College Fall 2020 Plans And U.S. News Rankings: Higher Ranked Schools Are More Likely Online, Lower Ranked Schools Are More Likely On-Ground

Andy Thomason (Chronicle of Higher Education), U.S. News Rankings and Fall Plans:

Green: plans that don't (yet) imagine on-campus instruction ("planning for online," "waiting to decide," "considering a range of scenarios")
Orange: some in-person and some online ("proposing a hybrid model")
Red: "Planning for in-person" ...

The top 20 were much more reticent to pledge a return to campus, as compared to institutions 81-100:

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After 7 Of 8 Ivy League Schools Drop SAT/ACT For Class of 2025, U.S. News Will Start Ranking Test-Blind Colleges

Robert Morse (Chief Data Strategist, U.S. News) & Eric Brook (Senior Data Analyst), U.S. News to Start Ranking Test-Blind Schools:

Starting with the upcoming 2021 Best Colleges rankings – to be published in September 2020 – U.S. News will rank schools that report not using the SAT or ACT at all in admissions decisions. In the past, beginning with the 2008 edition of Best Colleges, these test-blind schools were automatically excluded from the overall rankings and categorized as "Unranked."

In contrast, schools that have test-optional or text-flexible admissions policies have always been ranked and will continue to be ranked.

Why is U.S. News making this change? Because prospective students and their families want to know the academic quality of all schools, including ones that do not make use of standardized test scores. Also, in recent years a large number of colleges have changed their application requirements regarding the SAT and ACT. ...

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The 20 Law Schools With The Most Improved Bar Passage Rates

Bar Exam Results Improve as Law Schools Push Prep, preLaw (Spring 2020):

In 2019, first-time test-takers nationwide passed at a rate of nearly 80%, up 5% from the year before, according to recently released ABA figures. ...

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Law School Rankings By Class Of 2019 Job Placement

Following up on Monday's post, Class Of 2020 Legal Employment Outcomes In California, DC-Maryland-Virginia, Florida, Illinois, New York, Pennsylvania, And Texas:

Karen Sloan (Law.com), Law Grads Hiring Report: Job Stats for the Class of 2019:

Among the J.D. class of 2019, four out of five graduates landed jobs that either require bar passage or for which a law degree offers an advantage within 10 months of leaving campus. That’s the strongest entry-level employment record in more than a decade, according to new data from the American Bar Association. ...

But not every law school had such robust employment outcomes last year. Law.com has dug through a wealth of jobs data released by the ABA this month to spotlight how law schools performed in 10 different areas:

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The Best Law Schools For Practical Training

Best Schools For Practical Training, preLaw (Spring 2020):

These schools focus on giving students real-world experience before they step into the real world. It’s growing more vital, since employers want grads who don’t need hand-holding.

We graded schools on a number of data points, focusing on key practical training offerings such as clinics, externships, simulation courses, pro bono hours and moot trial participation.

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Bob Morse Discusses The U.S. News Law School Rankings Today At Texas A&M Virtual Conference

I am delighted to be speaking on a U.S. News law school rankings panel today at Texas A&M University School of Law's virtual Conference for Associate Deans (at 11:30 am - 12:45 pm ET). Robert Morse, Chief Data Strategist at U.S. News, will make a presentation on The U.S. News Law School Rankings: All Things Considered. After Bob's presentation, Gary Lucas (Senior Associate Dean, Texas A&M) and I will ask Bob some questions, followed by Q&A with the audience. Among the issues I hope we will discuss are:

• In light of this current moment in our nation, is US News going to add a diversity component to the rankings (as it does in its college rankings using Pell Grants)?
  • If so, would U.S. News use its existing stand alone Law School Diversity Index?
  • Why does U.S. News use national diversity data rather than data from the state in which a law school is located, like it does for the bar exam component of the rankings?
  • Would U.S. News consider other measures, such as the percentage of students who are first-generation students (law school or college)?
  • UPDATE: Bob said U.S. News is open to perhaps including a diversity component to the rankings. U.S. News is working with LSAC on getting appropriate data (such as Pell Grants received by law students during their undergraduate years).
• Is U.S. News considering suspending the law school rankings due to COVID-19, as it has been asked to do for the college and business school rankings? 
  • What does U.S. News think about Businessweek's decision to suspend its business school rankings due to COVID-19?
  • UPDATE: Bob Said U.S. News is considering the issue but it is too early to make a determination.
  • If U.S. News does not suspend the law school rankings:
    • How will U.S. News adjust the bar exam component of the rankings in light of the decision by states to permit graduate to practice law prior to passing a bar exam under diploma privilege and supervised practice systems?
    • How will U.S. News adjust the job placement component of the rankings?
      • How will U.S. News define jobs at graduation for schools that have not yet held graduation ceremonies due to COVID-19? Do virtual graduations matter?
      • How will U.S. News define jobs ten months after graduation for law schools located in states that have delayed their July bar exams? Will U.S. News adjust the 10-month period for law schools located in those states?
      • UPDATE: Bob recognized the problem and said U.S. News likely would follow the lead of the ABA and NALP.
• When will the stand alone U.S. News scholarly impact rankings (FAQ; Update #1; Update #2; Update #3) be published?
• UPDATE: Bob said 2020. 
  • How does U.S. News respond to the many criticisms of the scholarly impact rankings (e.g., here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here)?
  • Will U.S. News ever include the scholarly impact rankings in the law school rankings?
  • UPDATE: Bob said U.S. News has no current plans to do so.
• U.S. News ranks universities in several different categories (e.g., national universities, liberal arts colleges), based on Carnegie classifications.
  • Would U.S. News ever consider ranking law schools in different categories rather than in a single ranking?
  • What categories might U.S. News consider?
  • Might law schools opt-in to a category?
• U.S. News reported that 32 schools (16% the total) reported GRE scores for their Fall 2019 entering class.
  • How does U.S. News weight the three GRE components: quantitative, verbal, analytical writing?
  • UPDATE: Bob said 40%/40%/20%.

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Use Of Google Scholar And Hein Author Profiles Boosts Citations

Caroline Osborne (West Virginia) & Stephanie Miller (West Virginia), The Scholarly Impact Matrix: An Empirical Study of How Multiple Metrics Create an Informed Story of a Scholar's Work:

This article analyzes data collected in an empirical study of citation metrics. Between February 1, 2019 and April 30, 2019, the authors collected citation data from Google Scholar, HeinOnline, Westlaw, Lexis, SSRN, and Digital Commons repositories on randomly selected faculty members at U.S. law schools for the purpose of answering questions regarding fit and utility of citation metrics. Analysis of the citation data examines the impact of adoption of scholarly profiles, gender, and stage in the profession, and discipline, on exposure on citation with the conclusion that exposure results in increased citations.

Conclusion
This examination of metrics measuring exposure and citation demonstrates that greater exposure leads to greater citations. This suggests that robust promotion and scholarly communication efforts that lead to downloads have cascading effects that lead to increased citation. Scholars with Google Scholar profiles enjoy a greater likelihood of citation and exposure across all platforms in the study with the exception of HeinOnline. This suggests scholars should adopt Google Scholar profiles. In contrast, the Hein Author profile while having no apparent benefit for exposure does positively impact citation. This finding suggests scholars should adopt the Hein Author profile. ORCiD has no measurable impact on either exposure or citation but may have other benefits not explored in the underlying study or this paper.

Gender impacts citation with men more likely to be frequently cited or significantly cited when compared to women. ...

The results centered on the scholar’s state of career are as anticipated. The mature scholar, one with twenty plus years in the profession, enjoys a greater likelihood of being significantly cited than those with less years in the profession. This reflects the long tail of scholarship. In contrast, scholars, with between eight and nineteen years in the profession, receive the benefit of exposure being more likely to be in the significantly downloaded interval than either those with greater or fewer years in the profession. Analysis from this study supports a generational difference and the development of institutional use of IR’s and SSRN.

Institution rank produces a benefit at the frequently cited interval for those at a T-14 institution, but rank is irreverent at the significantly cited level, except on HeinOnline where scholars at T-50 schools are more likely to be significantly cited than scholars at a T-14 institution. Scholars at T14 institutions enjoy a benefit at the frequently cited level.

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Movement Builds To Suspend U.S. News Rankings During COVID-19 Pandemic

Following up on my previous posts:

• GMAC, Accreditors Seek To Postpone Business School Rankings During COVID-19
• Businessweek Suspends MBA Rankings Due To COVID-19; Will US News Follow Suit? What About Law School Rankings?

Chronicle of Higher Education, Why One Former Campus Leader Thinks College Rankings Should Stop During the Pandemic:

The coronavirus has underscored inequities in American society, including among college students. ... Now, in the next phase of the pandemic, new inequities are poised to arise, this time among both who gets into college, and among who completes their degrees. So argues H. Holden Thorp in the latest issue of the journal Science, of which he’s editor in chief. He has two ideas for leveling the playing field: Suspend both the U.S. News & World Report college rankings, and the use of standardized tests in admissions.

Thorp draws from his past experiences as chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, then provost of Washington University in St. Louis.

"The best thing would be for U.S. News to do the right thing and say, 'We’re just not going to do this until this is over.'”

[Reached for comment, Robert Morse, chief data strategist for U.S. News & World Report, sent along the following statement, via a spokeswoman:

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The Ten Law Schools With The Most Discounted Tuition

U.S. News & World Report, 10 Law Schools That Offer the Most Tuition Help:

Here are 10 schools where students received enough grants to cover more than half of their tuition:

	Law School	Students With Grants > 50% Tuition	Median Grant	US News Rank
1	Penn State - Carlisle	93.2%	$49,896	62
2	Penn State - Univ. Park	90.0%	$49,896	60
3	Belmont	88.2%	$32,572	129
4	UNLV	85.6%	$25,900	62
5	George Mason	84.7%	$30,000	42
6	Nebraska	81.3%	$15,800	76
7	Illinois	80.6%	$35,000	31
8	Washington Univ.	79.3%	$40,000	17
9	Villanova	78.0%	$40,000	62
10	Liberty	77.8%	$20,075	Tier 2

Businessweek Suspends MBA Rankings Due To COVID-19; Will US News Follow Suit? What About Law School Rankings?

Following up on my previous post, GMAC, Accreditors Seek To Postpone Business School Rankings During COVID-19:

Poets&Quants, Businessweek Agrees To Suspend Its MBA Ranking This Year:

Bloomberg Businessweek, which annually publishes one of the five most influential rankings of MBA programs, today (May 7) announced that it would suspend its 2020 ranking due to the disruptions caused by the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Poets&Quants, Wimps: Will U.S. News Chicken Out & Pause Its MBA Ranking?:

The wimpy decision to pause one of the five most influential MBA rankings comes less than two weeks after the Graduate Management Admission Council, which administers the GMAT exam, and two business school accreditation agencies asked ranking organizations, including Businessweek, to halt their work and postpone the publication of their lists.

Sad to say, Businessweek‘s ranking has waned in importance over the years after a series of abrupt methodology changes and highly inconsistent an less-than-credible results. ... It is one thing, however, for Businessweek to pause its ranking–part of which is based on employment statistics that are more than a year old. It is an entirely another thing for U.S. News & World Report, the most followed MBA ranking in North America, or the Financial Times, the most influential ranking in Europe and Asia, to halt publication of their rankings. Both of these media organizations gather freshly issued metrics that help inform the applicant market, allowing candidates to compare and contrast these schools far beyond any numerical rank they are given.

In fact, the release of those metrics, made uniform by the reporting requirements imposed on schools by U.S. News and the FT, is especially critical in this year made turbulent by the coronavirus outbreak and the global recession. Transparency is more critical today than ever before. Applicants should have access to timely metrics that will likely show which schools have best weathered the storm at hand. ...

Bob Morse, chief data strategist for U.S. News, has told Poets&Quants that “the team at U.S. News continues to monitor the unprecedented disruptions to business schools themselves, their current students and prospective students caused by COVID 19.  As a result, we’re still reviewing our strategies for both our next U.S. News Full-time and Part-time Best Business Schools rankings and fall 2020 data collection.”

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U.S. News Law School Academic Reputation Scores, 1998-2020

Robert L. Jones (Northern Illinois), Academic Reputation Scores for Law Schools Rise Significantly in 2020:

This Article summarizes the results of the U.S. News & World Report rankings published in 2020 with respect to the academic reputation scores of law schools. In addition to analyzing the most recent results for the U.S. News rankings, the Article supplements the more extensive longitudinal study published by this author in 2013. The Article also includes updated appendices from the prior study that catalog the U.S. News academic reputation scores for every law school between 1998 and 2020.

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U.S. News Law School Rankings And College Football

Noah Chauvin (J.D. 2019, William & Mary), Finally, a Use for the U.S. News Law School Rankings, 11 Cal. L. Rev. Online 1 (2020):

The U.S. News & World Report law school rankings are highly influential among people applying to law school. Nonetheless, they are widely panned among the legal community for the often-arbitrary criteria they use to distinguish between law schools. In this essay, I seek to rescue the rankings from this derision by proposing a novel use for them: picking the winner of college football games against the spread.

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The 250 Most-Cited Legal Scholars

HeinOnline, The 250 Most-Cited Legal Scholars:

The following list is calculated based on an analysis of all articles in HeinOnline. We then ranked each author in each category: number of times cited by articles, number of times cited by articles written in the past 10 years, number of times cited by articles written in the past 12-24 months, number of times cited by cases, and number of times accessed and averaged the rankings to produce this list of the 250 authors that scored the highest when averaging all categories.

1. Sunstein, C. R.
2. Posner, Richard A.
3. Prosser, William L.
4. Lemley, Mark
5. Kerr, Orin S.
6. Easterbrook, Frank
7. Friendly, Henry J.
8. Crenshaw, Kimberle
9. Fallon, Richard H. Jr.
10. Eskridge Jr., William N.
11. Coffee, John C.
12. Frankfurter, Felix
13. Amar, Akhil R.
14. Epstein, Richard
15. Chemerinsky, Erwin
16. Merrill, Thomas W.
17. Scalia, Antonin
18. Schauer, F.
19. Pound, Roscoe
20. Eisenberg, Theodore
21. Redish, Martin
22. Miller, Geoffrey
23. Manning, John F.
24. Monaghan, Henry
25. Volokh, Eugene
26. McConnell, Michael
27. Posner, Eric
28. Brandeis, Louis D.
29. Fischel, Daniel R.
30. Warren, Samuel D.
31. Tushnet, Mark
32. Siegel, Reva
33. Brennan, William J. Jr.
34. Resnik, Judith
35. Strine, Leo E. Jr.
36. Langbein, John H.
37. Imwinkelreid, Edward J.
38. Fuller, L. L.
39. Miller, Arthur
40. Scott, Robert
41. Issacharoff, Sam
42. Farber, Dan
43. Delgado, Richard
44. James, Fleming Jr.
45. Bebchuk, Lucian
46. Solove, Daniel J.
47. Tribe, Laurence H.
48. Vermeule, Adrian
49. Balkin, J. M.
50. Laycock, Douglas

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. [Were there any ties? If two law school’s 10-year rolling averages were within 2/10 of a point, I tied them and then attempted to break those ties based on the current year’s peer reputation scores. You’ll see that where there was a tie, I have included the peer rep scores in parentheses for those schools. If the peer rep scores were the same, I allowed the tie to remain.] The document was updated in April 2020.

Here are the Top 75 law schools based on their 10-year rolling average overall U.S. News ranking:

Rank	School	10-Year Rank
1	Yale	1.0
2	Stanford	2.3
3	Harvard	2.5
4	Columbia (4.7)	4.3
5	Chicago (4.6)	4.2
6	NYU	6.0
7	Pennsylvania	7.0
8	Virginia	8.0
9	UC-Berkeley (4.5)	8.9
10	Michigan (4.4)	8.9
11	Duke	10.5
12	Northwestern	11.2
13	Cornell	13.1
14	Georgetown	13.9
15	Texas	15.1
16	UCLA	15.8
17	Vanderbilt	16.6
18	Washington Univ. (3.7)	18.5
19	USC (3.6)	18.4
20	Minnesota	20.4
21	Notre Dame	22.5
22	George Washington	22.7
23	Emory	23.1
24	Boston University	23.8
25	Iowa	25.2
26	UC-Irvine	26.2
27	Alabama	26.7
28	Arizona State	28.0
29	Indiana (Maurer)	29.5
30	Boston College	29.8
31	Washington	31.1
32	Georgia	31.5
33	Washington & Lee	32.4
34	Wisconsin	32.7
35	William & Mary	32.9
36	UC-Davis	33.2
37	Ohio State	33.9
38	Fordham	34.3
39	North Carolina	34.7
40	Wake Forest	37.0
41	Illinois	37.7
42	BYU	39.6
43	Arizona	42.0
44	Florida (3.3)	42.2
45	George Mason (2.7)	42.2
46	Colorado	43.1
47	Utah	45.6
48	Maryland	45.9
49	Florida State (3.1)	48.7
50	SMU (2.7)	48.6
51	Tulane	49.6
52	Baylor	52.2
53	UC-Hastings	53.0
54	Temple	54.2
55	Richmond	54.9
56	Houston	55.3
57	Pepperdine	56.1
58	Connecticut	56.4
59	Cardozo	60.3
60	Georgia State	62.3
61	Tennessee (2.7)	62.6
62	Seton Hall (2.5)	62.7
63	Kentucky	63.5
64	Case Western	65.0
65	Loyola-L.A.	65.4
66	Penn State (Dickinson)	66.5
67	Miami	68.2
68	UNLV	68.4
69	Oklahoma (2.5)	68.8
69	Penn State (Univ. Park) (2.5)	68.8
71	Nebraska	69.1
72	American	69.5
73	Denver	69.7
74	Missouri	70.8
75	Kansas	73.0

2020 World Law School Rankings

Quacquarelli Symonds has released the 2020 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 300 law schools, 48 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	5
5	Stanford	2
7	UC-Berkeley	4
8	Columbia	6
9	NYU	3
11	Chicago	7
18	Georgetown	9
26	UCLA	15
29	Michigan	13
31	Penn	11
32	Duke	18
41	Cornell	27
46	Northwestern	14
51-100	American	44
51-100	Boston University	29
51-100	George Washington	8
51-100	Texas	31
51-100	Virginia	24
101-150	Fordham	17
101-150	Notre Dame	55
101-150	UC-Irvine	28
101-150	USC	30
101-150	Washington	66
101-150	Washington Univ.	41
101-150	Wisconsin	102
151-200	Boston College	84
151-200	Florida	53
151-200	Michigan State	76
151-200	North Carolina	68
201-250	Florida State	51
201-250	George Mason	20
201-250	Illinois	33
201-250	Loyola-Chicago	65
201-250	Minnesota	26
201-250	Ohio State	37
201-250	Penn State (Univ. Park)	96
201-250	UC-Davis	32
201-250	Vanderbilt	16
251-300	Arizona State	57
251-300	CUNY	167
251-300	Arizona	46
251-300	Colorado	71
251-300	Emory	56
251-300	Indiana (Maurer)	34
251-300	Iowa	106
251-300	UIC-John Marshall	162

GMAC, Accreditors Seek To Postpone Business School Rankings During COVID-19

Bloomberg Businessweek
The Economist
Forbes
Financial Times
QS
US News & World Report

This has been an unprecedented few months for our world. As we all continue to navigate the rapidly evolving COVID-19 situation, our first thought is for the safety and well-being of our frontline healthcare professionals and everyone who continues to be impacted by these difficult circumstances. 

The reach of COVID-19 knows no boundaries:

• Business schools and students are dealing with questions of when and how upcoming classes will begin, as all formats shift online.
• MBA and business master’s graduates, poised to join a historically strong job market with record-high salaries for MBA’s, now find themselves dealing with uncertainty. 
• While mobility has become a significant issue over the past few years, the current environment has effectively halted cross-border travel, a reality that will not resolve itself quickly. Accepted students face uncertainty about obtaining visas and getting to campus for the start of their chosen program. 
• Governments around the world are grappling with how to manage their respective economies; commerce has come to a halt. 

Business school deans and administrators have always understood the impact outside forces have on their mission to develop diverse, high-level talent in their classrooms. Traditionally, such forces have included economic fluctuations, trade wars, advances in technology, and political factors. 

The forces we face today are extraordinary. 

As industry leaders representing business schools and candidates, AACSB [Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business], EFMD [European Foundation for Management Development] and GMAC [Graduate Management Admission Council] understand and appreciate the impact COVID-19 has had and will continue to have on the admissions process, coupled with the economic uncertainty for graduates and potential employers. Given this new normal, we need to work together to mitigate the negative impact of the crisis for schools and students around the world. Therefore, we strongly advocate that all rankings institutions postpone their work and publication on business school rankings, to provide business schools worldwide the opportunity to rebound in these tumultuous circumstances. 

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Law School Rankings By Debt-To-Income Ratios Of Graduates

What Law Grads Earn, Nat'l Jurist, Spr. 2020, at 16:

For the first time, the U.S. Department of Education has unveiled median salaries earned by first-year graduates [in the Class of 2016].

Here are the Top 50 law schools with the lowest average debt-to-income ratios of their graduates with federal student loan debt:

Rank	School	Ratio
1	Stanford	0.77
2	Harvard	0.84
3	Duke	0.85
4	Chicago	0.86
4	Penn	0.86
6	Cornell	0.88
7	BYU	0.91
7	Northwestern	0.91
9	Columbia	0.92
10	Yale	0.98
11	Iowa	0.99
12	Connecticut	1.01
13	Washington University	1.02
14	NYU	1.05
14	Virginia	1.05
16	Wisconsin	1.10
17	Georgia State	1.11
18	UC-Berkeley	1.12
19	Boston College	1.14
19	Michigan	1.14
19	Temple	1.14
22	Nebraska	1.16
22	Tennessee	1.16
22	Texas Tech	1.16
22	Wayne State	1.16
26	Texas	1.18
27	Arkansas-Fayetteville	1.19
27	Vanderbilt	1.19
29	Mitchell Hamline	1.21
30	North Dakota	1.26
30	UCLA	1.26
32	Kansas	1.27
33	Kentucky	1.28
34	Mississippi	1.32
35	Alabama	1.33
36	Illinois	1.34
37	Houston	1.36
38	Baylor	1.37
38	Boston University	1.37
40	Utah	1.38
41	Hawaii	1.39
41	Oklahoma	1.39
43	Louisiana State	1.41
44	CUNY	1.43
44	Georgia	1.43
44	UNLV	1.43
47	Missouri	1.45
47	USC	1.45
49	Villanova	1.47
50	Tulsa	1.48

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Law School Rankings By Debt Of Graduates

What Law Grads Earn, Nat'l Jurist, Spr. 2020, at 16:

For the first time, the U.S. Department of Education has unveiled median salaries earned by first-year graduates [in the Class of 2016].

Here are the Top 50 law schools with the lowest average debt loads of their graduates with federal student loan debt:

Rank	School	Debt
1	BYU	$51,250
2	Nebraska	$59,124
3	Arkansas-Fayetteville	$61,500
3	North Dakota	$61,500
3	Tennessee	$61,500
3	Wisconsin	$61,500
7	Iowa	$62,249
8	Mississippi	$64,300
9	Mitchell Hamline	$64,429
10	Kansas	$66,415
11	Wayne State	$67,640
12	Alabama	$68,992
13	Connecticut	$69,085
14	Georgia State	$69,200
15	Temple	$69,583
16	Kentucky	$69,860
17	Texas Tech	$70,006
18	Louisiana State	$71,422
19	Liberty	$71,534
20	Missouri	$71,603
21	Akron	$73,756
22	Oklahoma	$74,250
23	Tulsa	$75,326
24	Cincinnati	$76,173
25	Memphis	$76,622
26	Montana	$76,666
27	Arkansas-Little Rock	$77,208
28	Hawaii	$77,849
29	CUNY	$78,224
30	South Dakota	$79,143
31	Utah	$79,768
32	N. Kentucky	$79,951
33	Florida State	$81,159
34	Arizona	$81,178
35	Washington Univ.	$81,500
36	Toledo	$81,546
37	Quinnipiac	$82,000
37	Rutgers	$82,000
39	Washburn	$82,194
40	Georgia	$82,480
41	Case Western	$82,570
42	N. Illinois	$83,660
43	Villanova	$83,761
44	Cleveland-Marshall	$83,868
45	New Mexico	$83,999
46	Wyoming	$84,032
47	West Virginia	$84,227
48	St. Thomas (MN)	$84,261
49	Duquesne	$84,428
50	Florida	$84,508

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Law School Rankings By Salary Of Graduates

What Law Grads Earn, Nat'l Jurist, Spr. 2020, at 16:

For the first time, the U.S. Department of Education has unveiled median salaries earned by first-year graduates [in the Class of 2016].

Here are the Top 50 law schools with the highest average salaries of their graduates:

Rank	School	Income
1	Columbia	$180,300
2	NYU	$175,800
3	Cornell	$175,200
4	Penn	$175,100
5	Northwestern	$171,900
6	Chicago	$170,500
7	Duke	$162,200
8	Harvard	$158,200
9	Stanford	$156,700
10	Virginia	$151,500
11	UC-Berkeley	$135,400
12	Yale	$128,900
13	Michigan	$126,800
14	Vanderbilt	$108,800
15	Georgetown	$105,000
16	Fordham	$99,000
17	UCLA	$96,600
18	Texas	$90,100
19	USC	$89,300
20	Boston College	$88,300
21	Boston University	$81,200
22	Washington Univ.	$79,800
23	SMU	$75,600
24	Notre Dame	$75,500
25	George Washington	$74,300
26	UC-Irvine	$68,700
27	Connecticut	$68,600
28	Illinois	$67,700
29	Houston	$67,600
29	UC-Hastings	$67,600
31	UC-Davis	$67,100
32	George Mason	$66,900
33	Baylor	$66,800
33	Emory	$66,800
35	Santa Clara	$66,200
36	Brooklyn	$66,100
37	Cardozo	$66,000
38	St. John's	$65,900
38	UNLV	$65,900
40	Loyola-Chicago	$64,400
41	Washington & Lee	$64,200
42	Loyola-Los Angeles	$63,700
43	Washington	$63,000
44	Iowa	$62,700
45	Georgia State	$62,400
46	San Diego	$62,100
47	Pepperdine	$61,400
48	Temple	$61,300
49	Pace	$60,700
50	Texas Tech	$60,200

• Law School Rankings By Salary Of Graduates
• Law School Rankings By Debt Of Graduates
• Law School Rankings By Debt-To-Income Ratios Of Graduates

2021 U.S. News Omnibus Specialty Rankings v. Overall Rankings

Following up on yesterday's post, 2021 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	Suffolk	75	136	+61
2	American	18	76	+58
3	Seattle	72	129	+57
4	Pacific	94	148	+54
5	UIC-John Marshall	97	140	+43
6	Brooklyn	47	83	+36
6	Indiana (McKinney)	86	122	+36
6	UC-Hastings	23	59	+36
9	Denver	40	74	+34
9	Pace	102	136	+34
11	New York Law School	98	129	+31
12	Baltimore	96	126	+30
12	Santa Clara	77	107	+30
14	Chicago-Kent	54	83	+29
14	Mitchell Hamline	112	141	+29
16	Case Western	50	76	+26
16	DePaul	92	118	+26
18	Georgia State	51	76	+25
18	Loyola-New Orleans	101	126	+25
20	Loyola-L.A.	38	62	+24
20	Missouri (KC)	109	133	+24
22	Arkansas (Little Rock)	125	148	+23
23	Widener (DE)	126	148	+22
24	San Francisco	127	148	+21
24	Syracuse	90	111	+21
24	Temple	35	56	+21
27	Howard	87	107	+20
28	Rutgers	58	76	+18
29	Hofstra	85	102	+17
30	Ohio State	22	38	+16
30	South Carolina	80	96	+16
30	UC-Irvine	11	27	+16
33	Loyola-Chicago	55	70	+15
33	Miami	52	67	+15
35	Lewis & Clark	79	93	+14
35	Maryland	33	47	+14
35	Oregon	74	88	+14
35	San Diego	69	83	+14
35	Stetson	91	105	+14
40	Georgetown	1	14	+13
40	Golden Gate	135	148	+13
40	Vermont	128	141	+13
43	Houston	45	56	+11
44	George Washington	13	23	+10
44	New Mexico	89	99	+10
46	Drexel	84	93	+9
46	Southwestern	139	148	+9
46	Texas	7	16	+9
46	UNLV	53	62	+9
50	Fordham	19	27	+8
50	UC-Davis	30	38	+8
50	Willamette	133	141	+8

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

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2021 U.S. News Omnibus Specialty Rankings

The new 2021 U.S. News Specialty Rankings include the rankings for 13 specialty programs at 194 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	8	1	9	13	5	25	10	7	13	3	12	2	12	9.2
2	NYU	3	2	5	3	1	16	6	48	3	1	76	1	31	15.1
3	Stanford	5	8	3	6	1	18	10	5	2	9	92	7	44	16.2
4	Michigan	12	8	13	8	10	37	37	19	13	7	12	11	59	18.9
5	Northwestern	12	6	13	13	16	6	49	48	21	21	24	3	19	19.3
6	UC-Berkeley	4	8	7	3	3	32	1	29	1	11	127	23	15	20.3
7	Texas	17	32	11	8	17	16	26	19	18	14	44	15	36	21.0
8	Harvard	1	22	2	3	3	1	10	9	18	2	167	7	36	21.6
9	UCLA	8	27	13	11	10	25	4	32	25	17	101	5	23	23.2
10	Duke	12	54	9	15	10	25	19	25	12	9	44	18	78	25.4
11	UC-Irvine	37	8	19	29	17	22	33	40	25	25	11	11	65	26.3
12	Penn	6	27	11	6	6	32	41	22	8	14	101	15	78	28.2
13	George Washington	30	22	25	34	22	44	15	32	5	8	44	42	50	28.7
14	Washington Univ.	26	14	19	21	26	25	73	29	45	17	51	23	12	29.3
15	Virginia	8	82	7	11	6	18	26	46	31	11	76	5	78	31.2
16	Columbia	1	20	5	1	6	37	6	46	13	4	154	10	105	31.4
17	Yale	8	5	1	8	6	37	20	16	62	4	167	11	65	31.5
18	American	68	2	44	51	26	48	37	11	10	4	51	55	4	31.6
19	Fordham	17	17	25	23	17	13	63	93	21	21	101	32	9	34.8
20	Boston University	19	32	19	18	30	56	55	5	10	32	51	21	105	34.8
21	North Carolina	26	44	25	18	22	48	37	22	55	46	7	26	78	34.9
22	Ohio State	37	69	28	23	15	2	55	29	40	43	38	32	44	35.0
23	UC-Hastings	37	27	44	46	33	13	20	13	45	28	114	23	20	35.6
24	Cornell	16	44	13	15	17	22	41	71	40	13	70	42	65	36.1
25	Minnesota	19	32	19	21	22	78	20	19	40	25	76	26	78	36.5
26	Vanderbilt	12	61	17	17	10	32	17	25	25	14	136	48	65	36.8
27	Arizona State	52	61	38	51	33	10	20	22	51	25	7	37	78	37.3
28	Emory	26	69	28	23	33	56	49	40	36	40	44	48	23	39.6
29	Boston College	26	27	31	29	43	48	33	48	31	40	38	18	105	39.8
30	UC-Davis	23	54	19	23	22	25	20	54	36	32	136	26	50	40.0
31	Chicago	7	22	4	1	10	48	63	71	40	17	154	7	78	40.2
32	Indiana (Maurer)	23	82	44	23	43	56	31	40	21	28	51	20	78	41.5
33	Maryland	61	6	44	46	57	13	10	7	79	69	63	63	31	42.2
34	William & Mary	37	61	19	29	17	18	41	48	45	32	101	63	44	42.7
35	Temple	52	86	59	59	53	25	85	17	71	17	12	37	2	44.2
36	Notre Dame	37	44	18	34	43	56	55	102	25	28	76	45	25	45.2
37	Wisconsin	48	44	38	29	33	37	41	40	79	32	51	55	78	46.5
38	Loyola-L.A.	48	69	54	63	33	67	85	48	31	57	44	11	5	47.3
39	Florida	37	82	67	39	33	37	20	61	71	69	76	3	25	47.7
40	Denver	68	8	59	63	43	56	26	93	79	52	7	63	9	48.2
41	Washington	61	44	59	39	43	99	31	32	18	43	51	42	65	48.2
42	Arizona	59	61	38	46	57	86	33	32	55	36	24	68	50	49.6
42	Colorado	30	96	44	51	30	72	10	71	25	52	51	63	50	49.6
42	Georgia	23	32	31	39	33	99	85	40	71	21	101	45	25	49.6
45	Houston	59	69	71	34	64	99	26	3	5	46	101	26	44	49.8
46	Wake Forest	37	86	54	39	29	99	41	17	95	69	6	55	25	50.2
47	Brooklyn	30	32	35	34	26	72	106	90	62	46	32	48	59	51.7
48	Tulane	37	39	54	34	53	37	17	61	62	28	148	63	44	52.1
49	USC	22	82	31	18	33	32	96	48	55	46	114	15	96	52.9
50	Case Western	61	44	59	51	64	67	55	9	40	24	92	98	50	54.9
51	Georgia State	52	27	44	86	57	56	85	2	62	98	92	55	25	57.0
52	Miami	52	32	59	46	53	78	55	93	55	36	101	26	59	57.3
53	UNLV	78	39	69	51	68	6	85	32	62	106	1	48	105	57.7
54	Chicago-Kent	52	86	54	72	74	86	85	54	13	75	32	75	5	58.7
55	Loyola-Chicago	75	54	59	72	82	56	126	3	45	69	76	48	12	59.8
55	Washington & Lee	52	69	44	51	43	44	79	40	90	36	101	32	96	59.8
57	Cardozo	52	61	38	59	30	5	106	114	13	75	114	48	65	60.0
58	Rutgers	83	22	59	81	57	83	63	54	85	52	18	80	59	61.2
59	Florida State	48	96	44	39	53	99	15	54	79	62	136	37	36	61.4
60	Utah	30	106	44	39	33	99	9	32	71	62	136	55	121	64.4
61	Texas A&M	68	54	111	69	119	6	37	102	8	62	29	75	105	65.0
62	Pepperdine	61	39	44	59	91	3	96	114	100	46	114	37	50	65.7
63	Iowa	30	86	38	46	43	99	106	78	62	57	51	68	105	66.8
64	Northeastern	113	22	71	107	57	48	106	11	21	62	38	110	105	67.0
65	Villanova	78	69	83	86	74	90	79	61	45	91	29	37	50	67.1
66	Alabama	61	61	31	29	43	99	63	102	100	98	127	32	31	67.5
67	Illinois	30	117	35	23	33	93	79	90	51	83	101	45	105	68.1
68	SMU	68	61	71	69	43	72	96	61	55	46	136	48	65	68.5
69	San Diego	30	121	28	72	57	99	79	71	31	62	166	21	59	68.9
70	BYU	19	136	54	39	68	67	55	144	55	75	76	32	96	70.5
71	Pittsburgh	75	121	69	69	57	99	85	32	51	43	76	26	131	71.8
72	Seattle	83	20	71	107	91	99	79	78	62	91	3	80	78	72.5
73	Seton Hall	83	69	71	81	82	67	116	13	71	57	92	68	78	72.9
74	Oregon	61	121	71	63	74	10	6	144	100	98	2	68	131	73.0
75	Suffolk	95	14	136	116	111	22	96	61	45	106	5	132	20	73.8
76	Richmond	37	121	35	63	43	99	63	144	25	69	101	55	105	73.8
77	Santa Clara	75	121	93	98	91	44	55	102	4	40	44	68	131	74.3
78	Tennessee	37	17	83	63	74	99	106	78	123	118	32	75	65	74.6
79	Lewis & Clark	95	86	71	107	91	48	1	122	55	69	18	92	121	75.1
80	South Carolina	83	39	93	86	74	99	63	61	114	106	70	55	36	75.3
81	Kansas	78	86	83	51	68	25	63	122	100	91	51	80	121	78.4
82	St. John's	68	117	71	72	74	37	152	102	71	57	32	132	36	78.5
83	Connecticut	61	96	59	59	82	72	63	61	108	57	76	68	160	78.6
84	Drexel	78	54	71	98	100	83	130	32	108	103	18	132	15	78.6
85	Hofstra	92	69	83	90	68	93	130	61	95	62	76	89	36	80.3
86	Indiana (McKinney)	95	86	83	81	111	99	85	15	85	83	24	98	121	82.0
87	Howard	92	44	71	72	64	67	143	122	62	106	63	120	59	83.5
88	Michigan State	68	86	83	63	91	93	96	114	71	75	101	98	65	84.9
89	New Mexico	113	17	111	81	100	99	33	78	137	106	70	92	78	85.8
90	Syracuse	95	96	111	98	100	99	73	78	85	83	76	110	15	86.1
91	Stetson	95	96	111	72	100	72	106	122	137	106	3	110	1	87.0
92	DePaul	95	106	93	98	82	97	152	25	36	91	92	92	78	87.5
93	George Mason	48	155	38	51	74	99	136	114	31	75	148	80	105	88.8
94	Pacific	106	136	146	98	125	56	73	102	114	36	32	126	9	89.2
95	Missouri (Columbia)	88	127	83	72	82	3	136	90	90	91	136	98	65	89.3
96	Baltimore	123	14	93	120	100	78	116	122	95	75	38	75	149	92.2
97	UIC-John Marshall	135	69	136	148	111	90	152	122	36	75	7	98	36	93.5
98	New York Law School	95	54	93	156	100	78	136	78	62	83	38	98	145	93.5
99	St. Louis	88	86	71	90	100	99	159	1	90	98	127	80	131	93.8
100	Marquette	88	127	93	90	91	10	126	144	79	118	12	126	121	94.2

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

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2021 U.S. News Trial Advocacy Rankings

The new 2021 U.S. News Trial Advocacy Rankings include the trial advocacy programs at 188 law schools (the faculty survey had a 52% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	Score	School
1	4.1	Stetson
2	4.0	Baylor
2	4.0	Temple
4	3.9	American
5	3.8	Chicago-Kent
5	3.8	Loyola-L.A.
7	3.6	Samford
7	3.6	South Texas
9	3.5	Fordham
9	3.5	Denver
9	3.5	Pacific
12	3.4	Georgetown
12	3.4	Loyola-Chicago
12	3.4	Washington University
15	3.3	Campbell
15	3.3	Drexel
15	3.3	Syracuse
15	3.3	UC-Berkeley
19	3.2	Northwestern
20	3.1	St. Mary's
20	3.1	Suffolk
20	3.1	UC-Hastings
23	3.0	Emory
23	3.0	UCLA
25	2.9	Georgia State
25	2.9	Akron
25	2.9	Florida
25	2.9	Georgia
25	2.9	Notre Dame
25	2.9	Wake Forest
31	2.8	Faulkner
31	2.8	NYU
31	2.8	Texas Tech
31	2.8	Alabama
31	2.8	Maryland
36	2.7	Florida State
36	2.7	Harvard
36	2.7	Hofstra
36	2.7	St. John's
36	2.7	UIC-John Marshall
36	2.7	Missouri (Kansas City)
36	2.7	South Carolina
36	2.7	Texas
44	2.6	Ohio State
44	2.6	Pace
44	2.6	Stanford
44	2.6	Tulane
44	2.6	Houston
44	2.6	William & Mary
50	2.5	Case Western
50	2.5	George Washington
50	2.5	Loyola-New Orleans
50	2.5	Nova
50	2.5	Pepperdine
50	2.5	Arizona
50	2.5	UC-Davis
50	2.5	Colorado
50	2.5	Villanova

2021 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

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2021 U.S. News Legal Writing Rankings

The new 2021 U.S. News Legal Writing Rankings include the legal writing programs at 179 law schools (the faculty survey had a 54% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	Score	School
1	4.3	UNLV
2	4.2	Oregon
3	4.1	Seattle
3	4.1	Stetson
5	4.0	Suffolk
6	3.9	Wake Forest
7	3.8	Arizona State
7	3.8	Denver
7	3.8	UIC-John Marshall
7	3.8	North Carolina
11	3.7	UC-Irvine
12	3.6	Drake
12	3.6	Georgetown
12	3.6	Marquette
12	3.6	Temple
12	3.6	Texas Tech
12	3.6	Michigan
18	3.5	Drexel
18	3.5	Lewis & Clark
18	3.5	Mercer
18	3.5	Nova
18	3.5	Rutgers
18	3.5	Washburn
24	3.4	Indiana (McKinney)
24	3.4	Northwestern
24	3.4	Arizona
24	3.4	Arkansas (Little Rock)
24	3.4	Missouri (Kansas City)
29	3.3	Duquesne
29	3.3	Texas A&M
29	3.3	Villanova
32	3.2	Brooklyn
32	3.2	Chicago-Kent
32	3.2	St. John's
32	3.2	Arkansas (Fayetteville)
32	3.2	Tennessee
32	3.2	Pacific
38	3.1	Boston College
38	3.1	New York Law School
38	3.1	Northeastern
38	3.1	Ohio State
38	3.1	Baltimore
38	3.1	Memphis
44	3.0	Duke
44	3.0	Elon
44	3.0	Emory
44	3.0	George Washington
44	3.0	Loyola-L.A.
44	3.0	Santa Clara
44	3.0	Texas

2021 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

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2021 U.S. News International Law Rankings

The new 2021 U.S. News International Law Rankings include the international law programs at 187 law schools (the faculty survey had a 52% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	Score	School
1	4.7	NYU
2	4.4	Harvard
3	4.3	Georgetown
4	4.2	American
4	4.2	Columbia
4	4.2	Yale
7	4.1	Michigan
8	4.0	George Washington
9	3.9	Duke
9	3.9	Stanford
11	3.8	UC-Berkeley
11	3.8	Virginia
13	3.7	Cornell
14	3.6	Penn
14	3.6	Texas
14	3.6	Vanderbilt
17	3.5	Temple
17	3.5	UCLA
17	3.5	Chicago
17	3.5	Washington Univ.
21	3.4	Fordham
21	3.4	Northwestern
21	3.4	Georgia
24	3.3	Case Western
25	3.2	Arizona State
25	3.2	UC-Irvine
25	3.2	Minnesota
28	3.1	Indiana (Maurer)
28	3.1	Tulane
28	3.1	UC-Hastings
28	3.1	Notre Dame
32	3.0	Boston University
32	3.0	UC-Davis
32	3.0	Wisconsin
32	3.0	William & Mary
36	2.9	Arizona
36	2.9	Miami
36	2.9	Pacific
36	2.9	Washington & Lee
40	2.8	Boston College
40	2.8	Emory
40	2.8	Santa Clara
43	2.7	Ohio State
43	2.7	Pittsburgh
43	2.7	Washington
46	2.6	Brooklyn
46	2.6	Pepperdine
46	2.6	SMU
46	2.6	Houston
46	2.6	North Carolina
46	2.6	USC

2021 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

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2021 U.S. News Intellectual Property Law Rankings

The new 2021 U.S. News Intellectual Property Law Rankings include the intellectual property law programs at 188 law schools (the faculty survey had a 58% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	Score	School
1	4.7	UC-Berkeley
2	4.6	Stanford
3	4.4	NYU
4	4.0	Santa Clara
5	3.8	George Washington
5	3.8	Houston
5	3.8	New Hampshire
8	3.7	Texas A&M
8	3.7	Penn
10	3.6	American
10	3.6	Boston University
12	3.5	Duke
13	3.4	Columbia
13	3.4	Georgetown
13	3.4	Chicago-Kent
13	3.4	Michigan
13	3.4	Cardozo
18	3.3	Harvard
18	3.3	Texas
18	3.3	Washington
21	3.2	Fordham
21	3.2	Indiana (Maurer)
21	3.2	Northeastern
21	3.2	Northwestern
25	3.1	UC-Irvine
25	3.1	UCLA
25	3.1	Colorado
25	3.1	Notre Dame
25	3.1	Richmond
25	3.1	Vanderbilt
31	3.0	Boston College
31	3.0	George Mason
31	3.0	Loyola-L.A.
31	3.0	San Diego
31	3.0	Virginia
36	2.9	DePaul
36	2.9	Emory
36	2.9	UC-Davis
36	2.9	UIC-John Marshall
40	2.8	Case Western
40	2.8	Cornell
40	2.8	Ohio State
40	2.8	Chicago
40	2.8	Minnesota
45	2.7	Loyola-Chicago
45	2.7	Suffolk
45	2.7	UC-Hastings
45	2.7	Villanova
45	2.7	Washington Univ.
45	2.7	William & Mary

2021 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

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2021 U.S. News Health Care Law Rankings

The new 2021 U.S. News Health Care Law Rankings include the health care law programs at 143 law schools (the faculty survey had a 54% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	Score	School
1	4.4	St. Louis
2	4.2	Georgia State
3	4.1	Loyola-Chicago
3	4.1	Houston
5	4.0	Boston University
5	4.0	Stanford
7	3.9	Georgetown
7	3.9	Maryland
9	3.8	Case Western
9	3.8	Harvard
11	3.7	American
11	3.7	Northeastern
13	3.6	Seton Hall
13	3.6	UC-Hastings
15	3.5	Indiana (McKinney)
16	3.4	Yale
17	3.3	Temple
17	3.3	Wake Forest
19	3.2	Michigan
19	3.2	Minnesota
19	3.2	Texas
22	3.1	Arizona State
22	3.1	North Carolina
22	3.1	Penn
25	3.0	DePaul
25	3.0	Duke
25	3.0	Mitchell Hamline
25	3.0	Vanderbilt
29	2.9	Ohio State
29	2.9	UC-Berkeley
29	2.9	Washington University
32	2.8	Drexel
32	2.8	George Washington
32	2.8	Arizona
32	2.8	UCLA
32	2.8	UNLV
32	2.8	Pittsburgh
32	2.8	Utah
32	2.8	Washington
40	2.7	Emory
40	2.7	Indiana (Maurer)
40	2.7	UC-Irvine
40	2.7	Georgia
40	2.7	Wisconsin
40	2.7	Washington & Lee
46	2.6	Columbia
46	2.6	Virginia
48	2.5	Boston College
48	2.5	Loyola-L.A.
48	2.5	NYU
48	2.5	Northwestern
48	2.5	USC
48	2.5	William & Mary

2021 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

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2021 U.S. News Environmental Law Rankings

The new 2021 U.S. News Environmental Law Rankings include the environmental law programs at 184 law schools (the faculty survey had a 56% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	Score	School
1	4.5	Lewis & Clark
1	4.5	UC-Berkeley
3	4.4	Pace
4	4.3	UCLA
5	4.2	Vermont
6	4.1	Columbia
6	4.1	NYU
6	4.1	Oregon
9	4.0	Utah
10	3.9	Georgetown
10	3.9	Harvard
10	3.9	Stanford
10	3.9	Colorado
10	3.9	Maryland
15	3.8	Florida State
15	3.8	George Washington
17	3.7	Tulane
17	3.7	Vanderbilt
19	3.6	Duke
20	3.5	Arizona State
20	3.5	UC-Hastings
20	3.5	UC-Davis
20	3.5	Florida
20	3.5	Minnesota
20	3.5	Yale
26	3.4	Denver
26	3.4	Houston
26	3.4	Texas
26	3.4	Virginia
30	3.3	Hawaii
31	3.2	Indiana (Maurer)
31	3.2	Washington
33	3.1	Boston College
33	3.1	Arizona
33	3.1	UC-Irvine
33	3.1	New Mexico
37	3.0	American
37	3.0	Texas A&M
37	3.0	Michigan
37	3.0	North Carolina
41	2.9	Cornell
41	2.9	Penn State (Univ. Park)
41	2.9	Montana
41	2.9	Penn
41	2.9	Wisconsin
41	2.9	Wake Forest
41	2.9	Widener (PA)
41	2.9	William & Mary
49	2.8	Emory
49	2.8	Loyola-New Orleans
49	2.8	Northwestern
49	2.8	Idaho
49	2.8	Wyoming
49	2.8	Widener (DE)

2021 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

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2021 U.S. News Dispute Resolution Rankings

The new 2021 U.S. News Dispute Resolution Rankings include the dispute resolution programs at 98 law schools (the faculty survey had a 51% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	Score	School
1	4.5	Harvard
2	4.4	Ohio State
3	4.3	Pepperdine
3	4.3	Missouri (Columbia)
5	4.0	Cardozo
6	3.9	Mitchell Hamline
6	3.9	Northwestern
6	3.9	Texas A&M
6	3.9	UNLV
10	3.8	Arizona State
10	3.8	Marquette
10	3.8	Oregon
13	3.7	Fordham
13	3.7	UC-Hastings
13	3.7	Maryland
16	3.6	NYU
16	3.6	Texas
18	3.5	Quinnipiac
18	3.5	Stanford
18	3.5	Virginia
18	3.5	William & Mary
22	3.4	Cornell
22	3.4	Suffolk
22	3.4	UC-Irvine
25	3.3	Duke
25	3.3	Georgetown
25	3.3	Temple
25	3.3	UC-Davis
25	3.3	UCLA
25	3.3	Kansas
25	3.3	Washington University
32	3.2	Pace
32	3.2	UC-Berkeley
32	3.2	Penn
32	3.2	USC
32	3.2	Vanderbilt
37	3.1	Columbia
37	3.1	St. John's
37	3.1	Tulane
37	3.1	Florida
37	3.1	Michigan
37	3.1	Wisconsin
37	3.1	Yale
44	3.0	George Washington
44	3.0	Santa Clara
44	3.0	South Texas
44	3.0	Washington & Lee
48	2.9	American
48	2.9	Boston College
48	2.9	Creighton
48	2.9	Lewis & Clark
48	2.9	Northeastern
48	2.9	Chicago
48	2.9	North Carolina
48	2.9	St. Thomas (MN)

2021 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

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2021 U.S. News Criminal Law Rankings

The new 2021 U.S. News Criminal Law Rankings include the criminal law programs at 188 law schools (the faculty survey had a 53% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	Score	School
1	4.5	NYU
1	4.5	Stanford
3	4.4	Harvard
3	4.4	UC-Berkeley
5	4.3	Georgetown
6	4.2	Columbia
6	4.2	Penn
6	4.2	Virginia
6	4.2	Yale
10	4.1	Duke
10	4.1	UCLA
10	4.1	Chicago
10	4.1	Michigan
10	4.1	Vanderbilt
15	4.0	Ohio State
16	3.9	Northwestern
17	3.8	Cornell
17	3.8	Fordham
17	3.8	UC-Irvine
17	3.8	Texas
17	3.8	William & Mary
22	3.7	George Washington
22	3.7	UC-Davis
22	3.7	Minnesota
22	3.7	North Carolina
26	3.6	American
26	3.6	Brooklyn
26	3.6	Washington Univ.
29	3.5	Wake Forest
30	3.4	Boston University
30	3.4	Colorado
30	3.4	Cardozo
33	3.3	Arizona State
33	3.3	Emory
33	3.3	Loyola-L.A.
33	3.3	UC-Hastings
33	3.3	Florida
33	3.3	Georgia
33	3.3	Illinois
33	3.3	USC
33	3.3	Utah
33	3.3	Wisconsin
43	3.2	Boston College
43	3.2	Indiana (Maurer)
43	3.2	SMU
43	3.2	Alabama
43	3.2	Denver
43	3.2	Iowa
43	3.2	Notre Dame
43	3.2	Richmond
43	3.2	Washington
43	3.2	Washington & Lee

2021 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

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2021 U.S. News Contracts/Commercial Law Rankings

The new 2021 U.S. News Contracts/Commercial Law Rankings include the contracts/commercial law programs at 188 law schools (the faculty survey had a 44% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	Score	School
1	4.7	Columbia
1	4.7	Chicago
3	4.6	Harvard
3	4.6	NYU
3	4.6	UC-Berkeley
6	4.5	Stanford
6	4.5	Penn
8	4.4	Michigan
8	4.4	Texas
8	4.4	Yale
11	4.3	UCLA
11	4.3	Virginia
13	4.2	Georgetown
13	4.2	Northwestern
15	4.1	Cornell
15	4.1	Duke
17	3.9	Vanderbilt
18	3.8	Boston University
18	3.8	North Carolina
18	3.8	USC
21	3.7	Minnesota
21	3.7	Washington University
23	3.6	Emory
23	3.6	Fordham
23	3.6	Indiana (Maurer)
23	3.6	Ohio State
23	3.6	UC-Davis
23	3.6	Illinois
29	3.5	Boston College
29	3.5	Alabama
29	3.5	UC-Irvine
29	3.5	Wisconsin
29	3.5	William & Mary
34	3.4	Brooklyn
34	3.4	George Washington
34	3.4	Tulane
34	3.4	Houston
34	3.4	Notre Dame
39	3.3	BYU
39	3.3	Florida State
39	3.3	Florida
39	3.3	Georgia
39	3.3	Utah
39	3.3	Washington
39	3.3	Wake Forest
46	3.2	Arizona
46	3.2	UC-Hastings
46	3.2	Iowa
46	3.2	Maryland
46	3.2	Miami

2021 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

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2021 U.S. News Constitutional Law Rankings

The new 2021 U.S. News Constitutional Law Rankings include the constitutional law programs at 188 law schools (the faculty survey had a 57% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	Score	School
1	4.9	Yale
2	4.8	Harvard
3	4.7	Stanford
4	4.6	Chicago
5	4.5	Columbia
5	4.5	NYU
7	4.4	UC-Berkeley
7	4.4	Virginia
9	4.3	Duke
9	4.3	Georgetown
11	4.2	Penn
11	4.2	Texas
13	4.1	Cornell
13	4.1	Northwestern
13	4.1	UCLA
13	4.1	Michigan
17	3.8	Vanderbilt
18	3.6	Notre Dame
19	3.5	Boston University
19	3.5	UC-Davis
19	3.5	UC-Irvine
19	3.5	Minnesota
19	3.5	Washington University
19	3.5	William & Mary
25	3.4	Fordham
25	3.4	George Washington
25	3.4	North Carolina
28	3.3	Emory
28	3.3	Ohio State
28	3.3	San Diego
31	3.2	Boston College
31	3.2	Alabama
31	3.2	Georgia
31	3.2	USC
35	3.1	Brooklyn
35	3.1	Illinois
35	3.1	Richmond
38	3.0	Arizona State
38	3.0	George Mason
38	3.0	Arizona
38	3.0	Iowa
38	3.0	Wisconsin
38	3.0	Cardozo
44	2.9	American
44	2.9	Florida State
44	2.9	Georgia State
44	2.9	Indiana (Maurer)
44	2.9	Pepperdine
44	2.9	UC-Hastings
44	2.9	Colorado
44	2.9	Maryland
44	2.9	Utah
44	2.9	Washington & Lee

2021 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

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2021 U.S. News Clinical Training Rankings

The new 2021 U.S. News Clinical Training Rankings include the clinical training law programs at 179 law schools (the faculty survey had a 65% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	Score	School
1	4.7	Georgetown
2	4.4	American
2	4.4	CUNY
2	4.4	NYU
5	4.3	Yale
6	4.2	Northwestern
6	4.2	Maryland
8	4.1	Stanford
8	4.1	UC-Berkeley
8	4.1	UC-Irvine
8	4.1	Denver
8	4.1	Michigan
8	4.1	District of Columbia
14	4.0	Suffolk
14	4.0	Baltimore
14	4.0	Washington University
17	3.9	Fordham
17	3.9	New Mexico
17	3.9	Tennessee
20	3.8	Columbia
20	3.8	Seattle
22	3.7	George Washington
22	3.7	Harvard
22	3.7	Northeastern
22	3.7	Rutgers
22	3.7	Chicago
27	3.6	Boston College
27	3.6	Georgia State
27	3.6	UC-Hastings
27	3.6	UCLA
27	3.6	Penn
32	3.5	Boston University
32	3.5	Brooklyn
32	3.5	Mitchell Hamline
32	3.5	Georgia
32	3.5	Miami
32	3.5	Minnesota
32	3.5	Texas
39	3.4	Loyola-New Orleans
39	3.4	Pepperdine
39	3.4	Tulane
39	3.4	UNLV
39	3.4	South Carolina
44	3.3	Albany
44	3.3	Case Western
44	3.3	Cornell
44	3.3	Howard
44	3.3	Catholic
44	3.3	North Carolina
44	3.3	Notre Dame
44	3.3	Washington
44	3.3	Wisconsin
44	3.3	Washburn

2021 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

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2021 U.S. News Business/Corporate Law Rankings

The new 2021 U.S. News Business/Corporate Law Rankings include the business/corporate law programs at 188 law schools (the faculty survey had a 52% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	Score	School
1	4.8	Columbia
1	4.8	Harvard
3	4.7	NYU
4	4.6	UC-Berkeley
5	4.5	Stanford
6	4.4	Penn
7	4.3	Chicago
8	4.2	Georgetown
8	4.2	UCLA
8	4.2	Virginia
8	4.2	Yale
12	4.1	Duke
12	4.1	Northwestern
12	4.1	Michigan
12	4.1	Vanderbilt
16	3.9	Cornell
17	3.8	Fordham
17	3.8	Texas
19	3.6	Boston University
19	3.6	BYU
19	3.6	Minnesota
22	3.5	USC
23	3.4	Indiana (Maurer)
23	3.4	UC-Davis
23	3.4	Georgia
26	3.3	Boston College
26	3.3	Emory
26	3.3	North Carolina
26	3.3	Washington University
30	3.2	Brooklyn
30	3.2	George Washington
30	3.2	Colorado
30	3.2	Illinois
30	3.2	Iowa
30	3.2	San Diego
30	3.2	Utah
37	3.1	Ohio State
37	3.1	Tulane
37	3.1	UC-Hastings
37	3.1	UC-Irvine
37	3.1	Florida
37	3.1	Notre Dame
37	3.1	Richmond
37	3.1	Tennessee
37	3.1	Wake Forest
37	3.1	Widener (DE)
37	3.1	William & Mary
48	3.0	Florida State
48	3.0	George Mason
48	3.0	Loyola-L.A.
48	3.0	Wisconsin

2021 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

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2021 U.S. News Tax Rankings

The new 2021 U.S. News Tax Rankings include the tax programs at 187 law schools (the faculty survey had a 59% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	Score	School
1	4.8	NYU
2	4.4	Georgetown
3	4.3	Northwestern
3	4.3	Florida
5	4.1	UCLA
5	4.1	Virginia
7	4.0	Harvard
7	4.0	Stanford
7	4.0	Chicago
10	3.9	Columbia
11	3.8	Loyola-L.A.
11	3.8	UC-Irvine
11	3.8	Michigan
11	3.8	Yale
15	3.7	Penn
15	3.7	USC
15	3.7	Texas
18	3.6	Boston College
18	3.6	Duke
20	3.5	Indiana (Maurer)
21	3.4	Boston University
21	3.4	San Diego
23	3.3	UC-Hastings
23	3.3	UC-Berkeley
23	3.3	Washington Univ.
26	3.2	UC-Davis
26	3.2	Houston
26	3.2	Miami
26	3.2	Minnesota
26	3.2	North Carolina
26	3.2	Pittsburgh
32	3.1	BYU
32	3.1	Fordham
32	3.1	Ohio State
32	3.1	Alabama
32	3.1	Washington & Lee
37	3.0	Arizona State
37	3.0	Florida State
37	3.0	Pepperdine
37	3.0	Temple
37	3.0	Villanova
42	2.9	Cornell
42	2.9	George Washington
42	2.9	Washington
45	2.8	Georgia
45	2.8	Illinois
45	2.8	Notre Dame
48	2.7	Brooklyn
48	2.7	Emory
48	2.7	Loyola-Chicago
48	2.7	SMU
48	2.7	UNLV
48	2.7	Vanderbilt
48	2.7	Cardozo

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

• +14: Ohio State (#32), Washington University (#23)
• +11: Houston (#26)
• +9: Yale (#11)
• +6: Arizona State (#37), UC-Davis (#26)

Here are the biggest downward moves:

• -17: Washington (#42)
• -12: Temple (#37), Villanova (#37)
• -10: George Washington (#42)
• -8: Georgia (#45)
• -7: Boston University (#21)

Derek Muller (Pepperdine) notes the absurd volatility of USNWR specialty law rankings by pointing out changes in the peer reputation scores of tax programs at these law schools:

South Carolina: 2.6 (+0.6)
Loyola Chicago: 2.7 (+0.4)
Albany: 1.8 (+0.4)
Cornell: 2.9 (+0.4)
Ohio State: 3.1 (+0.4)
Baltimore: 2.3 (+0.4)
Cincinnati: 2.4 (+0.4)
Richmond: 2.6 (+0.4)
Washington University: 3.3 (+0.4)
-
Suffolk: 1.5 (-0.4)
Wyoming: 1.5 (-0.4)
Vermont: 1.3 (-0.4)
New England Law: 1.2 (-0.4)
Montana: 2.0 (-0.5)

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

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2021 U.S. News Law School Peer Reputation Rankings (And Overall Rankings)

Continuing a TaxProf Blog tradition (see links below for 2009-2020), here is the full list of the 194 law schools ranked by academic peer reputation, as well as their overall rank, in the new 2021 U.S. News Law School Rankings (methodology here):

Peer Rank	Peer Score	School	Overall Rank
1	4.8	Yale	1
1	4.8	Stanford	2
1	4.8	Harvard	3
4	4.7	Columbia	4
5	4.6	Chicago	4
5	4.6	NYU	6
7	4.5	UC-Berkeley	9
8	4.4	Penn	7
8	4.4	Virginia	8
8	4.4	Michigan	9
11	4.3	Georgetown	14
12	4.2	Northwestern	9
12	4.2	Duke	12
12	4.2	Cornell	13
15	4.1	UCLA	15
15	4.1	Texas	16
17	4.0	Vanderbilt	18
18	3.7	Washington University	17
18	3.7	Minnesota	21
20	3.6	USC	18
21	3.5	Boston University	20
21	3.5	Notre Dame	22
21	3.5	George Washington	23
21	3.5	Emory	24
21	3.5	UC-Irvine	27
26	3.4	North Carolina	27
26	3.4	Boston College	31
26	3.4	UC-Davis	38
29	3.3	Arizona State	24
29	3.3	Florida	24
29	3.3	Fordham	27
29	3.3	Iowa	27
29	3.3	Alabama	31
29	3.3	Georgia	31
29	3.3	William & Mary	31
29	3.3	Indiana (Maurer)	38
29	3.3	Ohio State	38
29	3.3	Wisconsin	38
39	3.2	Illinois	31
39	3.2	Washington	42
39	3.2	Colorado	46
39	3.2	Arizona	47
43	3.1	Washington & Lee	31
43	3.1	Wake Forest	42
43	3.1	Florida State	50
43	3.1	Tulane	54
43	3.1	UC-Hastings	59
48	3.0	Maryland	47
48	3.0	Connecticut	50
50	2.9	BYU	37
50	2.9	Utah	45
50	2.9	Cardozo	53
50	2.9	Denver	74
50	2.9	American	76
50	2.9	Georgia State	76
56	2.8	Richmond	54
56	2.8	Temple	56
56	2.8	Houston	56
56	2.8	Miami	67
56	2.8	Oregon	88
61	2.7	George Mason	42
61	2.7	Pepperdine	47
61	2.7	SMU	56
61	2.7	Loyola-L.A.	62
61	2.7	Villanova	62
61	2.7	Tennessee	70
61	2.7	Case Western	76
61	2.7	Pittsburgh	76
61	2.7	San Diego	83
61	2.7	Howard	107
71	2.6	Texas A&M	60
71	2.6	UNLV	62
71	2.6	Northeastern	67
71	2.6	Missouri (Columbia)	67
71	2.6	Loyola-Chicago	70
71	2.6	Kansas	70
71	2.6	Kentucky	70
71	2.6	Rutgers	76
71	2.6	Brooklyn	83
71	2.6	Chicago-Kent	83
81	2.5	Baylor	50
81	2.5	Penn State (Univ. Park)	60
81	2.5	Seton Hall	62
81	2.5	Oklahoma	76
81	2.5	Michigan State	93
81	2.5	Hawaii	96
81	2.5	South Carolina	96
81	2.5	Santa Clara	107
81	2.5	Indiana (McKinney)	122
90	2.4	Nebraska	76
90	2.4	Cincinnati	83
90	2.4	St. Louis	90
90	2.4	Lewis & Clark	93
90	2.4	New Mexico	99
90	2.4	Syracuse	111
90	2.4	Seattle	129
97	2.3	Penn State (Dickinson)	62
97	2.3	St. John's	74
97	2.3	Arkansas (Fayetteville)	90
97	2.3	Drexel	93
97	2.3	SUNY-Buffalo	99
97	2.3	Hofstra	102
97	2.3	Marquette	102
97	2.3	CUNY	107
97	2.3	Mississippi	111
97	2.3	DePaul	118
107	2.2	Wayne State	83
107	2.2	Florida Int'l	90
107	2.2	Louisiana State	96
107	2.2	Louisville	99
107	2.2	Stetson	105
107	2.2	West Virginia	111
107	2.2	Loyola-New Orleans	126
107	2.2	Missouri (Kansas City)	133
107	2.2	Arkansas (Little Rock)	Tier 2
116	2.1	New Hampshire	88
116	2.1	Catholic	111
116	2.1	Gonzaga	118
116	2.1	Maine	122
116	2.1	Montana	122
116	2.1	Baltimore	126
116	2.1	Suffolk	136
116	2.1	Idaho	136
116	2.1	UIC-John Marshall	140
125	2.0	Drake	105
125	2.0	Washburn	107
125	2.0	Texas Tech	111
125	2.0	Tulsa	111
125	2.0	Albany	118
125	2.0	St. Thomas (MN)	118
125	2.0	Mercer	126
125	2.0	Wyoming	133
125	2.0	Pace	136
125	2.0	Willamette	141
135	1.9	Cleveland	102
135	1.9	Chapman	111
135	1.9	Quinnipiac	122
135	1.9	Duquesne	129
135	1.9	New York Law School	129
135	1.9	Toledo	136
135	1.9	Akron	141
135	1.9	Memphis	141
135	1.9	Vermont	141
135	1.9	Southwestern	Tier 2
135	1.9	North Dakota	Tier 2
135	1.9	San Francisco	Tier 2
135	1.9	Pacific	Tier 2
148	1.8	Creighton	133
148	1.8	Mitchell Hamline	141
148	1.8	Dayton	141
148	1.8	South Dakota	141
152	1.7	N. Illinois	Tier 2
152	1.7	Roger Williams	Tier 2
152	1.7	St. Mary's	Tier 2
152	1.7	Widener (DE)	Tier 2
152	1.7	Widener (PA)	Tier 2
157	1.6	Campbell	Tier 2
157	1.6	Elon	Tier 2
157	1.6	Florida A&M	Tier 2
157	1.6	N. Kentucky	Tier 2
157	1.6	Nova	Tier 2
157	1.6	Samford	Tier 2
157	1.6	South Texas	Tier 2
157	1.6	S. Illinois	Tier 2
157	1.6	Detroit	Tier 2
157	1.6	Massachusetts	Tier 2
157	1.6	District of Columbia	Tier 2
168	1.5	California-Western	Tier 2
168	1.5	Golden Gate	Tier 2
168	1.5	Mississippi College	Tier 2
168	1.5	New England	Tier 2
168	1.5	NC Central	Tier 2
168	1.5	Ohio Northern	Tier 2
168	1.5	Oklahoma City	Tier 2
168	1.5	St. Thomas (FL)	Tier 2
168	1.5	Touro	Tier 2
177	1.4	Belmont	129
177	1.4	Capital	Tier 2
177	1.4	Southern	Tier 2
177	1.4	Texas Southern	Tier 2
177	1.4	W. New England	Tier 2
182	1.3	John Marshall (GA)	Tier 2
183	1.2	Appalachian	Tier 2
183	1.2	Barry	Tier 2
183	1.2	Charleston	Tier 2
183	1.2	Concordia	Tier 2
183	1.2	Faulkner	Tier 2
183	1.2	Florida Coastal	Tier 2
183	1.2	Liberty	Tier 2
183	1.2	Lincoln Memorial	Tier 2
183	1.2	Regent	Tier 2
192	1.1	Ave Maria	Tier 2
192	1.1	W. Michigan Cooley	Tier 2
192	1.1	Western State	Tier 2

2013 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

• Business/Corporate Law
• Clinical Law
• Constitutional Law
• Contracts/Commercial Law
• Criminal Law
• Dispute Resolution 
• Environmental Law
• Health Care Law
• Health Care Law
• Intellectual Property Law
• International Law
• Legal Writing
• Tax Law
• Trial Advocacy

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

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Pepperdine’s Place In The 2021 U.S. News Law School Rankings

By now many of you have seen the news that Pepperdine Caruso Law has risen to #47 in the 2021 U.S. News Law School Rankings. This is the highest ranking in the 50-year history of our law school. 

Our 25-point improvement in three years is the second largest increase of any law school among the Top 100 law schools as ranked by U.S. News (behind only Texas A&M (formerly Texas Wesleyan) from #92 to #60).

We do not chase rankings at Pepperdine Caruso Law. Every decision we make is guided by a single question: what is in the best interest of our students? Often those decisions produce a rankings benefit as well, and we gladly reap those results. I am pleased that our rankings rise is driven by the increasing quality of our students, the improved outcomes achieved by our graduates, the additional resources we have been able to deploy to improve our students’ educational experience, and our growing reputation among legal academics, lawyers, and judges.

Pepperdine Caruso Law also was recognized by U.S. News with Top 50 rankings in six specialty programs (another all-time high) based on our reputation among faculty in those fields:  #3 in dispute resolution, #37 in tax law, #39 in clinical training, #44 in constitutional law, #46 in international law, and #50 in trial advocacy.

We are proud of our past, excited by all we have accomplished thus far, and exhilarated at what we will be able to achieve in the future with the additional resources provided by Rick J. Caruso's $50 million naming gift.

2020 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 2019 juris doctor graduates into associate positions at the largest 100 law firms in the country [methodology].  Columbia Law School tops the list for the seventh straight year, with 70 percent of its recent graduate class now working in Big Law.

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

Go-To Law Schools: All Schools Data
See hiring stats for every law school that sent a 2019 graduate to one of the largest 100 firms

Go-To Law Schools vs. U.S. News
How Go-To Law School rankings match up with U.S. News & World Report

Want to Work in Big Law? These Schools Are Good Bets
Columbia Law School lands at the top of our 2020 Go-To Law Schools ranking of Big Law feeder schools—marking the seventh straight year the school tops the list

Harvard, NYU and Columbia Embrace Early Summer Associate Hiring—Sort Of
After resisting the trend of law firms interviewing summer associate candidates prior to on-campus interview programs, three major Big Law feeder schools are now embracing early hiring

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Guthrie: U.S. News Should Replace Its Current Law School Rankings With A Mission-Driven Ranking

Chris Guthrie (Vanderbilt), Toward A Mission-Based Ranking?, 60 Jurimetrics J. 75 (2019):

Law schools exist to generate knowledge about law and the legal system and to prepare students for entry into the profession. Law school rankings, in turn, should evaluate schools on their success in carrying out this two-part mission. ... I propose that U.S. News replace its current ranking with a mission-based ranking. U.S. News could do this in any number of ways, but I propose below three steps U.S. News could take toward that end: 

1. Replace Subjective Surveys with Objective Measures of Scholarly Impact ...
2. Retain, But Tweak, the “Placement” Category ...
3. Eliminate Remaining Criteria as Irrelevant or Harmful ...

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Fellowships For Aspiring Law Professors (Updated 2019-20 Edition)

For practitioners and others contemplating joining the law professor ranks, many law schools offer wonderful opportunities to transition into the legal academy with one- or two-year fellowships which allow you to enter the AALS Faculty Recruitment Conference (the "meat market") and the new SEALS Faculty Recruitment Conference with published scholarship (and in many cases teaching experience) under your belt. Here is an updated list of the law schools with fellowship and VAP programs (thanks to AALS President Judith Areen for allowing me to include in this listing positions in the AALS' new directory):

General Programs:

Law School	Program Name
Arizona State	Visiting Assistant Professor Program
Boston University	Visiting Assistant Professor Program
Chicago	Harry A. Bigelow Teaching Fellowships
Chicago	Earl B. Dickerson Fellowship
Columbia	Associates in Law Program
Columbia	Academic Fellows Program
Connecticut	Visiting Scholars Program
Cornell	Visiting Assistant Professorships
Duke	Visiting Assistant Professor Program
Georgetown	Graduate Teaching Fellowships
Georgetown	Georgetown Law Research Fellowship
Georgetown	Visiting Researcher Program
Harvard	Climenko Fellowship
Harvard	Reginald F. Lewis Fellowship for Law Teaching
Illinois	Illinois Academic Fellowship Program
Iowa	Iowa Law Faculty Fellowship
Loyola-New Orleans	Westerfield Fellows Program
Michigan	Michigan Faculty Fellows Program (VAP)
Michigan	Michigan Society of Fellows Program
New England | Boston	Law Teaching Fellow
NYU	Acting Assistant Professors
NYU	Furman Academic Fellowship Program
Northwestern	Visiting Scholars Program
Pennsylvania	The George Sharswood Fellowship
Stetson	Bruce R. Jacob Visiting Assistant Professor Program
Tulane	Forrester Fellowships
Villanova	Visiting Assistant Professor Program
Wake Forest	Visiting Assistant Professor Program
Washington	Visiting Scholars Program
Wisconsin	The Hastie Fellowship Program
Yale	Fellowship Home Page (for Yale grads)

Subject Specific Programs:

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2021 U.S. News Law School Rankings

Robert Morse (Chief Data Strategist, U.S. News & World Report) announced yesterday that the new 2021 law school rankings will be released on Tuesday, March 17.  For the first time, they will include specialty rankings in business/corporate law, criminal law, constitutional law, and contracts/commercial law (in addition to Clinical Training, Dispute Resolution, Environmental Law, Health Care, Intellectual Property, International Law, Legal Writing, Tax, and Trial Advocacy).  Here is my coverage of the current 2020 law school rankings:

• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Pepperdine’s Place In The 2020 U.S. News Law School Rankings (Mar. 12, 2019)
• 2020 U.S. News Law School Peer Reputation Rankings (And Overall Rankings) (Mar. 12, 2019)
• 2020 U.S. News Tax Rankings (Mar. 13, 2019)
• 2020 U.S. News Dispute Resolution Rankings (Mar. 14, 2019)
• 2020 U.S. News Clinical Training Rankings (Mar. 15, 2019)
• 2020 U.S. News Environmental Law Rankings (Mar. 16, 2019)
• 2020 U.S. News Health Care Law Rankings (Mar. 17, 2019)
• 2020 U.S. News Intellectual Property Law Rankings (Mar. 18, 2019)
• 2020 U.S. News International Law Rankings (Mar. 19, 2019)
• 2020 U.S. News Legal Writing Rankings (Mar. 20, 2019)
• 2020 U.S. News Trial Advocacy Rankings (Mar. 21, 2019)
• CJ Ryan (Roger Williams) & Brian Frye (Kentucky), Law School Rankings By Attractiveness To Students (25/50/75 LSAT/UGPA, Transfers In/Out) (Mar. 21, 2019)
• Caleb Griffin (Regent), Law School Rankings: Incentives, Culture, And Change In Legal Education (Mar. 21, 2019)
• Ted Sichelman (San Diego), A Defense And Explanation Of The U.S. News 'Citation' Ranking (Mar. 21, 2019)
• March Madness Law School Bracket (Mar. 21, 2019)
• $26.5 Million Donor Completes Naming Gift Ahead Of Schedule Due To Alabama Law School's Rise In The U.S. News Rankings (Mar. 30, 2019)
• Robert Jones (Northern Illinois), U.S. News Law School Academic Reputation Scores, 1998-2019 (Apr. 2, 2019)
• Bradley Areheart (Tennessee), The Top 100 Law Schools, Based On 5-, 10-, And 15-Year Rolling Average U.S. News Rankings (Apr. 15, 2019)
• The Best Law Schools For Practical Training (Apr. 16, 2019)
• U.S. News Offers More Guidance, Meeting With Law School Deans On New Scholarly Impact Rankings (May 2, 2019)
• Ousted Business School Dean Files $25 Million Defamation Lawsuit Against Temple For Unfairly Blaming Him In U.S. News Rankings Scandal (May 6, 2019)
• Robert Kuehn (Washington University), The U.S. News Law School Specialty Program Rankings: Is The Tail Wagging The Dog? (May 6, 2019)
• Derek Muller (Pepperdine), Visualizing Legal Employment Outcomes In California, DC-Maryland-Virginia, Florida, Illinois, Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, And Texas (May 6, 2019)
• Robert Anderson (Pepperdine), 2019 Law School Rankings By Employment Outcomes (May 7, 2019)
• The Best LL.M. Programs (May 15, 2019)
• Christopher Iacono (J.D. 2019, Pennsylvania), How To Fix The U.S. News Law School Rankings (May 22, 2019)
• University Of Oklahoma Inflated Its Alumni Giving Data For 20 Years, U.S. News Strips Its #127 Ranking (May 24, 2019)
• Alabama Donor Doesn't Want His $21 Million Back; He Wants Law School To Increase Enrollment And 'Tell U.S. News, F*** You.’ (May 30, 2019)
• Former Student Files Class Action Against University Of Oklahoma For Submitting False Data To Inflate Its U.S. News Ranking For 20 Years (June 1, 2019)
• Derek Muller (Pepperdine), Significant One-Year Drops In U.S. News Law School Peer Reputation (June 6, 2019)
• Adversity' In Law School Admissions? (June 7, 2019)
• February 2019 California Bar Exam Results (June 20, 2019)
• Robert Morse Of U.S. News Receives Lifetime Ranker Achievement Award (July 24, 2019)
• Bryce Clayton Newell (Oregon), 2019 Meta-Ranking Of Flagship U.S. Law Reviews (July 25, 2019)
• Andrew Hayashi (Virginia) & Gregory Mitchell (Virginia), Maintaining Scholarly Integrity In The Age Of Bibliometrics (July 30, 2019)
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), A Dean's Perspective On Diversity, Socioeconomics, The LSAT, And The U.S. News Law School Rankings (July 31, 2019)
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), More On A Dean's Perspective On Diversity, Socioeconomics, The LSAT, And The U.S. News Law School Rankings (Aug. 6, 2019)
• Rob Anderson (Pepperdine), Citation Engagement v. One-Off Citations (Aug. 6, 2017)
• 2019 World Law School Rankings (Aug. 20, 2019)
• The Impact Of The U.S. News Rankings On The Cost Of Law School (Aug. 21, 2019)
• The 30 Most Fun Law Schools (Sept. 3, 2019)
• J. B. Ruhl, Michael Vandenbergh & Sarah Dunaway (Vanderbilt), Extending Leiter-Sisk Citation Counts To Interdisciplinary Scholarship (Sept. 16, 2019)
• July 2019 Florida Bar Exam Results: Florida International Is #1 For 5th Year In A Row (Sept. 16, 2019)
• The Top Law Schools For Human Rights (Sept. 21, 2019)
• University Of Florida Law School Continues Its Rise In Student Quality And Rankings (Oct. 1, 2019)
• Law School Trial Team Rankings: Stetson Is #1 (Oct. 9, 2019)
• Minnesota Law School Enrolls Largest 1L Class Since 2011 As Part Of Plan To Eliminate Multi-Million Dollar Deficit By 2021 While Defending Its Top 20 Ranking (Oct. 10, 2019)
• LawProfBlawg (Anonymous Professor, Top 100 Law School), The U.S. News Citation Ranking Is A 'Rigged Metrics Game' That 'Imperils Legal Academia' (Oct. 16, 2019)
• LawProfBlawg (Anonymous Professor, Top 100 Law School), The Problems Of Measuring Scholarly Impact (‘Stuff’) (Oct. 16, 2019)
• July 2019 Pennsylvania Bar Exam: Pittsburgh #1 (Oct. 17, 2019)
• Society For Empirical Legal Studies Urges U.S. News To Use Google Scholar Rather Than HeinOnline In Scholarly Impact Rankings (Oct. 29, 2019)
• Clinical Legal Education Association Statement On The U.S. News Clinical Program Rankings (Nov. 1, 2019)
• Princeton Review's Best 167 Law Schools (2020 Edition) (Nov. 6, 2019)
• Paul Heald (Illinois) & Ted Sichelman (San Diego), The Top 100 Law School Faculties In Citations (Hein) And Impact (SSRN Downloads) (Nov. 11, 2019)
• Gregory Sisk (St. Thomas), 'A Valid, If Imperfect, Proxy For Faculty Scholarly Impact On A National Scale' (Nov. 11, 2019)
• Adam Chilton (Chicago) & Jonathan Masur (Chicago), What Should Law School Rankings Measure And How Should We Measure it: A Comment On Heald & Sichelman's Rankings (Nov. 12, 2019)
• Bridget Crawford (Pace), SSRN And The (Arbitrary) Determination Of 'Scholarly' Merit (Nov. 20, 2019)
• Top Law Schools: Tax Law (Dec. 4, 2019)
• Top Law Schools: Business Law (Dec. 5, 2019)
• July 2019 New York Bar Exam Results: Columbia #1 (Dec. 5, 2019)
• July 2019 California Bar Exam Results (Dec. 14, 2019)
• July 2019 California Bar Exam Results For Out-Of-State Law Schools (Dec. 15, 2019)
• Jerry Organ (St. Thomas), 2019 Transfer Data Show Continued Decline In Number And Percentage Of Transfers (Dec. 16, 2019)
• Jerry Organ (St. Thomas), The Benefits Of Greater Transparency In Reporting Of Law Graduate Employment Outcomes (Dec. 19, 2019)
• Changes To U.S. News Law School Rankings Met With Skepticism (Jan. 9, 2020)
• Dispatches From The AALS Annual Meeting: Rankings, Rankings, And More Rankings (Jan. 13, 2020)
• The Fifty Hardest Law Schools To Get Into (Jan. 29, 2020)
• 2020 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Admissions Selectivity (Feb. 3, 2020)
• 2020 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Academic Experience (Feb. 4, 2020)
• 2020 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Professors (Teaching) (Feb. 5, 2020)
• 2020 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Professors (Accessibility) (Feb. 6, 2020)
• 2020 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Career Rating (Feb. 7, 2020)
• 2020 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Professors (Teaching And Accessibility) (Feb. 10, 2020)
• 2020 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Overall Ranking (Feb. 11, 2020)
• Deborah Merritt (Ohio State), Ranking Academic Impact (Feb. 19, 2020)
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Law School Rankings By Bar Exam Overperformance (Feb. 19, 2020)
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Law School Rankings By Ultimate Bar Passage Rates (Feb. 20, 2020)

Law School Rankings By Ultimate Bar Passage Rates

The ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar has released comprehensive data on bar passage outcomes for ABA-accredited law schools. Here are the 43 law schools with ultimate bar passages rates for the Class of 2017 greater than 95% (the full data for all 199 law schools is here):

1	CONCORDIA	100.00%
1	WISCONSIN	100.00%
1	YALE	100.00%
4	VIRGINIA	99.66%
5	PENNSYLVANIA	99.59%
6	DUKE	99.55%
7	CHICAGO	99.52%
8	STANFORD	99.45%
9	U. WASHINGTON	99.39%
10	MARQUETTE	98.95%
11	NEBRASKA	98.90%
12	HARVARD	98.83%
13	NYU	98.32%
14	SAINT LOUIS	97.96%
15	CORNELL	97.50%
16	TULSA	97.47%
17	OKLAHOMA	97.37%
18	UC-BERKELEY	97.32%
19	BAYLOR	97.06%
20	ILLINOIS	97.06%
21	BOSTON COLLEGE	97.00%
22	COLUMBIA	96.93%
22	COLORADO	96.93%
24	TEXAS	96.78%
25	GEORGIA STATE	96.59%
26	KANSAS	96.55%
27	VANDERBILT	96.30%
28	NORTH CAROLINA	96.26%
29	NORTHWESTERN	96.22%
30	MIAMI	96.20%
31	ST. JOHN'S	96.17%
32	FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL	96.10%
33	FORDHAM	96.10%
33	WILLIAM & MARY	96.04%
35	ALABAMA	96.03%
36	MICHIGAN	95.99%
37	GEORGETOWN	95.85%
38	SYRACUSE	95.59%
39	NOTRE DAME	95.54%
40	GEORGIA	95.48%
41	UCLA	95.40%
42	BOSTON UNIVERSITY	95.26%
43	USC	95.15%

Law School Rankings By Bar Exam Overperformance

The ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar yesterday released comprehensive data on bar passage outcomes for ABA-accredited law schools. Here are the 56 law schools that outperformed their state's average bar pass rate for first-time takers in 2019 by at least 10% (the full data for all 199 law schools is here):

		School Pass Rate	State Pass Rate	Difference
1	GEORGIA	91.76%	67.78%	23.98%
2	FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL	94.81%	70.92%	23.89%
3	WISCONSIN	100.00%	76.99%	23.01%
4	MARQUETTE	99.44%	77.00%	22.44%
5	GEORGIA STATE	86.91%	65.92%	20.99%
6	STANFORD	95.32%	74.35%	20.97%
7	CHICAGO	96.45%	76.32%	20.13%
8	HARVARD	98.93%	79.01%	19.92%
9	YALE	96.26%	77.38%	18.88%
10	DUKE	97.70%	78.98%	18.72%
11	UCLA	89.46%	70.94%	18.52%
12	UC-BERKELEY	90.37%	71.88%	18.49%
13	MICHIGAN	95.39%	77.18%	18.21%
14	VIRGINIA	95.79%	77.69%	18.10%
15	ILLINOIS	92.50%	74.74%	17.76%
16	USC	87.73%	70.06%	17.67%
17	PENNSYLVANIA	97.07%	79.69%	17.38%
18	VANDERBILT	94.15%	77.27%	16.88%
19	TEXAS	93.29%	77.10%	16.19%
20	FLORIDA	87.12%	71.09%	16.03%
21	FLORIDA STATE	86.71%	70.78%	15.93%
22	NORTHWESTERN	91.97%	76.05%	15.92%
23	BELMONT	96.25%	80.56%	15.69%
24	GEORGETOWN	92.67%	76.99%	15.68%
25	NEW HAMPSHIRE	87.09%	72.22%	14.87%
26	LIBERTY	92.00%	77.25%	14.75%
27	NOTRE DAME	90.16%	75.69%	14.47%
28	UC-DAVIS	84.46%	70.01%	14.45%
29	MERCER	81.25%	66.98%	14.27%
30	NORTH CAROLINA	92.50%	78.85%	13.65%
31	COLUMBIA	95.11%	81.48%	13.63%
32	IOWA	92.59%	79.02%	13.57%
33	NYU	95.96%	82.48%	13.48%
34	SETON HALL	90.44%	76.99%	13.45%
35	MINNESOTA	93.04%	79.62%	13.42%
36	WILLIAM & MARY	90.91%	77.53%	13.38%
37	BAYLOR	90.32%	77.29%	13.03%
38	TEXAS A&M	90.32%	77.34%	12.98%
39	GEORGE MASON	87.90%	75.07%	12.83%
40	WASHINGTON & LEE	89.72%	76.99%	12.73%
41	INDIANA - BLOOMINGTON	88.19%	75.47%	12.72%
42	GEORGE WASHINGTON	88.02%	75.35%	12.67%
43	ARIZONA STATE	86.69%	74.17%	12.52%
44	PEPPERDINE	82.42%	70.17%	12.25%
45	ALABAMA	93.65%	81.72%	11.93%
46	CORNELL	93.79%	81.97%	11.82%
47	UC-IRVINE	81.49%	69.74%	11.75%
48	CAMPBELL	91.51%	79.86%	11.65%
49	LOYOLA-CHICAGO	85.32%	74.10%	11.22%
50	WAKE FOREST	90.00%	78.86%	11.14%
51	COLORADO	87.50%	76.54%	10.96%
51	WAYNE STATE	81.51%	70.55%	10.96%
53	BOSTON UNIVERSITY	91.60%	80.73%	10.87%
54	EMORY	82.82%	72.02%	10.80%
55	BOSTON COLLEGE	91.46%	80.99%	10.47%
56	WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY	89.13%	78.70%	10.43%

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Merritt: Ranking Academic Impact

Deborah J. Merritt (Ohio State), Ranking Academic Impact:

Paul Heald and Ted Sichelman have published a new ranking of the top U.S. law schools by academic impact. Five distinguished scholars comment on their ranking in the same issue of Jurimetrics Journal in which the ranking appears. But neither the authors of this ranking nor their distinguished commentators notice a singular result: The Heald/Sichelman rankings include a law school that does not exist.

According to Heald and Sichelman, Oregon State ranks 53d among U.S. law schools for its SSRN downloads; 35th for its citations in the Hein database; and 46th in a combined metric. Oregon State, however, does not have a law school. The University of Oregon has a law school, but it appears separately in the Heald/Sichelman rankings. So Heald and Sichelman have not simply fumbled the name of Oregon’s only public law school.

Instead, it appears that my own law school (Ohio State) has been renamed Oregon State. I can’t be sure without seeing Heald and Sichelman’s underlying data; even the “open” database posted in Dropbox refers to the nonexistent Oregon State. But Ohio State, currently tied for 34th in the US News survey, seems conspicuously absent from the Heald/Sichelman ranking.

I’m sure that my deans will contact Heald and Sichelman to request a correction–assuming that Oregon State actually is Ohio State. Oregon State Law School’s administrators probably will not complain. They can’t celebrate either, of course, because they don’t exist. But apart from that correction, let’s ruminate on this error. What does it have to say about rankings? ...

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2020 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Overall Ranking

I previously blogged the lists of the Top 10 law schools in fourteen categories in the 2020 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, giving 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:

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2020 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Professors (Teaching And Accessibility)

I previously blogged the lists of the Top 10 law schools in fourteen categories in the 2020 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:

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2020 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Career Rating

I previously blogged the lists of the Top 10 law schools in fourteen categories in the 2020 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.

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2020 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Professors (Accessibility)

I previously blogged the lists of the Top 10 law schools in fourteen categories in the 2020 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. 

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2020 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Professors (Teaching)

I previously blogged the lists of the Top 10 law schools in fourteen categories in the 2020 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.

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2020 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Academic Experience

I previously blogged the lists of the Top 10 law schools in fourteen categories in the 2020 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.

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2020 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Admissions Selectivity

I previously blogged the lists of the Top 10 law schools in fourteen categories in the 2020 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. 

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