The Most-Cited Deans At The 64 Most-Cited Law Schools

Following up on last week's post, The 64 Most-Cited Law Faculties: here are the 22 deans among the 10-most cited faculty at the Top 64 law schools:

6. UC-Berkeley: Erwin Chemerinsky
9. Vanderbilt: Chris Guthrie
18. UC-Davis: Kevin Johnson
20. Texas: Robert Chesney
23. Minnesota: William McGeveran; St. Thomas-MN: Daniel Kelly; William & Mary: A. Benjamin Spencer
26. USC: Franita Tolson
27. Boston University: Angela Onwuachi-Willig
30. Utah: Elizabeth Kronk Warner
34. Florida State: Erin O'Hara O'Connor; Ohio State: Kent Barnett; San Diego: Robert Schapiro
38. University of Arizona: Marc Miller
43. Case Western: Paul Rose; UC-San Francisco: David Faigman
47. Georgia: Peter Rutledge; San Francisco: Johanna Kalb; Temple: Rachel Rebouché
56. Iowa: Kevin Washburn
60. Pittsburgh: Mary Crossley; SMU: Jason Nance

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The Most-Cited Tax Faculty At The 64 Most-Cited Law Schools

Following up on last week's post, The 64 Most-Cited Law Faculties:  here are the 13 Tax Profs among the 10-most cited faculty at the Top 64 law schools:

3. Harvard: Louis Kaplow
4. NYU: Daniel Hemel
14. Michigan: Reuven Avi-Yonah
18. UC-Davis: Darien Shanske
22. UC-Irvine: Victor Fleischer
23. Minnesota: Kristin Hickman
34. Cardozo: Edward Zelinsky; Florida State: Steve Johnson
42. BYU: Cliff Fleming
47. San Francisco: Joshua Rosenberg
56. Boston College: Diane Ring
60. Pittsburgh: Anthony Infanti; Santa Clara: Patricia Cain

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The 64 Most-Cited Law Faculties

Gregory C. Sisk (St. Thomas-MN; Google Scholar), Adam Bent (Florida), et al., Scholarly Impact of Law School Faculties in 2024: Updating the Leiter Score Ranking for the Top Third:

This updated 2024 study explores the scholarly impact of law faculties, ranking the top third of ABA-accredited law schools. Refined by Brian Leiter, the “Scholarly Impact Ranking” for a law faculty is calculated from the mean and the median of total law journal citations over the past five years to the work of tenured faculty members. In addition to a school-by-school ranking, we report the mean, median, and weighted score, along with a list of the tenured law faculty members at each school with the ten highest individual citation counts.

The law faculty at Yale continues to hold the top ranked position in the 2024 Scholarly Impact Ranking, with the University of Chicago at second, Harvard at third, New York University at fourth, and Columbia at fifth. The University of California-Berkeley remains in the sixth position with Pennsylvania moving up one spot to seventh. Stanford is at eight, and Vanderbilt remains at nine. Virginia, which had climbed from sixteenth in 2018 to ninth in 2021, remains in the top 10. ... 

Rank	School	Most Cited Scholars (* indicates 70 or older in 2024)	U.S. News Peer Rank	U.S. News Overall Rank
1	Yale	*Ackerman, Bruce A.; Amar, Akhil R.; Ayres, Ian; Balkin, Jack M.; *Eskridge, William, Jr.; Gluck, Abbe R.; Macey, Jonathan R.; *Post, Robert C.; *Resnik, Judith; Siegel, Reva B.	3	1
2	Chicago	Baude, William; BenShahar, Omri; Bradley, Curtis A.; Ginsburg, Tom; Huq, Aziz; *Nussbaum, Martha; Posner, Eric; *Stone, Geoffrey R.; Strahilevitz, Lior; *Strauss, David A.	3	3
3	Harvard	Bebchuk, Lucian A.; *Fallon, Richard H.; Goldsmith, Jack Landman; Kaplow, Louis; Klarman, Michael; Lessig, Lawrence; Manning, John F.; *Shavell, Steven M.; *Sunstein, Cass R.; Vermeule, Adrian	1	4
4	NYU	Barkow, Rachel E.; Choi, Stephen; *Epstein, Richard; Friedman, Barry; Hemel, Daniel; *Issacharoff, Samuel; Kahan, Marcel; *Miller, Arthur R.; *Miller, Geoffrey Parsons; Pildes, Richard H.; *Waldron, Jeremy	3	9
5	Columbia	*Coffee, John C., Jr.; Crenshaw, Kimberlé Williams; *Fagan, Jeffrey A.; *Gordon, Jeffrey N.; Greene, Jamal; Hamburger, Philip; *Merrill, Thomas W.; Metzger, Gillian E.; Pozen, David; Wu, Timothy	3	8
6	UC-Berkeley	Bridges, Khiara M.; *Chemerinsky, Erwin; *Farber, Daniel A; Haney Lopez, Ian F.; Kerr, Orin; Menell, Peter S.; Merges, Robert P.; *Samuelson, Pamela; Solomon, Steven Davidoff; Yoo, John Choon	7	12
7	Penn	Coglianese, Cary; Fisch, Jill E.; Hoffman, David; *Hovenkamp, Herbert; Mayson, Sandra G.; Parchomovsky, Gideon; Pollman, Elizabeth; Roberts, Dorothy E.; *Robinson, Paul H.; Skeel, David Arthur	10	4
8	Stanford	Engstrom, David Freeman; Karlan, Pamela S.; Lemley, Mark A.; McConnell, Michael W.; O’Connell, Anne Joseph; Ouellette, Lisa Larrimore; Persily, Nathaniel; *Polinsky, A. Mitchell; *Rabin, Robert L.; Sklansky, David Alan	1	1
9	Vanderbilt	Bressman, Lisa S.; Guthrie, Chris; King, Nancy J.; Rossi, Jim; *Rubin, Edward L.; Ruhl, J.B.; Sitaraman, Ganesh; *Slobogin, Christopher; Stack, Kevin; Thomas, Randall S.	17	19
10	Virginia	Cahn, Naomi R.; Citron, Danielle K.; Duffy, John F.; Gulati, G. Mitu; Nelson, Caleb E.; Prakash, Saikrishna; Re, Richard M.; *Schauer, Frederick; *Solum, Lawrence B.; *White, G. Edward	8	4
11	Duke	Adler, Matthew; Blocher, Joseph; *Cox, James D.; Garrett, Brandon; Lemos, Margaret H.; Purdy, Jedediah; Rai, Arti K.; *Schwarcz, Steven L.; Siegel, Neil S.; Young, Ernest A.	10	4
11	UCLA	Bainbridge, Stephen M.; Carbado, Devon Wayne; Crenshaw, Kimberle W.; Cummings, Scott L.; Eagly, Ingrid V.; Harris, Cheryl I.; Hasen, Richard L.; Kang, Jerry; Schwartz, Joanna; Winkler, Adam	13	13
13	Cornell	*Clermont, Kevin M.; Dorf, Michael C.; Grimmelmann, James; Heise, Michael; *Johnson, Sheri Lynn; Lahav, Alexandra D.; Omarova, Saule; Pasquale, Frank; Rachlinski, Jeffrey J.; Rahman, K. Sabeel; Tebbe, Nelson	13	14
14	Michigan	Avi-Yonah, Reuven S.; Bagley, Nicholas; Crane, Daniel; Fletcher, Matthew L.M.; Litman, Leah; *MacKinnon, Catharine A.; Mortenson, Julian Davis; Price, Nicholson; Primus, Richard; Schlanger, Margo; Walker, Christopher J.	8	9
15	Georgetown	*Barnett, Randy E.; Butler, Paul; Cohen, Julie E.; Cole, David D.; Goodwin, Michele; *Gostin, Lawrence O.; *Langevoort, Donald C.; Ohm, Paul; *Thompson, Robert B.; Vladeck, Stephen	13	14
16	Northwestern	*Black, Bernard; Calabresi, Steven G.; Clopton, Zachary; *Diamond, Shari; Koppelman, Andrew M.; McGinnis, John O. ; Pfander, James E.; *Redish, Martin H.; Schanzenbach, Max M.; Schwartz, David L.; Tuerkheimer, Deborah	10	9
17	George Washington	Abramowicz, Michael; Dodge, William; Franks, Mary Anne; *Glicksman, Robert L.; *Kovacic, William E.; Lee, Cynthia; Murphy, Sean D.; *Pierce, Richard J., Jr; Rosen, Jeffrey; Solove, Daniel J.	27	41
18	Emory	Ajunwa, Ifeoma; *Fineman, Martha Albertson; Hutchinson, Darren; Jacobi, Tonja; Nash, Jonathan; Quinn, Kevin M.; Roberts, Jessica L.; Sag, Matthew; Shepherd, Joanna M.; Smith, Fred, Jr.; Witte, John, Jr.	19	42
18	UC-Davis	Amar, Vikram D.; Bhagwat, Ashutosh; Chin, Gabriel (Jack); Horton, David; Joh, Elizabeth E.; Johnson, Kevin R.; Joslin, Courtney G.; Lee, Peter; Shanske, Darien; Ziegler, Mary	24	55
20	Fordham	*Brudney, James J.; Capers, Bennett; Davidson, Nestor M.; Green, Bruce A.; Griffith, Sean J.; Kent, Andrew; Leib, Ethan J.; Pearce, Russell G.; Pfaff, John F.; Squire, Richard; Teachout, Zephyr; Zipursky, Benjamin C.	32	33
20	Texas	Chesney, Robert M. (Bob); *Forbath, William E.; Golden, John M.; Grove, Tara; *Levinson, Sanford; *McGarity, Thomas O.; *Sager, Lawrence G.; Silver, Charles M.; Spence, David B.; Wagner, Wendy E.	16	16
22	UC-Irvine	Baradaran, Mehrsa; Barnes, Mario; Fleischer, Victor; Gold, Andrew; Jiménez, Dalié; Lee, Stephen; Leslie, Christopher; *MenkelMeadow, Carrie; Reese, R. Anthony; Richardson, L. Song; Waldman, Ari Ezra; Whytock, Christopher	24	42
23	Minnesota	Bodie, Matthew; *Carbone, June; Cotter, Thomas F.; Hickman, Kristin E.; Hill, Claire A.; McDonnell, Brett; McGeveran, William; Parisi, Francesco; Schwarcz, Daniel; Wurman, Ilan	19	16
23	St. Thomas-MN	Berg, Thomas C.; Grenardo, David; *Hamilton, Neil W.; Kaal, Wulf; Kelly, Daniel; Organ, Jerome M.; Osler, Mark; Paulsen, Michael S.; *Reid, Charles J., Jr.; Sisk, Gregory C.	126	98
23	William & Mary	Bellin, Jeffrey; Bruhl, Aaron; Criddle, Evan J.; Devins, Neal E.; Gershowitz, Adam; Hu, Margaret; Larsen, Allison Orr; Porter, Nicole Buonocore; Spencer, A. Benjamin; Zick, Timothy	27	36
26	USC	Barnett, Jonathan; Clarke, Jessica; Epstein, Lee; Gruber, Aya; Guzman, Andrew T.; Keating, Gregory; Klerman, Daniel M.; Rasmussen, Robert K.; Sokol, D. Daniel; Tolson, Franita	19	20
27	Boston University	Beermann, Jack M.; *Fleming, James E.; Hartzog, Woodrow; Hylton, Keith N.; McClain, Linda C.; Onwuachi-Willig, Angela; Shugerman, Jed; Van Loo, Rory; Webber, David H.; Meurer, Michael J.	19	24
28	Washington University	Boyd, Christina; Epps, Daniel; *Joy, Peter A.; Kim, Pauline T.; *Kuehn, Robert R.; *Levin, Benjamin; Levin, Ronald M.; Richards, Neil M.; *Seligman, Joel; Tamanaha, Brian Z.	18	16
29	Brooklyn	Araiza, William D.; Baer, Miriam H.; Bernstein, Anita; Godsoe, Cynthia; Janger, Edward J.; Kim, Catherine Y.; Ristroph, Alice; Roberts, Anna; *Schneider, Elizabeth M.; Simonson, Jocelyn	74	114
30	Florida	Bambauer, Derek; Bambauer, Jane; Lawson, Gary; Lidsky, Lyrissa Barnett; *LoPucki, Lynn M.; Maclin, Tracey; Noah, Lars; Rhee, Robert J.; Stinneford, John F.; *Wolf, Michael Allan	32	28
30	George Mason	Bernstein, David; Butler, Henry; Garoupa, Nuno; *Ginsburg, Douglas; Greve, Michael; Kleinfeld, Joshua; *Lund, Nelson; Mossoff, Adam; *Muris, Timothy; Somin, Ilya; Zywicki, Todd	64	28
30	North Carolina	Ardia, David; *Conley, John M.; Coyle, John F.; Gerhardt, Michael J.; *Hazen, Thomas L.; Hessick, Carissa Byrne; Hessick, F. Andrew; Jacoby, Melissa B.; Jain, Eisha; *Marshall, William P.; Su, Rick; Wilson, Erika	24	20
30	Utah	Anderson, Jonas; Anghie, Antony T.; Brown, Teneille Ruth; Cassell, Paul G.; Contreras, Jorge; *Francis, Leslie; Jones, RonNell Andersen; Peterson, Christopher L.; Tokson, Matthew; Warner, Elizabeth Kronk	44	28
34	Cardozo	Gilles, Myriam; Herz, Michael Eric; Levine, Kate; Markowitz, Peter; Reinert, Alexander A.; *Rosenfeld, Michel; Schneider, Andrea Kupfer; Sebok, Anthony; *Sterk, Stewart E.; *Zelinsky, Edward	51	61
34	Florida State	Bayern, Shawn J.; *Johnson, Steve R.; Landau, David E.; Logan, Wayne A.; Morley, Michael T.; O’Hara O’Connor, Erin A.; Ryan, Erin; *Seidenfeld, Mark B.; Slocum, Brian G.; Tsesis, Alexander	47	48
34	Ohio State	Akbar, Amna; Barnett, Kent; Berman, Douglas A.; Colker, Ruth; Foley, Edward B.; Garcia Hernández, César; Schmitz, Amy J.; Simmons, Ric L.; Strang, Lee; Yearby, Ruqaiijah A.	27	26
34	San Diego	*Alexander, Lawrence A.; Bell, Abraham; Dripps, Donald A.; Fox, Dov; *Hirsch, Adam; Lobel, Orly; McGowan, David; Ramsey, Michael D.; Rappaport, Michael B.; Schapiro, Robert; Sichelman, Ted; *Smith, Steven D.	51	68
38	Illinois	*Finkin, Matthew W.; Hurd, Heidi M.; Lawless, Robert M.; Mazzone, Jason; *Moore, Michael S.; Robbennolt, Jennifer K.; Sherkow, Jacob S.; Thomas, Suja A.; Wilson, Robin Fretwell	38	36
38	Notre Dame	Alford, Roger P.; Bellia, Anthony J., Jr.; Bray, Samuel; Garnett, Nicole S.; Garnett, Richard W.; Kozel, Randy; Miller, Paul; Muller, Derek T.; Pojanowski, Jeffrey; Tidmarsh, Jay	19	20
38	University of Arizona	Coan, Andrew; Engel, Kirsten H.; Miller, Marc L.; Orbach, Barak Y.; Puig, Sergio; Sepe, Simone M.; Tsosie, Rebecca; Williams, Robert A., Jr.; Woods, Andrew Keane; Woods, Jordan Blair	38	55
41	Colorado	Anaya, S. James; Carpenter, Kristen A.; Gulasekaram, Pratheepan; Kaminski, Margot; Krakoff, Sarah; Norton, Helen; Roithmayr, Daria; Schlag, Pierre; SkinnerThompson, Scott; Surden, Harry	38	48
42	BYU	Asay, Clark D.; Baradaran Baughman, Shima; *Fleming, J. Clifton, Jr.; Grow Sun, Lisa; Jennejohn, Matt; Jensen, Eric Talbot; Lee, Thomas R.; Plamondon, Stephanie Bair; Shobe, Jarrod; Smith, D. Gordon	51	28
43	Arizona State	Beydoun, Khaled; Bodansky, Daniel M.; Bublick, Ellen M.; Hodge, James G., Jr.; Luna, Erik; Marchant, Gary E.; Miller, Robert J.; *Saks, Michael J.; Selmi, Michael L.; *Weinstein, James	32	36
43	Case Western	Adler, Jonathan H.; Chaffee, Eric C.; Hill, B. Jessie; Hoffman, Sharona; Korsmo, Charles R.; Nard, Craig A.; Robertson, Cassandra Burke; Rose, Paul; Rosenblatt, Betsy; Scharf, Michael P.	64	89
43	Kansas	Bhala, Raj; Craig, Robin Kundis; Drahozal, Christopher R.; *Hoeflich, Michael H.; Jefferson-Jones, Jamila; Levy, Richard E.; Outka, Uma; Velte, Kyle; Ware, Stephen J.; Yung, Corey Rayburn	64	46
43	UC-San Francisco	Depoorter, Ben; Dodson, Scott; Faigman, David L.; Feldman, Robin; *Marcus, Richard; Ming H. Chen; Owen, Dave; Price, Zachary; Reiss, Dorit Rubinstein; Short, Jodi	64	82
47	Chicago-Kent	Baker, Katharine K.; Dinwoodie, Graeme B.; Heyman, Steven J.; Katz, Daniel; Kim, Nancy; Krent, Harold J.; Marder, Nancy S.; Reilly, Greg; Rosen, Mark D.; Schmidt, Christopher W.	90	108
47	Georgia	Bruner, Christopher M.; Burch, Elizabeth Chamblee; Cade, Jason A.; Chapman, Nathan S.; *Coenen, Dan T.; Foohey, Pamela; Levin, Hillel Y.; Rodrigues, Usha; Rutledge, Peter B.; *Wells, Michael L.; West, Sonja R.	27	20
47	San Francisco	Bazelon, Lara; Dibadj, Reza R.; Freiwald, Susan A.; Harris, Lindsay M.; *Hing, Bill Ong; Kalb, Johanna; Kaswan, Alice; Leo, Richard A.; Nice, Julie A.; *Rosenberg, Joshua D.	138	165
47	Temple	Burris, Scott C.; Dunoff, Jeffrey L.; Gugliuzza, Paul R.; Hollis, Duncan B.; Lin, Tom C.W.; Lipson, Jonathan; RamjiNogales, Jaya; Rebouche, Rachel; Spiro, Peter J.; Wells, Harwell	51	54
47	Washington & Lee	Drumbl, Mark A.; Fairfield, Joshua A.T.; Haan, Sarah; Hasbrouck, Brandon; Malveaux, Suzette; Miller, Russell A.; Seaman, Christopher B.; Smith, Catherine E.; Trammell, Alan; Woody, Karen	38	33

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2024 Meta-Ranking Of Flagship U.S. Law Reviews

Bryce Clayton Newell (Oregon), 2024 Meta-Ranking of Flagship US Law Reviews:

This is an updated ranking of the top flagship law reviews at US law schools (updated as of August 7, 2024). For a summary and more details about method, see below the table. You can also compare MetaRanking from 2018-2024, including changes in ranking over time here: MetaRank Comparison 2018-2024.

For specialty/secondary journal rankings (not yet updated for 2024), see:

• Meta-Ranking (Law & Tech Journals) – 2023
• Meta-Ranking (Online/Companion Journals) – 2023

The MetaRank was computed by averaging ranks (using a 25% weighting from each) of the following rankings:

prRank = US News Peer Reputation score ranking (averaged over 10 years);
usnRank = overall US News school ranking (averaged over 10 years);
wluRank = Washington & Lee Law Journal Ranking;
gRank = Google Scholar Metrics ranking (note: “1000” means journal was not indexed).

Journal	MetaRank	prRank	usnRank	wluRank	gRank
Harvard Law Review	1	2	3	1	1
Yale Law Journal	2	3	1	4	2
Stanford Law Review	3	1	2	3	5
Columbia Law Review	4	4	5	2	3
University of Chicago Law Review	5	5	4	12	4
New York University Law Review	6	6	6	10	6
California Law Review	7	7	11	5	6
University of Pennsylvania Law Review	8	9	6	6	10
Michigan Law Review	9	8	9	7	9
Virginia Law Review	10	10	8	13	11
Duke Law Journal	11	11	9	11	13
Georgetown Law Journal	12	14	14	9	13
Northwestern University Law Review	13	13	12	14	15
Cornell Law Review	14	12	13	8	25
Vanderbilt Law Review	15	17	17	15	11
UCLA Law Review	16	15	15	20	18
Boston University Law Review	17	22	21	18	8
Minnesota Law Review	18	19	20	16	17
Texas Law Review	19	16	16	22	23
Washington University Law Review	20	18	18	26	23
Southern California Law Review	21	19	19	27	22
Iowa Law Review	22	30	25	17	18
Notre Dame Law Review	23	22	22	24	26
Boston College Law Review	24	29	30	21	18
Fordham Law Review	25	33	36	19	15
George Washington Law Review	26	25	24	28	28
UC Davis Law Review	27	26	43	25	18
Indiana Law Journal	28	34	40	23	26
UC Irvine Law Review	29	27	27	35	39
Wisconsin Law Review	29	28	33	33	34
Emory Law Journal	31	21	23	43	42
Florida Law Review	32	36	34	30	30
William & Mary Law Review	32	32	36	31	31
North Carolina Law Review	34	24	31	38	40
Alabama Law Review	35	37	26	36	37
University of Illinois Law Review	36	40	41	29	29
Washington Law Review	37	38	42	31	32
Georgia Law Review	38	34	29	42	47
Ohio State Law Journal	39	31	32	40	51
Arizona State Law Journal	40	39	28	51	52
Arizona Law Review	41	42	46	39	45
UC Law Journal	42	44	58	37	35
University of Colorado Law Review	43	41	46	49	40
Wake Forest Law Review	43	45	38	48	45
Washington and Lee Law Review	45	43	39	52	43
Cardozo Law Review	46	53	60	34	32
Maryland Law Review	47	48	50	47	35
Utah Law Review	48	49	45	41	48
Brigham Young University Law Review	49	50	34	46	62
Connecticut Law Review	50	51	56	50	52
American University Law Review	51	51	83	44	48
SMU Law Review	52	64	48	54	62
Houston Law Review	53	60	57	66	55
Tulane Law Review	54	46	55	59	84
Denver Law Review	55	56	76	55	59
George Mason Law Review	56	59	44	67	79
University of Richmond Law Review	57	66	54	63	68
Temple Law Review	58	54	53	72	79
Georgia State University Law Review	59	60	69	73	57
Florida State University Law Review	60	47	49	81	84
Lewis & Clark Law Review	61	89	93	45	38
Oklahoma Law Review	62	80	66	68	52
Pepperdine Law Review	63	60	51	69	91
Nevada Law Journal	64	75	72	57	76
Seton Hall Law Review	65	87	61	62	72
San Diego Law Review	66	58	80	83	62
Villanova Law Review	67	77	67	74	69
South Carolina Law Review	68	82	88	64	57
Case Western Reserve Law Review	69	68	73	96	59
Brooklyn Law Review	70	73	91	61	72
Missouri Law Review	71	73	64	89	72
Chicago-Kent Law Review	72	79	90	71	59
Nebraska Law Review	72	88	74	75	62
University of Kansas Law Review	74	67	63	86	84
Tennessee Law Review	75	65	59	78	101
Buffalo Law Review	76	104	106	53	43
University of Miami Law Review	77	57	70	113	69
Marquette Law Review	78	98	98	58	56
Loyola University Chicago Law Journal	79	71	77	79	84
Penn State Law Review	80	93	71	70	84
Michigan State Law Review	81	90	97	56	79
Texas A&M Law Review	81	84	82	65	91
Oregon Law Review	83	54	85	98	0
Howard Law Journal	84	70	113	77	1000
Kentucky Law Journal	85	76	65	105	104
University of Cincinnati Law Review	86	91	79	97	84
University of Pittsburgh Law Review	87	69	81	108	95
Rutgers University Law Review	88	72	86	103	95
Seattle University Law Review	88	92	118	80	66
CUNY Law Review	90	109	130	60	1000
Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review	91	63	68	127	104
Syracuse Law Review	91	96	102	88	76
Saint Louis University Law Journal	93	96	92	91	84
Northeastern University Law Review	94	81	75	109	1000
UMKC Law Review	95	108	122	76	69
FIU Law Review	96	132	94	85	66
St. John's Law Review	97	100	78	84	121
Arkansas Law Review	98	95	89	112	93
West Virginia Law Review	99	112	107	95	76
Louisiana Law Review	100	103	96	101	101

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2024 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Overall Ranking

I previously blogged the lists of the Top 5 law schools in fourteen categories in the 2024 edition of the Princeton Review's Best Law Schools. In a series of posts, 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
• Professors (Teaching And Accessibility)
• Career Rating

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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2024 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Career Rating

I previously blogged the lists of the Top 5 law schools in fourteen categories in the 2024 edition of the Princeton Review's Best Law Schools. In a series of posts, 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
• Professors (Teaching And 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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2024 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Professors (Teaching And Accessibility)

Update: 2024 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Overall Ranking

I previously blogged the lists of the Top 5 law schools in fourteen categories in the 2024 edition of the Princeton Review's Best Law Schools. In a series of posts, 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
• Professors (Teaching And 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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U.S. News Replaces Ordinal Ranking Of Medical Schools With Tiers Due To Boycott. Are Law Schools Next?

Chronicle of Higher Education, ‘U.S. News’ Medical-School Rankings Are Out — Except They’re Not Really Rankings:

U.S. News & World Report’s annual “Best Medical Schools” lists were published on Tuesday, and, for the first time, the schools don’t have ordinal ranks. Instead, they’re organized into four tiers. Within each tier, the schools are listed in alphabetical order.

Although some rankings critics have touted tiers as a better alternative to ordinal ranks, U.S. News analysts don’t appear to agree, necessarily. Instead, it seems as if “Best Medical Schools: Research” and “Best Medical Schools: Primary Care” are tiered this year because too many schools didn’t supply the magazine’s analysts with the data they needed to create rankings. ...

Twenty percent of last year’s top-100 medical schools for research and primary care didn’t return U.S. News’s statistical survey this year [27% of law schools did not submit data to U.S. News]. Schools that didn’t fill out the survey are listed as unranked. Among them are some of the country’s best-known doctor-training programs, such as Harvard University’s, the Johns Hopkins University’s, and the University of Pennsylvania’s. ...

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2024 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Professors (Accessibility)

Update: 2024 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Overall Ranking

I previously blogged the lists of the Top 5 law schools in fourteen categories in the 2024 edition of the Princeton Review's Best Law Schools. In a series of posts, 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
• Professors (Teaching And 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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2024 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Professors (Teaching)

Update: 2024 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Overall Ranking

I previously blogged the lists of the Top 5 law schools in fourteen categories in the 2024 edition of the Princeton Review's Best Law Schools. In a series of posts, 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
• Professors (Teaching And 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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2024 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Academic Experience

Update: 2024 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Overall Ranking

I previously blogged the lists of the Top 5 law schools in fourteen categories in the 2024 edition of the Princeton Review's Best Law Schools. In a series of posts, 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
• Professors (Teaching And 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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2024 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Admissions Selectivity

Update: 2024 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Overall Ranking

I previously blogged the lists of the Top 5 law schools in fourteen categories in the 2024 edition of the Princeton Review's Best Law Schools. In a series of posts, 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
• Professors (Teaching And 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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Princeton Review's Best 168 Law Schools (2024 Edition)

The Princeton Review has published the 2024 edition of The Best 168 Law Schools (press release) (FAQs) (methodology):

The company reports its annual law school rankings in 14 categories, each one naming the top 10 schools in a particular category. ...

The Princeton Review’s law school rankings are uniquely based on data the company gathers from surveys of administrators at the law schools as well as surveys of students attending the schools who rate and report on their experiences at them. The 2024 rankings are based on data the company gathered from its surveys of administrators at 168 law schools in 2024 and surveys of 18,400 students enrolled in the schools over the past three academic years.

More than 60 data points are factored into the company’s ranking list tallies. Of the 14 categories of ranking lists, six are based on student- and administrator-reported data. Five are based solely on student data, and three are based solely on administrator data. ...

Best Quality of Life: Based on student answers to survey questions on: whether there is a strong sense of community at the school whether differing opinions are tolerated in the classroom, the location of the school, the quality of social life at the school, the school's research resources (library, computer and database resources).

1. UCLA
2. Virginia
3. Florida State
4. Georgia
5. Penn

Best Professors: Based on student answers to survey questions concerning how good their professors are as teachers and how accessible they are outside the classroom.

1. Virginia
2. Chicago
3. Duke
4. Vanderbilt
5. Notre Dame

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Top Law Schools For Alternative Dispute Resolution

Top Law Schools For Alternative Dispute Resolution, preLaw, Spring 2024, at 37:

Law students who specialize in alternative dispute resolution (ADR) focus on litigation and conflict resolution skills. ADR acts as an alternative to going to trial when problems arise between businesses and their customers, suppliers, partners or employees. Just as trial skills are important, so is a strong background in mediation, arbitration and negotiation. ...

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2024-25 U.S. News Global Universities Rankings

U.S. News & World Report, 2024-25 Best Global Universities Rankings:

These institutions from the U.S. and more than 100 other countries have been ranked based on 13 indicators that measure their academic research performance and their global and regional reputations. Students can use these rankings to explore the higher education options that exist beyond their own countries' borders and to compare key aspects of schools' research missions. These are the world's 2,250 top universities.

1. Harvard (100.0)
2. MIT (96.9)
3. Stanford (94.5)
4. Oxford (88.2)
5. UC-Berkeley (87.2)
6. Cambridge (86.9)
7. University College London (86.5)
7. University of Washington (86.5)
9. Columbia (86.4)
10. Yale (86.0)
11. UCLA (85.5)
12. Imperial College London (85.3)
13. Johns Hopkins (85.2)
14. Penn (84.7)
15. UC-San Francisco (84.5)
16. Tsinghua University (84.4)
17. Toronto (84.3)
18. Princeton (83.9)
19. Cornell (83.7)
19. Michigan (83.7)
21. UC-San Diego (83.6)
22. National University of Singapore (83.5)
23. Cal-Tech (83.4)
24. Northwestern (81.8)
25. University of Chicago (81.5)

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Georgetown Study: Return On Investment At 186 Law Schools

Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, Press Release: At Nearly 1 in 5 Law Schools, Graduates Earn Less Than $55,000 Net of Debt Four Years After Graduation, Georgetown University Report Says 

Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, A Law Degree Is No Sure Thing: Some Law School Graduates Earn Top Dollar, but Many Do Not (pdf):

Is law school worth it? A Juris Doctor (JD) offers high median earnings and a substantial earnings boost relative to a bachelor’s degree in the humanities or social sciences—two of the more common fields of study that lawyers pursue as undergraduate students. However, graduates of most law schools carry substantial student loan debt, which dims the financial returns associated with a JD.

A Law Degree Is No Sure Thing: Some Law School Graduates Earn Top Dollar, but Many Do Not finds that the return on investment (ROI) in earnings and career outcomes varies widely across law schools. The median earnings net of debt payments are $72,000 four years after graduation for all law school graduates, but exceed $200,000 at seven law schools. By comparison, graduates of 33 law schools earn less than $55,000 net of debt payments four years after graduation.

Here are the 50 law schools with the highest return on investment:

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U.S. News Law School Rankings Aren’t Useful Anymore To Applicants

Bloomberg Law Op-Ed:  U.S. News Law School Rankings Aren’t Useful Anymore to Applicants, by David Lat:

"Once upon a time, the News & World Report law school rankings were critically important to law schools,” University of Kentucky’s Brian Frye and Indiana University’s Christopher “CJ” Ryan write in a new study. “Law schools literally lived or died” based on their US News rankings,” which Frye and Ryan say were “existential.”

But now, these law professors argue, U.S. News’ scoring of schools is dramatically less important to prospective law students—maybe even to the point of becoming irrelevant.

But now, these law professors argue, U.S. News’ scoring of schools is dramatically less important to prospective law students—maybe even to the point of becoming irrelevant. ...

Their claim that the rankings are “entirely irrelevant” might be overstated. In my interview with Frye and Ryan earlier this week, I suggested that perhaps U.S. News rankings remain relevant to students, but rank changes take longer than a year to manifest in the credentials of incoming classes.

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Frye: The New York Times Law School Rankings

Brian L. Frye (Kentucky; Google Scholar), The Gray Lady’s Guide to Legal Education:

For better or worse, the U.S. News & World Report law school ranking has dominated legal education for decades, by giving prospective law students information about the relative prestige of law schools. But in recent years, it has become largely irrelevant, as prospective law students have begun to look elsewhere when deciding which law school to attend [The Decline & Fall of the US News Rankings]. Apparently, we need a new law school ranking to provide useful information about prestige. This essay provides such a ranking. ...

The methodology of the NYT ranking is simple, but elegant. I created a list of 196 United States law schools by copying it from the U.S. News & World Report “Best Law Schools” 2024 ranking. I then searched for the official name of each law school in the New York Times archive and recorded how many times the law school had been mentioned by name in the past 12 months. I then ranked all 196 law schools according to the number of times they were mentioned by the New York Times in the last 12 months. The law school with the highest number of mentions was ranked number one, the law schools with no mentions were ranked last, and the rest of the law schools came in between.

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Frye & Ryan: Entering Law Students Do Not Rely On The U.S. News Rankings In Choosing A Law School

Update: Reuters, U.S. News & World Report's Law School Rankings 'Irrelevant' to Applicants, Study Finds

Brian L. Frye (Kentucky; Google Scholar) & CJ Ryan (Indiana-Maurer; Google Scholar), The Decline & Fall of the US News Rankings:

Have the U.S. News & World Report law school rankings become irrelevant? The ostensible purpose of the US News law school rankings is to give prospective law students convenient and reliable information about the relative quality of law schools and help them decide which law school to attend. Law schools care about the US News rankings because prospective law students care about the US News rankings. A ranking increase means more prestige and better credentialed students, while a ranking decrease means less prestige and students with worse credentials. Accordingly, law schools are jealous of their US News ranking.

Do prospective law students actually care about the US News rankings anymore? We compared changes in law school US News rankings to changes in prospective law student preferences the following year. Those variables should be strongly positively correlated. If a school’s US News ranking increases, prospective law students should prefer it more the following year, and if it decreases, they should prefer it less. But in fact, they were at best very weakly positively correlated, and often they are weakly negatively correlated. In other words, prospective law students appear to be largely indifferent to changes in a school’s US News ranking.

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Projected 2025-26 U.S. News Law School Rankings: The Biggest Winners And Losers

Derek Muller (Notre Dame; Google Scholar), Projecting the 2025-2026 USNWR Law School Rankings (To Be Released March 2025 Or So): 

Fifty-eight percent of the new USNWR law school rankings turn on three highly-volatile categories: employment 10 months after graduation[33%], first-time bar passage [18%], and ultimate bar passage [7%]. USNWR has tried to smooth these out by using a two-year average of these scores. (Next year, it might well use a three-year average or three-year weighted average.)

Because USNWR releases its rankings in the spring, at the same time the ABA releases new data on these categories, the USNWR law school rankings are always a year behind. This year’s data include the ultimate bar passage rate for the Classes of 2019 and 2020, the first-time bar passage rate for the Classes of 2021 and 2022, and the employment outcomes of the Classes of 2021 and 2022.

Derek projects the Top 100 schools in next year's 2025-26 rankings. Here are the largest projected increases among those schools:

Rank	School	Projected 2025-26 Rank	Current  2024-25 Rank	Difference
1	Maine	84	120	+36
2	Pittsburgh	65	91	+26
3	Catholic	71	94	+23
4	Penn State-Dickinson	58	75	+17
5	San Diego	56	68	+12
6	Florida State	37	48	+11
6	Louisiana State	80	91	+11
6	Nebraska	71	82	+11
9	Chapman	98	108	+10
9	Dayton	98	108	+10
9	Penn State-Univ. Park	58	68	+10
9	SUNY-Buffalo	98	108	+10
13	UC-Irvine	33	42	+9

Here are the largest projected decreases among those schools:

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Law School Class Of 2023 Jobs Rankings For All 195 Law Schools In Seven Categories

Law360, The Law School Legal Industry Job Tracker: Class Of 2023:

Law360, Top Law Schools For Legal Industry Careers: By The Numbers:

Lists of the Top 10 law schools in seven jobs categories:

1. BigLaw

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Law School Class Of 2023 Jobs Rankings: Bar-Passage Required, BigLaw, Federal Judicial Clerkships, And Government|Public Interest

Reuters, These Law Schools Ranked Tops For Jobs in 2023:

The University of Virginia School of Law sent the highest percentage of graduates into full-time law jobs in 2023, marking the second consecutive year that the school snagged the top spot. A full 97.18% of Virginia's 2023 juris doctor graduates went on to full-time, permanent jobs that require bar passage—the highest of all 195 American Bar Association-accredited law schools for the second straight year. ... . Among the 30,160 newly minted JDs last year, [79.3%] landed full-time, permanent jobs that ... require bar passage ... according to new ABA data released this week.

Reuters, These Law Schools Sent the Most Graduates into Big Law Jobs in 2023:

Columbia Law School snagged the top spot among U.S. law schools for having the highest percentage of 2023 graduates who landed large law firm jobs, according to new employment data from the American Bar Association. ... Nearly 76% of the school's juris doctor graduates took jobs at firms of 251 or more lawyers within 10 months of leaving campus, the data shows.

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2024 World Law School Rankings

Quacquarelli Symonds has released the 2024 World Law School Rankings as part of its World University Rankings. The methodology uses five indicators: academic reputation, employer reputation, research citations per paper, h-index, International Research Network (IRN).  The rankings consist of 370 law schools, 61 in the United States.  Here are the U.S. law schools, along with each school's position in the latest U.S. News rankings):

QS Ranking	School	US News Ranking
1	Harvard	4
4	Yale	1
5	Stanford	1
6	NYU	9
8	Columbia	8
9	UC-Berkeley	12
11	Chicago	3
19	UCLA	13
23	Georgetown	14
29	Penn	4
30	Duke	4
34	Cornell	14
36	Michigan	9
50	Virginia	4
68	Northwestern	9
79	Texas	16
85	American	98
89	George Washington	41
92	Boston University	24
101-150	Johns Hopkins	N/A
101-150	UC-Davis	55
101-150	UC-Irvine	42
101-150	Notre Dame	20
101-150	University of Washington	48
151-200	Fordham	33
151-200	Michigan State	108
151-200	Penn State-Univ. Park	68
151-200	Illinois	36
151-200	USC	20
151-200	Wisconsin	36
151-200	Washington Univ.	16
201-250	Arizona State	36
201-250	Boston College	28
201-250	Indiana (Maurer)	42
201-250	Texas A&M	26
201-250	Tulane	78
201-250	Maryland	55
201-250	Vanderbilt	19
251-300	CUNY	150
251-300	Emory	42
251-300	Florida State	48
251-300	Ohio State	26
251-300	University of Arizona	55
251-300	UC-San Diego	N/A
251-300	Florida	28
251-300	Illinois-Chicago	161
251-300	Miami	82
251-300	Minnesota	16
251-300	North Carolina	20
251-300	San Diego	68
301-350	William & Mary	36
301-350	George Mason	28
301-350	Loyola-Chicago	78
301-350	Northeastern	68
301-350	Purdue	N/A
301-350	Cincinnati	78
351-370	Temple	54
351-370	Tufts	N/A
351-370	Colorado	48
351-370	Hawaii	127
351-370	Washington State	N/A

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2024-25 U.S. News Omnibus Specialty Rankings v. Overall Rankings

Following up on yesterday's post, 2024-25 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	Santa Clara	71	158	+87
2	American*	27	98	+71
3	Illinois-Chicago	97	161	+64
3	Suffolk	66	130	+64
5	Pacific	96	159	+63
6	Mitchell | Hamline*	103	164	+61
7	Denver	29	89	+60
7	Howard	70	130	+60
9	Baltimore	82	140	+58
10	Brooklyn*	57	114	+57
11	Widener (DE)	125	178	+53
12	Hofstra	79	130	+51
13	Nova	130	178	+48
14	Case Western	42	89	+47
15	Rutgers*	60	103	+43
16	CUNY	111	150	+39
16	DePaul	95	134	+39
18	San Francisco*	130	165	+35
19	Pace	102	136	+34
20	Houston	35	68	+33
21	George Washington	9	41	+32
21	UNLV	46	78	+32
23	Syracuse*	89	120	+31
24	Loyola-Chicago	48	78	+30
24	UC-Davis*	25	55	+30
26	Seattle*	85	114	+29
27	Cal-Western*	150	178	+28
27	UC-San Francisco*	54	82	+28
29	Chicago-Kent	81	108	+27
29	Tulane*	51	78	+27
29	Vermont	141	168	+27
32	Miami	56	82	+26
32	Temple	28	54	+26
34	UC-Irvine*	18	42	+24
35	Loyola-L.A.	39	61	+22
35	Maryland	33	55	+22
37	Creighton*	132	153	+21
38	Hawaii	107	127	+20
39	District of Columbia	159	178	+19
39	Fordham	14	33	+19
39	New York Law School	108	127	+19
39	Widener (PA)	146	165	+19
43	Louisville	118	136	+18
43	Willamette	127	145	+18
45	Georgia State	58	75	+17
45	Michigan State	91	108	+17
45	Quinnipiac*	126	143	+17
48	Emory	26	42	+16
49	Golden Gate*	164	178	+14
49	University of Arizona	41	55	+14

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

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2024-25 U.S. News Omnibus Specialty Rankings

Update: Omnibus Specialty Rankings v. Overall Rankings

The new 2024-25 U.S. News Specialty Rankings include the rankings for 13 specialty programs at 196 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*	11	1	11	7	5	18	10	6	15	5	11	2	23	9.6
2	Michigan*	8	5	7	7	5	21	17	28	18	6	11	8	90	17.8
3	Harvard*	2	16	1	2	2	3	10	7	12	2	132	10	36	18.1
4	Northwestern*	16	5	11	11	15	7	45	36	27	20	40	3	20	19.7
5	Stanford*	1	12	3	4	2	16	10	10	2	13	115	15	82	21.9
6	UC-Berkeley*	7	5	5	11	4	18	2	74	1	7	119	20	13	22.0
7	UCLA*	11	23	16	15	7	29	5	19	15	16	127	6	4	22.5
8	NYU*	4	2	5	7	1	36	10	80	3	1	86	1	71	23.6
9	George Washington	35	16	29	36	24	42	17	19	5	9	40	28	42	26.3
10	Texas	17	30	11	15	20	26	30	36	15	25	71	13	36	26.5
11	Virginia*	8	53	7	5	7	36	25	47	23	9	66	5	82	28.7
12	Columbia*	2	19	7	1	7	26	6	60	12	4	128	6	103	29.3
13	Duke*	11	46	10	17	7	57	15	33	18	13	78	10	71	29.7
14	Fordham	17	23	29	18	15	13	70	67	8	18	86	25	4	30.2
15	Yale*	8	5	3	7	12	42	25	13	48	2	128	15	90	30.6
16	Penn*	4	30	11	5	7	36	36	24	12	24	102	23	126	33.8
17	Cornell*	11	30	11	11	20	42	50	47	27	7	51	32	103	34.0
18	UC-Irvine*	54	12	25	29	24	29	23	80	36	18	7	8	103	34.5
19	Washington Univ.	20	12	19	18	18	21	70	24	30	29	134	32	25	34.8
20	Boston University	20	38	25	24	24	51	65	3	8	26	78	15	90	35.9
21	Vanderbilt	11	46	17	11	14	57	10	47	23	20	94	40	82	36.3
22	Ohio State	35	58	29	36	15	1	65	15	44	45	32	49	55	36.8
23	Arizona State	47	71	45	41	24	11	17	13	48	38	5	40	82	37.1
24	Minnesota	22	46	19	18	24	42	30	28	36	38	57	25	103	37.5
25	UC-Davis*	35	38	19	24	18	26	15	60	44	20	128	25	60	39.4
26	Emory	22	95	25	21	34	51	42	21	44	33	51	49	27	39.6
27	American*	57	2	62	58	24	57	53	15	8	9	86	54	36	40.1
28	Temple	57	58	57	48	61	57	70	15	30	16	26	28	1	40.3
29	Denver	64	5	52	54	43	64	21	52	53	38	20	62	8	41.2
29	Florida	22	85	39	29	48	17	25	41	68	45	66	3	48	41.2
31	Chicago	4	46	2	2	12	93	53	60	36	9	124	10	90	41.6
32	North Carolina	22	23	29	23	20	93	45	28	53	52	20	20	118	42.0
33	Maryland	35	5	39	64	34	7	21	4	53	71	111	70	36	42.3
34	William & Mary	28	80	17	24	24	51	65	74	30	33	40	54	42	43.2
35	Houston	57	108	78	58	80	42	30	7	8	38	16	32	13	43.6
36	Boston College	22	38	34	29	52	42	53	41	36	29	71	15	118	44.6
37	Texas A&M	54	80	78	41	52	5	25	52	6	52	11	76	66	46.0
38	Indiana (Maurer)	28	85	45	41	34	93	36	36	30	29	40	23	90	46.9
39	Loyola-L.A.	57	46	62	64	34	57	94	41	44	59	40	13	8	47.6
40	Georgia	28	38	39	29	48	36	70	47	68	20	134	36	27	47.7
41	University of Arizona	42	53	52	48	43	57	30	34	82	38	8	54	90	48.5
42	Case Western	64	58	57	58	73	51	36	15	53	13	37	92	42	49.9
43	Univ. of Washington*	47	23	52	48	52	93	30	41	27	59	26	36	134	51.4
44	Colorado	42	58	39	54	52	74	7	74	36	45	78	40	71	51.5
45	Wisconsin	40	53	22	24	34	93	53	67	82	26	51	40	90	51.9
46	UNLV	64	38	68	41	61	7	81	36	48	104	2	49	90	53.0
47	USC	17	85	25	21	34	29	36	80	36	59	126	15	134	53.6
48	Loyola-Chicago	73	38	68	80	68	29	81	4	53	45	86	62	23	54.6
48	SMU	42	58	68	41	33	93	53	36	53	52	86	40	55	54.6
50	Wake Forest	47	85	57	48	24	93	53	21	78	77	5	76	55	55.3
51	Tulane*	28	53	52	36	34	67	30	74	82	38	115	62	55	55.8
52	Notre Dame	22	71	22	29	52	93	53	91	68	26	94	49	60	56.2
53	Utah	47	85	34	41	34	93	7	34	26	38	134	70	103	57.4
54	UC-San Francisco*	73	30	68	91	61	14	36	12	53	77	134	32	71	57.8
55	San Diego	42	71	22	48	61	93	65	67	18	52	134	20	60	57.9
56	Miami	54	30	57	64	68	51	36	80	68	29	111	40	71	58.4
57	Brooklyn*	40	38	45	54	20	74	120	121	78	52	20	49	52	58.7
58	Georgia State	64	19	45	64	52	74	108	1	62	77	134	54	36	60.8
59	Florida State	47	123	39	36	43	82	17	67	62	45	119	28	90	61.4
60	Rutgers*	73	30	62	64	48	93	88	52	91	59	11	76	71	62.9
61	Washington & Lee	28	71	45	36	68	67	88	80	62	33	71	54	118	63.2
62	Pepperdine Caruso	57	23	45	64	92	2	114	111	62	59	111	28	66	64.2
63	Illinois	42	113	34	29	24	42	70	91	68	71	134	70	48	64.3
64	Iowa	28	95	34	24	34	93	70	67	62	59	134	54	103	65.9
65	Northeastern	85	23	78	116	52	74	108	7	48	52	32	102	90	66.7
66	Suffolk	115	12	116	120	73	21	108	41	36	84	3	113	31	67.2
67	Alabama	47	71	29	48	43	93	101	60	111	101	86	36	55	67.8
68	Cardozo*	57	58	52	58	43	5	140	97	6	66	134	40	134	68.5
69	Oregon	64	85	78	75	73	11	7	97	97	94	1	62	150	68.8
70	Howard	107	30	68	64	48	93	108	97	68	77	57	92	25	71.8
71	BYU	28	129	45	29	80	81	94	121	53	66	94	40	90	73.1
71	Santa Clara	73	58	105	85	61	64	88	97	4	33	51	81	150	73.1
73	Villanova	73	46	68	64	80	82	101	80	82	77	134	36	42	74.2
74	Richmond	73	138	39	75	61	93	50	97	30	84	71	54	103	74.5
75	Tennessee	35	19	62	54	92	93	124	47	128	77	37	84	118	74.6
76	Wayne State	85	46	68	91	73	93	70	52	101	45	78	84	103	76.1
77	South Carolina	73	30	78	80	52	93	70	80	111	122	134	54	13	76.2
78	Connecticut	57	58	62	58	80	74	88	52	111	52	102	70	150	78.0
79	Hofstra	85	113	88	64	68	67	140	97	91	71	40	84	13	78.5
80	Kansas	64	85	78	58	73	36	47	132	101	84	57	81	126	78.6
81	Chicago-Kent	96	159	68	75	80	89	114	80	18	94	40	102	12	79.0
82	Baltimore	128	5	88	141	52	42	65	74	91	104	37	76	126	79.2
83	Lewis & Clark	96	71	99	85	80	93	3	132	68	71	16	113	103	79.2
84	Pittsburgh*	85	123	68	64	61	93	94	28	48	66	134	40	150	81.1
85	Drexel	85	58	88	91	124	93	151	24	101	104	26	113	8	82.0
85	Seattle*	73	23	105	91	92	82	70	91	53	104	8	92	182	82.0
87	Seton Hall	85	95	88	80	92	93	88	10	82	104	134	62	60	82.5
88	St. John's*	83	123	68	64	104	42	151	108	82	94	20	113	27	83.0
89	Syracuse*	85	108	105	91	80	93	88	67	97	84	78	92	13	83.2
90	Indiana (McKinney)	96	95	88	91	110	93	101	24	101	71	20	70	150	85.4
91	Michigan State	73	80	88	75	80	93	81	121	82	94	111	84	60	86.3
92	St. Louis	85	80	99	104	92	93	140	2	68	71	134	62	103	87.2
93	George Mason	47	142	34	41	117	93	131	121	23	66	134	84	103	87.4
94	Stetson	128	95	116	91	92	51	81	121	156	122	3	81	1	87.5
95	DePaul	107	113	105	104	80	74	151	23	30	104	78	113	71	88.7
96	Pacific	96	148	139	104	124	21	81	132	97	33	40	126	20	89.3
97	Illinois-Chicago	115	71	116	130	124	93	131	97	62	94	20	92	31	90.5
98	Baylor	64	127	116	80	92	93	140	91	128	116	51	92	3	91.8
99	Louisiana State	96	108	105	104	124	93	47	111	118	104	40	102	42	91.8
100	Missouri-Columbia	64	129	78	75	80	3	124	108	78	104	134	92	134	92.5

*Denotes schools that did not submit statistical information to U.S.News. From the U.S News methodology:  "schools that declined to provide statistical information to U.S. News and its readers had their academic peer ratings programmatically discarded before any computations were made. To be clear, nonresponders were still scored using the full complement of eligible ratings submitted by peer schools; but any ratings they made of other schools were omitted."

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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2024-25 U.S. News Trial Advocacy Rankings

The new 2024-25 U.S. News Trial Advocacy Rankings include the trial advocacy programs at 196 law schools (the faculty survey had a 50% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	School
1	Stetson
1	Temple
3	Baylor
4	Fordham
4	UCLA
6	Samford
6	South Texas
8	Denver
8	Drexel
8	Loyola-L.A.
8	Mercer
12	Chicago-Kent
13	Hofstra
13	Houston
13	Pace
13	South Carolina
13	St. Mary's
13	Syracuse
13	UC-Berkeley
20	Campbell
20	Northwestern
20	Pacific
23	Georgetown
23	Loyola-Chicago
25	Howard
25	Washington Univ.
27	Emory
27	Georgia
27	St. John's
27	Texas Tech
31	Illinois-Chicago
31	Nova
31	Ohio Northern
31	Quinnipiac
31	Suffolk
36	American
36	Georgia State
36	Harvard
36	Inter-American (PR)
36	Maryland
36	Texas
42	Akron
42	Case Western
42	George Washington
42	Louisiana State
42	Villanova
42	William & Mary
48	Catholic
48	Florida
48	Illinois
48	Missouri-Kansas City

2023-24 U.S. News Trial Advocacy Rankings

2024-25 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

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2024-25 U.S. News Legal Writing Rankings

The new 2024-25 U.S. News Legal Writing Rankings include the legal writing programs at 133 law schools (the faculty survey had a 64% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	School
1	Oregon
2	UNLV
3	Stetson
3	Suffolk
5	Arizona State
5	Wake Forest
7	UC-Irvine
8	Nova
8	Seattle
8	University of Arizona
11	Drake
11	Georgetown
11	Michigan
11	Rutgers
11	Texas A&M
16	Houston
16	Lewis & Clark
16	Missouri-Kansas City
16	Washburn
20	Brooklyn
20	Denver
20	Illinois-Chicago
20	Indiana (McKinney)
20	North Carolina
20	St. John's
26	Drexel
26	Marquette
26	Mercer
26	Temple
26	Texas Tech
26	University of Washington
32	North Dakota
32	Northeastern
32	Ohio State
32	South Texas
32	Wyoming
37	Baltimore
37	Case Western
37	Tennessee
40	Chicago-Kent
40	George Washington
40	Gonzaga
40	Hofstra
40	Indiana (Maurer)
40	Louisiana State
40	Loyola-L.A.
40	Mitchell | Hamline
40	Northwestern
40	Pacific
40	William & Mary

2023-24 U.S. News Legal Writing Rankings

2024-25 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

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2024-25 U.S. News International Law Rankings

The new 2024-25 U.S. News International Law Rankings include the international law programs at 193 law schools (the faculty survey had a 43% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	School
1	NYU
2	Harvard
2	Yale
4	Columbia
5	Georgetown
6	Michigan
7	Cornell
7	UC-Berkeley
9	American
9	Chicago
9	George Washington
9	Virginia
13	Case Western
13	Duke
13	Stanford
16	Temple
16	UCLA
18	Fordham
18	UC-Irvine
20	Georgia
20	Northwestern
20	UC-Davis
20	Vanderbilt
24	Penn
25	Texas
26	Boston University
26	Notre Dame
26	Wisconsin
29	Boston College
29	Indiana (Maurer)
29	Miami
29	Washington Univ.
33	Emory
33	Pacific
33	Santa Clara
33	Washington & Lee
33	William & Mary
38	Arizona State
38	Denver
38	Houston
38	Minnesota
38	Tulane
38	University of Arizona
38	Utah
45	Colorado
45	Florida
45	Florida Int'l
45	Florida State
45	Loyola-Chicago
45	Ohio State
45	Wayne State

2023-24 U.S. News International Law Rankings

2024-25 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

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2024-25 U.S. News Intellectual Property Law Rankings

The new 2024-25 U.S. News Intellectual Property Law Rankings include the intellectual property law programs at 195 law schools (the faculty survey had a 47% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	School
1	UC-Berkeley
2	Stanford
3	NYU
4	Santa Clara
5	George Washington
6	Cardozo
6	Texas A&M
8	American
8	Boston University
8	Fordham
8	Houston
12	Columbia
12	Harvard
12	Penn
15	Georgetown
15	Texas
15	UCLA
18	Chicago-Kent
18	Duke
18	Michigan
18	New Hampshire
18	San Diego
23	George Mason
23	Vanderbilt
23	Virginia
26	Utah
27	Cornell
27	Northwestern
27	University of Washington
30	DePaul
30	Indiana (Maurer)
30	Richmond
30	Temple
30	Washington Univ.
30	William & Mary
36	Akron
36	Boston College
36	Chicago
36	Colorado
36	Minnesota
36	Suffolk
36	UC-Irvine
36	USC
44	Emory
44	Loyola-L.A.
44	Ohio State
44	UC-Davis
48	Arizona State
48	Northeastern
48	Pittsburgh
48	UNLV
48	Yale

2023-24 U.S. News Intellectual Property Law Rankings

2024-25 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

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2024-25 U.S. News Health Care Law Rankings

The new 2024-25 U.S. News Health Care Law Rankings include the health care law programs at 191 law schools (the faculty survey had a 49% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	School
1	Georgia State
2	St. Louis
3	Boston University
4	Loyola-Chicago
4	Maryland
6	Georgetown
7	Harvard
7	Houston
7	Northeastern
10	Seton Hall
10	Stanford
12	UC-San Francisco
13	Arizona State
13	Yale
15	American
15	Case Western
15	Ohio State
15	Temple
19	George Washington
19	UCLA
21	Emory
21	Wake Forest
23	DePaul
24	Drexel
24	Indiana (McKinney)
24	Penn
24	Washington Univ.
28	Michigan
28	Minnesota
28	Mitchell | Hamline
28	North Carolina
28	Pittsburgh
33	Duke
34	University of Arizona
34	Utah
36	Indiana (Maurer)
36	Northwestern
36	SMU
36	Texas
36	UNLV
41	Boston College
41	Florida
41	Loyola-L.A.
41	Nova
41	Suffolk
41	University of Washington
47	Cornell
47	Georgia
47	Tennessee
47	Vanderbilt
47	Virginia

2023-24 U.S. News Health Care Law Rankings

2024-25 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

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2024-25 U.S. News Environmental Law Rankings

The new 2024-25 U.S. News Environmental Law Rankings include the environmental law programs at 195 law schools (the faculty survey had a 55% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	School
1	Pace
2	UC-Berkeley
3	Lewis & Clark
4	Vermont
5	UCLA
6	Columbia
7	Colorado
7	Oregon
7	Utah
10	Georgetown
10	Harvard
10	NYU
10	Stanford
10	Vanderbilt
15	Duke
15	UC-Davis
17	Arizona State
17	Florida State
17	George Washington
17	Michigan
21	Denver
21	Maryland
23	Hawaii
23	UC-Irvine
25	Florida
25	New Mexico
25	Texas A&M
25	Virginia
25	Yale
30	Houston
30	Minnesota
30	Texas
30	Tulane
30	University of Arizona
30	University of Washington
36	Case Western
36	Indiana (Maurer)
36	Miami
36	Penn
36	UC-San Francisco
36	USC
42	Emory
42	Montana
42	Wyoming
45	North Carolina
45	Northwestern
47	Kansas
47	Louisiana State
47	Maine
50	Cornell
50	Richmond
50	Widener (DE)

2023-24 U.S. News Environmental Law Rankings

2024-25 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

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U.S. News Rankings Potpourri: Waning Influence, Penalizing 53 Boycotting Law Schools, And Declining T14 Lawyer|Judge Reputation Scores

Reuters, After Setbacks, U.S. News Law School Rankings Show Signs of Waning Influence:

[T]he influence of U.S. News’ law school rankings is waning following a widespread boycott by schools that began in 2022 and a series of data errors that plagued the rollout of the 2023 list. According to U.S. News, 53 schools out of the nation's 197 accredited by the American Bar Association declined to provide data this year.

Those factors have hurt the credibility of the rankings, [Mike] Spivey said, and amplified longstanding criticism that a one-size-fits-all ranking can’t capture meaningful differences between schools.

Above the Law, U.S. News Law School Rankings Makes Its Smartest Methodological Change: Telling Holdout Schools To Suck It:

Law schools that refused to cooperate with U.S. News saw their peer surveys ignored. It's the right call. ...

Maryland Law’s Donald Tobin wrote an op-ed for TaxProf Blog laying out his pros and cons of the new USNWR methodology. Some of his points are pretty good (“using two-year averages for bar passage and employment data” to cut back on volatility), some less so (suggesting that outcome measurements should be downplayed), but all in all it’s a thoughtful critique that concludes by re-weighting the raw numbers to generate a ranking in a way that makes a lot more sense and is worth checking out.

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2024-25 U.S. News Dispute Resolution Rankings

The new 2024-25 U.S. News Dispute Resolution Rankings include the dispute resolution programs at 92 law schools (the faculty survey had a 54% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	School
1	Ohio State
2	Pepperdine Caruso
3	Harvard
3	Missouri-Columbia
5	Cardozo
5	Texas A&M
7	Maryland
7	Mitchell | Hamline
7	Northwestern
7	UNLV
11	Arizona State
11	Oregon
13	Fordham
14	Quinnipiac
14	UC-San Francisco
16	Stanford
17	Florida
18	Georgetown
18	South Texas
18	UC-Berkeley
21	Creighton
21	Michigan
21	Pacific
21	Suffolk
21	Washington Univ.
26	Columbia
26	Texas
26	UC-Davis
29	Arkansas-Little Rock
29	Loyola-Chicago
29	Nebraska
29	Pace
29	UC-Irvine
29	UCLA
29	USC
36	Georgia
36	Kansas
36	Marquette
36	NYU
36	Penn
36	Virginia
42	Baltimore
42	Boston College
42	Cornell
42	George Washington
42	Houston
42	Illinois
42	Minnesota
42	St. John's
42	Yale

2023-24 U.S. News Dispute Resolution Rankings

2024-25 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

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2024-25 U.S. News Criminal Law Rankings

The new 2024-25 U.S. News Criminal Law Rankings include the criminal law programs at 196 law schools (the faculty survey had a 49% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	School
1	NYU
2	Harvard
2	Stanford
4	UC-Berkeley
5	Georgetown
5	Michigan
7	Columbia
7	Duke
7	Penn
7	UCLA
7	Virginia
12	Chicago
12	Yale
14	Vanderbilt
15	Fordham
15	Northwestern
15	Ohio State
18	UC-Davis
18	Washington Univ.
20	Brooklyn
20	Cornell
20	North Carolina
20	Texas
24	American
24	Arizona State
24	Boston University
24	George Washington
24	Illinois
24	Minnesota
24	UC-Irvine
24	Wake Forest
24	William & Mary
33	SMU
34	Emory
34	Indiana (Maurer)
34	Iowa
34	Loyola-L.A.
34	Maryland
34	Tulane
34	USC
34	Utah
34	Wisconsin
43	Alabama
43	Cardozo
43	Denver
43	Florida State
43	University of Arizona
48	Florida
48	Georgia
48	Howard
48	Rutgers

2023-24 U.S. News Criminal Law Rankings

2024-25 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

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2024-25 U.S. News Contracts/Commercial Law Rankings

The new 2024-25 U.S. News Contracts/Commercial Law Rankings include the contracts/commercial law programs at 196 law schools (the faculty survey had a 43% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	School
1	Columbia
2	Chicago
2	Harvard
4	Stanford
5	Penn
5	Virginia
7	Georgetown
7	Michigan
7	NYU
7	Yale
11	Cornell
11	Northwestern
11	UC-Berkeley
11	Vanderbilt
15	Texas
15	UCLA
17	Duke
18	Fordham
18	Minnesota
18	Washington Univ.
21	Emory
21	USC
23	North Carolina
24	Boston University
24	Iowa
24	UC-Davis
24	William & Mary
24	Wisconsin
29	Boston College
29	BYU
29	Florida
29	Georgia
29	Illinois
29	Notre Dame
29	UC-Irvine
36	Florida State
36	George Washington
36	Ohio State
36	Tulane
36	Washington & Lee
41	Arizona State
41	George Mason
41	Indiana (Maurer)
41	SMU
41	Texas A&M
41	UNLV
41	Utah
48	Alabama
48	San Diego
48	Temple
48	University of Arizona
48	University of Washington
48	Wake Forest

2023-24 U.S. News Contracts/Commercial Law Rankings

2024-25 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

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2024-25 U.S. News Constitutional Law Rankings

The new 2024-25 U.S. News Constitutional Law Rankings include the constitutional law programs at 196 law schools (the faculty survey had a 43% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	School
1	Harvard
2	Chicago
3	Stanford
3	Yale
5	NYU
5	UC-Berkeley
7	Columbia
7	Michigan
7	Virginia
10	Duke
11	Cornell
11	Georgetown
11	Northwestern
11	Penn
11	Texas
16	UCLA
17	Vanderbilt
17	William & Mary
19	UC-Davis
19	Minnesota
19	Washington Univ.
22	Notre Dame
22	San Diego
22	Wisconsin
25	Boston University
25	Emory
25	UC-Irvine
25	USC
29	Fordham
29	George Washington
29	Ohio State
29	Alabama
29	North Carolina
34	Boston College
34	George Mason
34	Illinois
34	Iowa
34	Utah
39	Florida State
39	Colorado
39	Florida
39	Georgia
39	Maryland
39	Richmond
45	Arizona State
45	BYU
45	Brooklyn
45	Georgia State
45	Indiana (Maurer)
45	Pepperdine Caruso
45	Washington & Lee

2023-24 U.S. News Constitutional Law Rankings

2024-25 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

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2024-25 U.S. News Clinical Training Rankings

The new 2024-25 U.S. News Clinical Training Rankings include the clinical training law programs at 158 law schools (the faculty survey had a 56% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	School
1	Georgetown
2	American
2	CUNY
2	NYU
5	Baltimore
5	Denver
5	Maryland
5	Michigan
5	Northwestern
5	UC-Berkeley
5	Yale
12	Stanford
12	Suffolk
12	UC-Irvine
12	Washington Univ.
16	District of Columbia
16	George Washington
16	Harvard
19	Columbia
19	Georgia State
19	New Mexico
19	Tennessee
23	Fordham
23	North Carolina
23	Northeastern
23	Pepperdine Caruso
23	Seattle
23	UCLA
23	University of Washington
30	Cornell
30	Howard
30	Miami
30	Penn
30	Rutgers
30	South Carolina
30	Texas
30	UC-San Francisco
38	Boston College
38	Boston University
38	Brooklyn
38	Georgia
38	Loyola-Chicago
38	Mitchell | Hamline
38	UC-Davis
38	UNLV
46	Chicago
46	Duke
46	Loyola-L.A.
46	Minnesota
46	Vanderbilt
46	Villanova
46	Wayne State

2023-24 U.S. News Clinical Law Rankings 

2024-25 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

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2024-25 U.S. News Business/Corporate Law Rankings

The new 2024-25 U.S. News Business/Corporate Law Rankings include the business/corporate law programs at 196 law schools (the faculty survey had a 50% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	School
1	Stanford
2	Columbia
2	Harvard
4	Chicago
4	NYU
4	Penn
7	UC-Berkeley
8	Michigan
8	Virginia
8	Yale
11	Cornell
11	Duke
11	Georgetown
11	UCLA
11	Vanderbilt
16	Northwestern
17	Fordham
17	Texas
17	USC
20	Boston University
20	Washington Univ.
22	Boston College
22	Emory
22	Florida
22	Minnesota
22	North Carolina
22	Notre Dame
28	BYU
28	Georgia
28	Indiana (Maurer)
28	Iowa
28	Tulane
28	Washington & Lee
28	William & Mary
35	George Washington
35	Maryland
35	Ohio State
35	Tennessee
35	UC-Davis
40	Brooklyn
40	Wisconsin
42	Colorado
42	Illinois
42	San Diego
42	SMU
42	University of Arizona
47	Alabama
47	Arizona State
47	Florida State
47	George Mason
47	University of Washington
47	Utah
47	Wake Forest

2023-24 U.S. News Business/Corporate Law Rankings 

2024-25 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

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Muller: Law Schools That Don't Double The Size Of Their Career Development Departments In Response To U.S. News Are Committing 'Academic Malpractice'

U.S. News, Methodology: 2024 Best Law Schools Rankings:

There were a couple differences in how the rankings were calculated, described below. In summary, U.S. News averaged its bar passage and employment indicators over two years. ...

Placement success and bar passage comprise three indicators that total 58% of each school's rank.

• Outcomes 10 months after graduation (weighted 33%): ... To improve measurement of this indicator – given the common year-to-year fluctuations associated with outcome measures and the small sizes of some graduating J.D. classes – this indicator was derived from the average of the 2021 and 2022 graduating class outcomes 10 months after graduation. Specifically, U.S. News took a nonweighted average by aggregating the score it previously computed from the 2021 graduating class with the newly calculated 2022 class score, then divided it by two. Previously, this indicator was based only on the most recent year. ...
• Bar passage rate for first-time test-takers (18%): ... As was done with the 10 months after graduation indicator, this bar passage indicator was newly calculated as a two-year, nonweighted average pertaining to the 2021 and 2022 graduating classes.
• Ultimate bar passage rate (7%): ... Like the previous two outcome measures, the ultimate bar passage rate indicator was newly calculated as a two-year, nonweighted average.

Derek Muller (Notre Dame; Google Scholar), The 2024-2025 USNWR Law School Rankings: Methodology Tweaks May Help Entrench Elite Schools, But Elite Schools See Reputation Decline Among Lawyers and Judges:

[E]mployment effects have now effectively doubled. A good year will redound to a school for two years; a bad year will need to be managed across two years. No more opportunities to rip the bandage off and move to the next year; a bad year will linger. And yes, while it receives less weight in a given year, a school is seeking to maximize the effect each time every year.

So what I said before, about career development being the most valuable job in legal education? Doubly true.

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Commentary On The 2024-25 U.S. News Law School Rankings

• ABA Journal, Shake-Up in US News' 2024 Law School Rankings
• Above the Law, The 2024-2025 U.S. News Law School Rankings Are Here: Big Changes in the T14, Along With Some of the Largest Rankings Tumbles and Gains
• Above the Law, Does Anyone Even Care About The U.S. News Law School Rankings Anymore?
• Neil Buchanan (Florida), Two Outside Influences (Beyond the Obvious One) That Are Harming Higher Education 
• Kaplan, Law Schools Believe the Rankings Have Lost Their Luster, but Pre-Law Students Still Find Them Useful
• Law.com, A Shakeup Among Top Schools: U.S. News Releases Best Law Schools Rankings
• David Lat, The 2024 U.S. News Rankings: Holding Steady; Harvard, UVA, and Georgetown Were the Most Noteworthy Gainers in the T14.
• Brian Leiter (Chicago), The "Peer" (Academic) Reputation Score in USNews.com's New Ranking
• Podcast, Mike Spivey On Law School Rankings, Admissions, and Mental Health
• Reuters, US News' Law School Rankings Are Out, With Fewer Big Moves
• Mike Spivey, U.S. News Law School Rankings: 2024 vs. 2023 (+/-)
• Mike Spivey, Podcast: The New 2024 Law School Rankings Explained
• Donald Tobin (Maryland), The Silly U.S. News Law School Rankings

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2024-25 U.S. News Tax Rankings

The new 2024-25 U.S. News Tax Rankings include the tax programs at 196 law schools (the faculty survey had a 59% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	School
1	NYU
2	Georgetown
3	Florida
3	Northwestern
5	Virginia
6	Columbia
6	UCLA
8	Michigan
8	UC-Irvine
10	Chicago
10	Duke
10	Harvard
13	Loyola-L.A.
13	Texas
15	Boston College
15	Boston University
15	Stanford
15	USC
15	Yale
20	North Carolina
20	San Diego
20	UC-Berkeley
23	Indiana (Maurer)
23	Penn
25	Fordham
25	Minnesota
25	UC-Davis
28	Florida State
28	George Washington
28	Pepperdine Caruso
28	Temple
32	Cornell
32	Houston
32	UC-San Francisco
32	Washington Univ.
36	Alabama
36	Georgia
36	University of Washington
36	Villanova
40	Arizona State
40	BYU
40	Cardozo
40	Colorado
40	Miami
40	Pittsburgh
40	SMU
40	Vanderbilt
40	Wisconsin
49	Brooklyn
49	Emory
49	Notre Dame
49	Ohio State
49	UNLV

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

• 14: Georgia (#36)
• 12: Houston (#32)
• 10: Colorado (#40), SMU (#40)
• 9: USC (#15) 
• 8: Florida State (#28), Washington University (#32), University of Washington (#36) 
• 7: Yale (#15) 
• 6: UC-Davis (#25), Cardozo (#40) 

Here are the biggest downward moves:

• -16: Denver (#62) 
• -14: UC-San Francisco (#32), Washington & Lee (#54) 
• -12: Loyola-Chicago (#62), Seton Hall (#62), Tulane (#62) 
• -9: BYU (#40), Pittsburgh (#40), Wisconsin (#40), Brooklyn (#49) 
• -5: Indiana-Maurer (#23), Penn (#23), Villanova (#36) 
• -4: George Washington (#28), Arizona State (#40), American (#54), Iowa (#54), Georgia State (#54), Richmond (#54), South Carolina (#54)
• -3: Chicago (#10), Loyola-L.A. (#13), Minnesota (#25), Notre Dame (#49), UNLV (#49)

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

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Muller: Did U.S. News Change Its Law School Rankings Methodology To Avoid A Steeper Fall For Cornell And NYU?

Derek Muller (Notre Dame; Google Scholar), The 2024-2025 USNWR Law School Rankings: Methodology Tweaks May Help Entrench Elite Schools, But Elite Schools See Reputation Decline Among Lawyers and Judges:

Hours after the release of last year’s dramatic change to the USNWR methodology, I noted the dramatic increase in “compression and volatility” in the coming rankings.

USNWR changed a couple of things in its methodology:

There were a couple differences in how the rankings were calculated, described below. In summary, U.S. News averaged its bar passage and employment indicators over two years. Also, the lawyers and judges assessment score had a second source of ratings besides names supplied by law schools. ...

[W]hy did USNWR decide to change this year? There are two possible explanations for this change, and, tellingly, either explanation looks bad for USNWR.

One explanation is that USNWR was simply unaware of the potential volatility in their ranking sand is responding now. That is a bad look for USNWR. It took me minutes to spot this likely problem. If it escaped their entire data team’s months-long vetting, it’s a telling concession.

The other explanation is that USNWR was aware of the potential volatility, but it took a step this year to react to reduce it. That’s a bad look, too—if it was aware of the problem, why didn’t it address the problem then? It did, after all, have all of the granular employment data in previous years. And if it was aware last year, what prompted the change this year?

The related answer to both, by the way, is that it saw something problematic in what the outputs would be, and it modified the weighing to avoid undesirable results. This is not something I have proof for, I admit. I can only infer from the actions take in response to some events of the last year.

But we saw a few schools—notably, as I pointed out, NYU and Cornell—that would disproportionately suffer under the new system. I projected NYU to slide to 11 and Cornell to 18. Instead, with a re-weighing, NYU slid only to 9, and Cornell to 14. Other schools—particularly Washington University in St. Louis, North Carolina, and Texas A&M—were projected to rise much faster. The rankings changes are designed to put a governor on moves down—or up—the rankings.

Now, it’s not possible to prove that USNWR saw that NYU and Cornell would slide much faster than they thought appropriate and changed the methodology.

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2024-25 U.S. News Law School Peer Reputation Rankings (And Overall Rankings)

 

Continuing a TaxProf Blog tradition (see links below for 2008-09 to 2023-24), here is the full list of the 196 law schools ranked by academic peer reputation, as well as their overall rank, in the new 2024-25 U.S. News Law School Rankings (methodology):

Peer Rank	Peer Score	School	Overall Rank
1	4.6	Harvard	4
1	4.6	Stanford	1
3	4.5	Chicago	3
3	4.5	Columbia	8
3	4.5	NYU	9
3	4.5	Yale	1
7	4.4	UC-Berkeley	12
8	4.3	Michigan	9
8	4.3	Virginia	4
10	4.2	Duke	4
10	4.2	Northwestern	9
10	4.2	Penn	4
13	4.1	Cornell	14
13	4.1	Georgetown	14
13	4.1	UCLA	13
16	4	Texas	16
17	3.9	Vanderbilt	19
18	3.7	Washington Univ.	16
19	3.6	Boston University	24
19	3.6	Emory	42
19	3.6	Minnesota	16
19	3.6	Notre Dame	20
19	3.6	USC	20
24	3.5	North Carolina	20
24	3.5	UC-Davis	55
24	3.5	UC-Irvine	42
27	3.4	Boston College	28
27	3.4	George Washington	41
27	3.4	Georgia	20
27	3.4	Ohio State	26
27	3.4	William & Mary	36
32	3.3	Alabama	33
32	3.3	Arizona State	36
32	3.3	Florida	28
32	3.3	Fordham	33
32	3.3	Iowa	36
32	3.3	Wisconsin	36
38	3.2	Colorado	48
38	3.2	Illinois	36
38	3.2	Indiana (Maurer)	42
38	3.2	University of Arizona	55
38	3.2	University of Washington	48
38	3.2	Washington & Lee	33
44	3.1	Maryland	55
44	3.1	Utah	28
44	3.1	Wake Forest	25
47	3	Connecticut	55
47	3	Florida State	48
47	3	Texas A&M	26
47	3	Tulane	78
51	2.9	American	98
51	2.9	BYU	28
51	2.9	Cardozo	61
51	2.9	Howard	130
51	2.9	Loyola-L.A.	61
51	2.9	San Diego	68
51	2.9	Temple	54
58	2.8	Georgia State	75
58	2.8	Houston	68
58	2.8	Miami	82
58	2.8	Oregon	82
58	2.8	Pepperdine Caruso	52
58	2.8	Tennessee	52
64	2.7	Case Western	89
64	2.7	Denver	89
64	2.7	George Mason	28
64	2.7	Kansas	46
64	2.7	Loyola-Chicago	78
64	2.7	Richmond	66
64	2.7	SMU	42
64	2.7	UC-San Francisco	82
64	2.7	UNLV	78
64	2.7	Villanova	48
74	2.6	Brooklyn	114
74	2.6	Hawaii	127
74	2.6	Kentucky	61
74	2.6	Missouri-Columbia	61
74	2.6	Northeastern	68
74	2.6	Oklahoma	55
74	2.6	Pittsburgh	91
74	2.6	Rutgers	103
74	2.6	Seton Hall	61
74	2.6	South Carolina	66
84	2.5	Arkansas-Fayetteville	114
84	2.5	Baylor	46
84	2.5	Indiana (McKinney)	98
84	2.5	Lewis & Clark	82
84	2.5	Michigan State	108
84	2.5	Santa Clara	158
90	2.4	Chicago-Kent	108
90	2.4	Cincinnati	78
90	2.4	Drexel	75
90	2.4	Louisiana State	91
90	2.4	Nebraska	82
90	2.4	Penn State-Dickinson	75
90	2.4	Penn State-University Park	68
90	2.4	Seattle	114
90	2.4	St. John's	68
90	2.4	St. Louis	94
90	2.4	Syracuse	120
90	2.4	Wayne State	55
102	2.3	Catholic	94
102	2.3	DePaul	134
102	2.3	Marquette	68
102	2.3	Mississippi	120
102	2.3	New Mexico	94
102	2.3	SUNY-Buffalo	108
108	2.2	Baltimore	140
108	2.2	CUNY	150
108	2.2	Florida Int'l	68
108	2.2	Hofstra	130
108	2.2	Louisville	136
108	2.2	Loyola-New Orleans	130
108	2.2	Pace	136
108	2.2	Stetson	98
108	2.2	Suffolk	130
117	2.1	Albany	117
117	2.1	Arkansas-Little Rock	143
117	2.1	Gonzaga	120
117	2.1	Illinois-Chicago	161
117	2.1	Maine	120
117	2.1	Missouri-Kansas City	117
117	2.1	Pacific	159
117	2.1	West Virginia	117
117	2.1	Willamette	145
126	2	Creighton	153
126	2	Drake	82
126	2	Duquesne	94
126	2	Idaho	145
126	2	Mercer	103
126	2	New Hampshire	98
126	2	New York Law School	127
126	2	St. Thomas (MN)	98
126	2	Texas Tech	82
126	2	Vermont	168
126	2	Washburn	120
126	2	Wyoming	120
138	1.9	Akron	136
138	1.9	Cleveland State	103
138	1.9	Dayton	108
138	1.9	Detroit Mercy	136
138	1.9	Memphis	140
138	1.9	Mitchell | Hamline	164
138	1.9	Montana	103
138	1.9	North Dakota	168
138	1.9	Quinnipiac	143
138	1.9	San Francisco	165
138	1.9	Southwestern	145
138	1.9	St. Mary's	153
138	1.9	Toledo	148
138	1.9	Tulsa	120
152	1.8	Elon	148
152	1.8	Florida A&M	Tier 2
152	1.8	Northern Illinois	157
152	1.8	Roger Williams	172
152	1.8	South Dakota	127
152	1.8	South Texas	150
152	1.8	Widener (DE)	Tier 2
159	1.7	Cal-Western	Tier 2
159	1.7	Chapman	108
159	1.7	District of Columbia	Tier 2
159	1.7	North Carolina Central	Tier 2
159	1.7	Nova	Tier 2
159	1.7	Samford	103
159	1.7	Southern Illinois	172
166	1.6	Belmont	91
166	1.6	Massachusetts	161
166	1.6	North Texas	172
166	1.6	Northern Kentucky	150
166	1.6	Ohio Northern	153
166	1.6	Oklahoma City	153
166	1.6	Puerto Rico	Tier 2
166	1.6	Texas Southern	Tier 2
166	1.6	Touro	168
166	1.6	Widener (PA)	165
176	1.5	Campbell	134
176	1.5	Capital	Tier 2
176	1.5	Mississippi College	168
176	1.5	New England	159
176	1.5	Southern	Tier 2
176	1.5	St. Thomas (FL)	172
176	1.5	Western New England	Tier 2
183	1.4	Charleston	Tier 2
183	1.4	Inter-American (PR)	Tier 2
183	1.4	John Marshall (GA)	176
183	1.4	Lincoln Memorial	165
183	1.4	Pontifical Catholic (PR)	Tier 2
183	1.4	Regent	108
189	1.3	Appalachian	Tier 2
189	1.3	Ave Maria	161
189	1.3	Barry	Tier 2
189	1.3	Faulkner	176
189	1.3	Golden Gate	Tier 2
189	1.3	Liberty	140
195	1.2	Western Michigan	Tier 2
195	1.2	Western State	Tier 2

• ABA Journal, Shake-Up in US News' 2024 Law School Rankings
• Above the Law, The 2024-2025 U.S. News Law School Rankings Are Here: Big Changes in the T14, Along With Some of the Largest Rankings Tumbles and Gains
• Above the Law, Does Anyone Even Care About The U.S. News Law School Rankings Anymore?
• Neil Buchanan (Florida), Two Outside Influences (Beyond the Obvious One) That Are Harming Higher Education 
• Kaplan, Law Schools Believe the Rankings Have Lost Their Luster, but Pre-Law Students Still Find Them Useful
• Law.com, A Shakeup Among Top Schools: U.S. News Releases Best Law Schools Rankings
• Brian Leiter (Chicago), The "Peer" (Academic) Reputation Score in USNews.com's New Ranking
• Reuters, US News' Law School Rankings Are Out, With Fewer Big Moves
• Mike Spivey, U.S. News Law School Rankings: 2024 vs. 2023 (+/-)
• Mike Spivey, Podcast: The New 2024 Law School Rankings Explained
• Donald Tobin (Maryland), The Silly U.S. News Law School Rankings

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

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Tobin: The Silly U.S. News Law School Rankings

TaxProf Blog op-ed:  The Silly U.S. News Law School Rankings, by Donald Tobin (Maryland; Google Scholar):

It is silly season again!  Last year, after U.S. News announced its new methodology regarding law school rankings, I highlighted how the changed methodology in the rankings, and the changes that U.S. News made to those changes, highlighted how silly these rankings are in the first place.  Schools, based on U.S. News waving a statistical wand, suddenly, at least according to U.S. News, became significantly better or significantly worse overnight [A Preliminary Analysis Of The New U.S. News Law School Rankings].  The new rankings shed light on this silliness once again, further highlighting the uselessness of the rankings.

First the good news!

One thing I predicted last year is that the heavy reliance on bar passage and employment data in the rankings would create tremendous volatility unless U.S. News moved to using some type of moving average. Sure enough, probably to stabilize the rankings, U.S. News has changed its methodology once again, and is now using two-year averages for bar passage and employment data. Good for those of you who like some level of stability in the rankings but surprising that wasn’t considered when they changed the methodology last year.

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Preliminary U.S. News Law School Rankings Release Raises Questions

Law.com, Preliminary US News Law School Rankings Release Raises Questions:

As far as anyone can tell, U.S. News & World Report is still expected to release its 2024-25 law school rankings on Tuesday, even though the preliminary embargoed rankings released to law schools last week were fraught with errors.

Paul Caron reported on his TaxProf Blog Friday that after U.S. News released the preliminary rankings on Wednesday—a day later than planned—the survey was re-released on Thursday showing “80 (!) law schools in the April 3 release as originally sorted was corrected in the April 4 rankings, including 9 law schools in the Top 50.”

It is also unclear how many schools actually—fully—participated in the survey. Last year, 63 schools were noted with an asterisk as having “declined to report law data to U.S. News during U.S. News’s most recent data collection.” ... There are 10 schools that didn’t participate last year listed in this year’s survey as “participating.” ... The 10 schools that boycotted last year but are showing as participating this year include

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U.S. News Updates Embargoed Law School Rankings, Impacting Overall Ranking Of 80 Schools

Yesterday (April 4), U.S. News announced it had updated the embargoed law school rankings released on Wednesday (April 3):

An update has been made to the preliminary embargoed Best Graduate Schools rankings. Please review the updated data to ensure the accuracy of any prepared communications. Adjustments were made to how ranks were displayed and sorted for Academic Insight users in the Law School rankings dataset. ...

Please note that the rankings and their related data are subject to change and are not considered final until published on usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-law-schools/law-rankings on Tuesday, April 9, 2024.

The display of the rankings of 80 (!) law schools in the April 3 release as originally sorted was corrected in the April 4 rankings, including 9 law schools in the Top 50.

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U.S. News 2024-25 Top 25 Law Schools

Mike Spivey has published the U.S. News 2024-25 Top 25 law school rankings despite the embargo:

Earlier today, U.S. News released their rankings to law school administrations under an embargo. Multiple law schools passed those rankings along to us, however, and we feel, for multiple reasons, that it makes sense to publish them. Among those reasons is the fact that just last year, U.S. News published their top 14 in advance of the full rankings release, and those top 14 turned out to include errors. This year, over 50 law schools opted not to participate in U.S. News' survey, and given that fact plus the immense scrutiny on the rankings and their trustworthiness, we think it's worthwhile for everyone to be aware of this initially-released top 25.

If the public release next week is different from the below, it is our view that law schools, students, and applicants should be aware of that. We'll publish the full list with +/-, plus commentary and analysis on the methodology and what changes they made in their calculations, next week.

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U.S. News Delays Release Of Embargoed 2024-25 Law School Rankings

U.S. News previously announced that law schools would receive an embargoed copy of the 2024-25 law school rankings today (April 2). U.S. News has delayed the release of the embargoed rankings until tomorrow (April 3):

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U.S. News Releases 2024-25 Law School Top 50 Rankings

Update:  For more, see here.

U.S. News announced today that, with the retirement of Chief Data Strategist Robert Morse at the age of 76, the 2024-25 and future law school rankings will be based on artificial intelligence licensed from ChatGPT. Here are the 2024-25 U.S. News-ChatGPT Top 50 law schools. The complete rankings of all 196 law schools will be released on April 9.

1. Yale Law School
2. Stanford Law School
3. Harvard Law School
4. Columbia Law School
5. University of Chicago Law School
6. New York University School of Law
7. University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School
8. University of Michigan Law School
9. University of California, Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall)
10. Northwestern Pritzker School of Law
11. Duke University School of Law
12. University of Virginia School of Law
13. Cornell Law School
14. Georgetown University Law Center
15. University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Law
16. University of Texas School of Law
17. Vanderbilt University Law School
18. University of Southern California Gould School of Law
19. Washington University in St. Louis School of Law
20. University of Minnesota Law School
21. Boston University School of Law
22. University of Notre Dame Law School
23. Emory University School of Law
24. University of North Carolina School of Law
25. University of California, Irvine School of Law

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Reading The U.S. News Law School Rankings Tea Leaves

Reuters, U.S. News Law School Rankings Release Date Set, Methodology Changes Expected:

Rankings watchers expect that U.S. News will modify its formula to make it more difficult for people to use publicly available American Bar Association data to forecast the results months before the official list comes out and to reduce volatility in schools’ rankings. ...

Projections of the rankings by [Mike] Spivey, Pepperdine Law Dean Paul Caron, and Notre Dame professor Derek Muller suggest New York University School of Law this year would drop to either No. 10 or 11 from the current No. 5 without a change in methodology. The University of Virginia School of law, now No. 8, would jump to No. 4 in all three projections. Year-over-year moves of that magnitude among the top 14 schools are unusual. ... U.S. News may seek to reduce the volatility of the upcoming rankings by adding new metrics or reducing the weight of certain metrics, Muller said.

Law.com, US News Law School Rankings Shrouded in Mystery:

The U.S. News & World Report Law School Rankings are set to release on April 9. While the organization is doing some things differently this year, it hasn’t revealed anything about possible changes in methodology.

One certain change this year, however, includes each law school receiving only its own data this week to check for accuracy instead of law schools receiving a full early report of all schools to review. ...

Since some of the data wasn’t part of the calculations last year, this might suggest changes in methodology, but that’s hard to say for sure, a couple of law deans told Law.com. ...

“We expect to see some methodology changes to the rankings this year,” Dave Killoran, chief executive officer of PowerScore Test Preparation, told Law.com on Wednesday. “If they were to use the same methodology as last year, then anyone could predict the final outcomes since the rankings are built on public data,” which U.S. News doesn’t want, “so they will change the weighting on some items, and this will produce movement among their top schools.”

This is exactly what Paul Caron, the Duane and Kelly Roberts dean and professor of law at Pepperdine Caruso School of Law, has been doing in his TaxProf blog. On Monday, he ranked Yale as No. 1 and Stanford as No. 2—they were tied in last year’s U.S. News rankings.

“Most commentators anticipate that U.S. News will tinker with the methodology in the forthcoming 2024-25 rankings,” Caron wrote.

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