Yale and Harvard sent shockwaves through higher education last November by announcing they would no longer provide data to U.S. News, the publication that dominates law school rankings. Soon, many other schools joined Yale and Harvard in rejecting U.S. News rankings systems altogether.
Schools who participate in the survey will have profile pages that provide richer and more up-to-date standardized information to prospective students, while nonresponding schools will not appear in rankings.
U.S. News & World Report
Rankings can play an instrumental role in prospective law students’ decision-making processes. After all, many top firms and prestigious judicial clerkships rely heavily on students from highly-ranked schools as employees or recruits. But what can these rankings reveal about a school?
AccessLex researchers recently conducted a comprehensive examination of how rankings have changed over time. While prestige and academic rigor of schools remained consistent over time, their ability to enroll strong students into Big Law, private practice or public interest careers had significantly declined over time.
Worse yet, law school rankings continue to prioritize seemingly nonsensical indicators like employment and bar passage rates as indicators of quality education delivery; I find this decision puzzling given these aren’t true measures of law school quality – and more accurately measure law school quality would include looking at student employment outcomes such as debt loads post graduation as these could provide more accurate assessments.
The National Law Journal
Ranking systems can play an essential part in helping law students decide where to study law, but prospective law students must not solely consider rankings when making their choice. Instead, it is vital that they look beyond ranks at what tangible benefits each school can offer them.
Stanford and Yale law schools frequently vie for first place in US News’ law school rankings, although their dominance can change year to year. Both are known for their progressive approaches to legal education as well as commitments to social justice and public interest law.
The US News rankings are determined using various criteria, including student selectivity, research environment, faculty resources and employment outcomes. Furthermore, their system takes into account expert opinions from judges, practicing lawyers and legal recruiters when compiling its rankings.
Brooklyn Law provides students with a practical legal education, emphasizing practical skills. Thanks to strong ties with local community groups and legal associations, students at this school gain real-world experience in areas like housing rights and veterans’ rights. Plus, its four-year JD program gives them more time to find their ideal career path.
The Wall Street Journal
Prospective law students rely heavily on rankings when making their decision about which law school to attend. Rankings typically incorporate multiple criteria such as academic reputation, bar passage rates, employment outcomes for graduates and faculty scholarship when making this important decision.
The rankings also consider student selectivity, which includes median LSAT and GPA scores of admitted applicants as well as their undergraduate GPAs. A higher selectivity score usually indicates more competitive and academically accomplished student bodies.
Stanford and Yale Law Schools shared the top spot of U.S. News & World Report’s 2024 rankings of law schools. Meanwhile, University of Chicago maintained its spot as third. Within this group of 14 law schools (known as T14), Duke University rose one position while University of Pennsylvania dropped one spot; expert opinions from judges, practicing attorneys and legal recruiters also played an integral role in these rankings. While these rankings provide some measure of prestige and quality assessment of each institution studied within them there may still be some drawbacks due to limitations within their rankings system which should not be oversimplectoralized or misinterpretations by potential opponents of said institutions who do not wish for any particular one of them being included among them or not allowed entirely within these rankings systems used herein e.g. the rankings system can only measure some aspect such as prestige/quality assessment factors which do not take account of other considerations available such as student enrollment data can provide accurate measures of prestige/quality assessments of schools studied; these factors will help assess schools prestige/quality assessments but do have some limitations to them such as limited data collection from experts;
The Economist
Rankings play an essential part of law school applicants’ decision making processes and, later on, employment prospects upon graduation; many top firms and prestigious judicial clerkships enlist heavily from top-ranked schools as candidates.
Some factors that could alter law school rankings include faculty changes and departures, student selectivity rates and graduate employment rates, as well as cost of attendance issues at a school.
The University of Chicago Law School is widely revered for its rigorous academic program and unique law-and-economics approach, creating an atmosphere of robust scholarly debate. Students benefit from abundant opportunities to study outside of legal studies through innovative interdisciplinary programs.
Cardozo Law in New York City provides hands-on legal training through its legal clinics, with an interdisciplinary focus encouraging cross-disciplinary studies and boasting a high post-graduation employment rate at top law firms – including its acclaimed summer undergraduate research fellowship where first year students can learn about tax and property law in NYC. It also boasts a reputation for its experiential programs such as summer undergraduate research fellowship that allows first year students to learn tax and property law first hand!
