Business Insider Ranks The 50 Best Law Schools In America
Law schools across the country, brace yourselves. There is yet another ranking judging how you compare against each other. And in a world where law school applicants are about as rare as raindrops in the Golden State, rankings do matter. Applicants will apply to the best schools they think they can get accepted to (and receive money from). Simply put, the top ranked schools will continue to attract the top applicants. Business Insider is the most recent publication to produce rankings.
According to Business Insider, Yale is the best law school in America, scoring a perfect 10 out of 10 on their Legal Insider rating. Harvard and Columbia followed in second and third. Stanford and Duke rounded out the top five. The University of California-Berkeley, Georgetown, Cornell, the University of Chicago, and New York University round out the top 10, respectively. Virginia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Northwestern, were next in line, respectively to establish Tier 14 dominance yet again. All 14 of those schools were in Business Insider’s top 14.
The results may have been similar to the widely accepted and used U.S. News rankings, but the methodologies were not. The results were based on a survey sent to American legal professionals asking them to rank the top 10 schools in terms of preparing students “to land their ideal job.” The percentage of participants who put each school in the top 10 was the score given. Only 52% of the 371 participants actually affirmed having a law degree. This method made up 50% of the final Legal Insider ranking.
The remaining 50% came from employment rates reported by the American Bar Association (25%) and acceptance rates reported by U.S. News. Perhaps the biggest critique is the subjectivity inherent to asking professionals which schools they think prepares students best. Yes, there could be a general agreement, but often times performance will come down to the work ethic and drive of the actual individual. Obviously the higher the work ethic and drive, the more likely these students will end up at top tier schools. Regardless, weighting an opinion so heavily in a ranking will at the very minimum create questions surrounding methodologies.
Business Insider’s Top 50 Law Schools
Rank | School |
50 | University of Arizona (Rogers) |
49 | Washington and Lee University |
48 | University of Utah (Quinney) |
47 | Seton Hall University |
46 | Temple University (Beasley) |
45 | University of Illinois – Urbana-Champaign |
44 | University of Colorado-Boulder |
43 | University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill |
42 | University of Wisconsin-Madison |
41 | Ohio State University (Moritz) |
40 | American University (Washington) |
39 | University of Southern California (Gould) |
38 | Southern Methodist University (Dedman) |
37 | University of Houston |
36 | Fordham University |
35 | University of Georgia |
34 | George Mason University |
33 | City University of New York School of Law |
32 | Florida State University |
31 | University of Minnesota |
30 | Rutgers University |
29 | Arizona State University (O’Connor) |
28 | Brigham Young University (Clark) |
27 | University of Washington |
26 | Washington University in St. Louis |
25 | The University of Alabama |
24 | George Washington University |
23 | Boston University |
22 | Baylor University |
21 | University of California-Los Angeles |
20 | Emory University |
19 | University of Texas-Austin |
18 | College of William & Mary (Marshall-Wythe) |
17 | Boston College |
16 | University of Notre Dame |
15 | Vanderbilt University |
14 | Northwestern University |
13 | University of Michigan-Ann Arbor |
12 | University of Pennsylvania |
11 | University of Virginia |
10 | New York University |
9 | University of Chicago |
8 | Cornell University |
7 | Georgetown University |
6 | University of California-Berkeley |
5 | Duke University |
4 | Stanford University |
3 | Columbia University |
2 | Harvard University |
1 | Yale University |
Source: Business Insider
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