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The 2024-2025 U.S. News & World Report law school rankings have finally arrived — complete with their fair share of drama and absurdity.
After releasing a preliminary version of the rankings to law schools last Wednesday, it was discovered that a full 80(!) schools were incorrectly ranked — including nine law schools in the Top 50 — leading the magazine to release a corrected version of the rankings the very next day. On top of these errors, it’s been reported that law schools actively boycotting the rankings are listed as “participating” when all they did was provide U.S. News with publicly available data upon which the rankings are now largely based.
Last week, we brought readers a copy of the embargoed Top 25 law schools from the U.S. News rankings. Has anything changed since then? It’s time to find out.
Here’s the official list of the top law schools in the nation, as ranked by U.S. News & World Report in the year 2024. Changes in rank from this year over last year come to us courtesy of Mike Spivey of Spivey Consulting.
Here is the methodology for the latest edition of the rankings, which may explain some of the wild gains and losses you’re about to see:
- Employment: 33% (newly averaged between the two most recent graduating class years)
- First-Time Bar Passage: 18% (newly averaged between the two most recent graduating class years)
- Ultimate Bar Passage: 7% (newly averaged between the two most recent graduating class years)
- Peer Assessment: 12.5% (slightly tweaked)
- Lawyer/Judge Assessment: 12.5% (slightly tweaked)
- LSAT/GRE: 5%
- UGPA: 4%
- Acceptance Rate: 1%
- Student-Faculty Ratio: 5%
- Library Resources: 2%
That said, take a look at the prestigious T14, where there were some major moves:
| Stanford University | 1 | – |
| Yale University | 1 | – |
| University of Chicago | 3 | – |
| Duke University | 4 | +1 |
| Harvard University | 4 | +1 |
| University of Pennsylvania | 4 | – |
| University of Virginia | 4 | +4 |
| Columbia University | 8 | – |
| New York University | 9 | -4 |
| Northwestern University | 9 | +1 |
| University of Michigan | 9 | +1 |
| University of California–Berkeley | 12 | -2 |
| University of California–Los Angeles | 13 | +1 |
| Cornell University | 14 | -1 |
| Georgetown University | 14 | +1 |
Well, well, well, these seem to be the exact same rankings that were released under the original embargo by U.S. News. This is still represents a major shake-up within the T14, with UVA climbing to No. 4, while NYU has dropped down a few spots. There are now three ties within the T14 (a four-way tie for No. 4; a three-way tie for No. 9; and a tie for No. 14). At least Georgetown has made its way back into the the tippy top of the rankings.
Now, let’s take a gander at the law schools outside of the T14. Like years past, we’re faced with yet another rankings orgy, with nothing but ties, ties, and more ties. There are four ties in this segment of the rankings alone (one tie; one three-way tie; one four-way tie; and one five-way tie), with more to follow. Here are the schools ranked 16 – 28:
| University of Minnesota | 16 | – |
| University of Texas–Austin | 16 | – |
| Washington University in St. Louis | 16 | +4 |
| Vanderbilt University | 19 | -3 |
| University of Georgia | 20 | – |
| University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill | 20 | +2 |
| University of Notre Dame | 20 | +7 |
| University of Southern California | 20 | -4 |
| Boston University | 24 | +3 |
| Wake Forest University | 25 | -3 |
| Ohio State University (Moritz) | 26 | -4 |
| Texas A&M University | 26 | +3 |
| Boston College | 28 | +1 |
| Brigham Young University (Clark) | 28 | -6 |
| George Mason University (Scalia) | 28 | +4 |
| University of Florida (Levin) | 28 | -6 |
| University of Utah (Quinney) | 28 | +4 |
The biggest winner here was Notre Dame (up seven places and into the Top 20), while BYU and Florida saw the largest drops (both down six places). George Mason and Utah both gained four spots, propelling them into the Top 30, and UNC also entered the vaunted Top 20. Nicely done.
Now, for the rest of the law schools in the Top 48, where there are five ties (noticing a trend within these rankings yet?). As you can see, there was A LOT of movement here:
| Fordham University | 33 | -4 |
| University of Alabama | 33 | +2 |
| Washington and Lee University | 33 | +7 |
| Arizona State University (O’Connor) | 36 | -4 |
| University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign | 36 | +7 |
| University of Iowa | 36 | -1 |
| University of Wisconsin–Madison | 36 | +4 |
| William & Mary Law School | 36 | +9 |
| George Washington University | 41 | -6 |
| Emory University | 42 | -7 |
| Indiana University–Bloomington (Maurer) | 42 | +3 |
| Southern Methodist University (Dedman) | 42 | +3 |
| University of California–Irvine | 42 | -7 |
| Baylor University | 46 | +3 |
| University of Kansas | 46 | -6 |
| Florida State University | 48 | +8 |
| University of Colorado–Boulder | 48 | +8 |
| University of Washington | 48 | +1 |
| Villanova University (Widger) | 48 | -5 |
The biggest winners here were William & Mary (+9), Florida State (+8), Colorado (+8), Illinois (+7), and Washington & Lee (+7). The biggest losers here were Emory (-7) and UC Irvine (-7). Whatever some of the schools here are doing, they better shape up, because some have almost been shipped out of the Top 50.
The rest of the rankings are available on the next page.
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on X/Twitter and Threads or connect with her on LinkedIn.
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