, the balance of curricular emphasis on legal theory and practical lawyering, the tolerance for diverse opinions in the classroom, and the degree of intellectual challenge that the coursework presents.

Continue reading

2021 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Admissions Selectivity

I previously blogged the lists of the Top 5 law schools in fourteen categories in the 2021 edition of the Princeton Review's Best Law Schools. In a series of posts this week, I will highlight the Top 50 schools in the five categories for which the Princeton Review provides individual law school data:

• Admissions Selectivity
• Academic Experience
• Professors: Teaching
• Professors: Accessibility
• Career Rating

Admissions Selectivity:  This rating measures the competitiveness of admissions at each law school on a scale of 60–99. Factors taken into consideration include the median LSAT score and undergraduate GPA of entering 1L students, the percentage of applicants who are accepted, and the percentage of applicants who are accepted and ultimately enroll. 

Continue reading

Muller: Law Schools With The Best And Worst Debt-To-Income Ratios Among Recent Graduates

Following upon my previous posts (links below):  Derek Muller (Iowa), Which Law Schools Have the Best and Worst Debt-to-Income Ratios Among Recent Graduates?:

Last year, a treasure trove of data from the Department of Education offered incredible insights into debt and earnings of law school graduates. A recent update for 2018-2019 has been made available, and we can look at the data again.

One intriguing figure is the “debt-to-income” ratio (last year, plenty of people hated this term, but I’m still using it), or how much student debt recent graduates have compared to their earnings. ... A good rule of thumb might be that “manageable” debt loads are those where debt is about equal to expected income at graduation—i.e., a ratio of 1.00 or lower. Only 22 schools meet that definition among median debt and earnings. ...

In contrast,  17 law schools have debt-to-income ratios greater than 3.0.

Continue reading

October 2020 Tennessee Bar Exam Results: Vanderbilt, Tennessee Tie For #1

Here are the results of the October 2020 Tennessee Bar Exam Results for first-time test-takers by law school, along with each school's U.S. News ranking:

Bar Pass Rank (Rate)	School	US News Rank GA (Overall)
1 (92.6%)	Vanderbilt	1 (18)
1 (92.6%)	Tennessee	2 (70)
83.8%	Statewide Avg. (TN Law Schools)
3 (82.6%)	Belmont	3 (129)
4 (80.7%)	Memphis	4 (141)
79.3%	Statewide Avg. (Non-TN Law Schools)
5 (75.9%)	Lincoln Memorial	5 (Tier 2)
6 (74.5%)	Nashville	Unranked

Continue reading

Muller: Non-JD Enrollment Continues To Climb

Derek Muller (Iowa), Law School 1L JD Enrollment Holds Steady For 7th Straight Year as Non-JD Enrollment Climbs to All-Time Highs:

The 2020 law school enrollment figures have been released. They show a slightly worse first-year JD enrollment and continued growth in non-JD enrollment. Almost 16% of law school enrollees, nearly 1 in 6, are not enrolled in a JD program. ... 21,292 were enrolled in non-JD programs, a 1,400-student jump over last year. It’s now about 16% of all law school enrollment. ...

Here I also highlight a handful of schools with the highest non-JD enrollment as a percentage of total law school enrollment. There are a few heavy-hitters that are driving a lot of the non-JD enrollment.

Continue reading