The 2016 'Go-To' Law Schools

RankingThe U.S. News Accidentaly Leaks 2015 Law School Rankings

The U.S. News goofed last week. In what appears to be a staff mixup, the publication published their 2017 law school rankings by accident before quickly de-publishing them. Thankfully, Above the Law was on top of it and captured screen shots of the publishing oops. The actual rankings are set to drop this coming Wednesday (March 16).
Unfortunately, the excitement is quickly lost considering there was very little shakeup in the Tier 14 (T14) schools. Yale Law School once again came on top with another second place tie from Harvard Law School and Stanford Law School. Columbia Law School and the University of Chicago School of Law tied for fourth to round out the top five. The only changes within the T14 came from the University of Michigan School of Law, which jumped from 11th to a three-way tie for eighth with UC Berkeley School of Law and the University of Virginia School of Law. Michigan flip-flopped with Duke Law School, which dropped from eighth to 11th.
U.S. News Top Law Schools of 2017 (T14):

  1. Yale Law School (no change)
  2. Harvard Law School (no change)
  3. Stanford Law School (no change)
  4. Columbia Law School (no change)
  5. University of Chicago School of Law (no change)
  6. New York University School of Law (no change)
  7. University of Pennsylvania School of Law (no change)
  8. University of Michigan School of Law (up three)
  9. UC Berkeley School of Law (no change)
  10. University of Virginia School of Law (no change)
  11. Duke Law School (down three)
  12. Northwestern Pritzker School of Law (no change)
  13. Cornell Law School (no change)
  14. Georgetown Law Center (no change)

The news actually came to Above the Law from Mike Spivey of the Spivey Consulting Group–a Boulder, Colorado-based law school admissions consulting firm. The rest of the top 50 can be seen on Spivey’s blog here.
Briefly, here are the biggest winners and losers in the top 100.
Biggest Winners (all double-digit gains):

  1. University of Cincinnati (up 22 to 60th)
  2. Villanova (up 13 to 74th)
  3. Louisiana State (up 12 to 82nd)
  4. New Mexico (up 11 to 60th)
  5. Loyola (CA) (up 10 to 65th)

Biggest Losers (all double-digit losses):

  1. Brooklyn (down 19 to 97th)
  2. Penn State (down 15 to 86th)
  3. Pepperdine (down 13 to 65th)
  4. Tennessee (down 13 to 65th)
  5. SUNY Buffalo (down 13 to 100th)
  6. UNLV (down 11 to 78th)
  7. Arkansas (down 11 to 86th)
  8. Hawaii (down 10 to 92nd)

Source: Above the Law and Spivey Consulting Group
DON’T MISS: YALE (AGAIN) TOPS U.S. NEWS RANKINGS