Methodology: 2020 Best Law Schools Rankings

The U.S. News rankings of 192 law schools fully accredited by the American Bar Association, or ABA, are based on a weighted average of the 12 measures of quality described below. Data were collected in fall 2018 and early 2019.

Specialty rankings are based solely on nominations by legal educators at peer institutions.

Quality Assessment (weighted by 0.40)

• Peer assessment score (0.25): In fall 2018, law school deans, deans of academic affairs, chairs of faculty appointments and the most recently tenured faculty members were asked to rate programs on a scale from marginal (1) to outstanding (5). Those individuals who did not know enough about a school to evaluate it fairly were asked to mark "don't know."

A school's score is the average of all the respondents who rated it. Responses of "don't know" counted neither for nor against a school. Seventy-two percent of those surveyed responded.

• Assessment score by lawyers and judges (0.15): In fall 2018, as in previous years, legal professionals – including the hiring partners of law firms, practicing attorneys and judges – were asked to rate programs on a scale from 1 (marginal) to 5 (outstanding). Those individuals who did not know enough about a school to evaluate it fairly were asked to mark "don't know." The law schools provided U.S. News with the names of those surveyed.

A school's score is the average of all the respondents who rated it in the three most recent years of survey results. Responses of "don't know" counted neither for nor against a school.

U.S. News collected the assessment data.

Selectivity (weighted by 0.25)

• Median LSAT and GRE scores (0.125): These are the combined median scores on the Law School Admission Test of all 2018 full-time and part-time entrants to the J.D. program. For the third consecutive year, U.S. News used median GRE scores in combination with LSAT scores for this indicator if they were reported for a law school's 2018 entering class. This year for the first time, U.S. News included GRE analytical writing scores into the ranking methodology. Previously, only GRE quantitative and GRE verbal scores were used if a law school had enrolled students reporting GRE scores. There were 16 law schools, or 8 percent of the total, that reported both LSAT and GRE scores to U.S. News for their 2018 entering class.

• Median undergraduate GPA (0.10): This is the combined median undergraduate GPA of all the 2018 full-time and part-time entrants to the J.D. program.

• Acceptance rate (0.025): This is the combined proportion of applicants to both the full-time and part-time J.D. programs who were accepted for the 2018 entering class.

Placement Success (weighted by 0.20)

Success is determined by calculating employment rates for 2017 graduates at graduation (0.04 weight) and 10 months after (0.14 weight), as well as the bar passage rate, explained below.

In recent years, enhanced ABA reporting rules have led to more information becoming available from law schools about the many types of positions law students take after they graduate. Each year, the schools are required to report to the ABA how many of their most recent graduates had various types of jobs lined up after graduation.

For the third year in a row, the ABA mandated that schools report law school and university positions separately from all other nonuniversity funded positions to make the difference between the two types of jobs very clear. U.S. News continued to use this standard for data collection for the class of 2017 at graduation and 10 months later.

These ABA standards require the law schools to go into a great deal of detail by reporting 45 different job types, as well as employment status and duration. That includes, for example, whether each graduate's employment was long term – defined as lasting at least a year – or short term; was full or part time; and whether it required passage of a bar exam.

U.S. News collected these same statistics when the schools were surveyed for the annual rankings and gathered the same data on members of the class who were employed at graduation and 10 months after graduation. U.S. News also collected data on students' jobs when the law school was unable to determine length of employment or full- or part-time status, as well as when employment status was unknown.

U.S. News has incorporated this rich data into its computation of the employment measure for the class of 2017 at graduation and 10 months later. Placement success was calculated by assigning various weights to the number of graduates employed in 45 of these different types of post-J.D. jobs, employment statuses and durations.

Full weight was given for graduates who had two types of jobs. The 100 percent weighted jobs were those who had a full-time job not funded by the law school or university that lasted at least a year and for which bar passage was required, or a full-time job not funded by the law school or university that lasted at least a year where a J.D. degree was an advantage. Many experts in legal education consider these real law jobs.

Less weight went to full-time, long-term jobs that were professional or nonprofessional and did not require bar passage; to pursuit of an additional advanced degree; and to positions whose start dates were deferred. The lowest weight applied to jobs categorized as both part-time and short-term and those jobs for which a law school was unable to determine length of employment or whether they were full time.

Nevertheless, in terms of all law school and university positions, U.S. News continues to apply a greater discount in our rankings calculations to the value of jobs graduates held that the law school or university funded compared with the weight used for positions in the same category that were not funded by the law school or university.

What this means is that full-time jobs lasting at least a year for which bar passage was required or a J.D. degree was an advantage did not receive full weight in the calculations if they were school- or university-funded. All other types of jobs, which already receive less weight in the rankings calculations, were further discounted if they were funded by the law school or university.

All these weighted employment figures were divided by the total number of 2017 J.D. graduates. They were used in the ranking formula only and are not published.

Employment statistics displayed in the ranking tables reflect actual rates, out of the total number of 2017 J.D. graduates, for all jobs excluding positions funded by the law school or university that are full-time, long-term and for which a J.D. and bar passage are necessary or advantageous.

Actual rates for the other types of positions appear in the profiles of each school's latest graduating class.

These employment data for both types of positions – those not funded by the law school or university and those that were – are only available via a U.S. News Law School Compass subscription.

• Bar passage rate (0.02): This is the ratio of the bar passage rate of a school's 2017 graduating class to that jurisdiction's overall state bar passage rate for first-time test-takers in winter 2017 and summer 2017.

The jurisdiction listed is the state where the largest number of 2017 graduates took the state bar exam. The National Conference of Bar Examiners provided the state bar examination pass rates for first-time test-takers in winter and summer 2017.

Faculty Resources (weighted by 0.15)

• Expenditures per student: This is the average expenditures per student for the 2017 and 2018 fiscal years. The average instruction, library and supporting services (0.0975) are measured, as are all other items, including financial aid (0.015).

• Student-faculty ratio (0.03): This is the ratio of law school students to law school faculty members for 2018. The definition that U.S. News uses is a modified version of the Common Data Set's student-to-faculty ratio definition, a standard used throughout higher education based on the ratio of full-time equivalent students to full-time equivalent faculty.

For law schools, full-time equivalent law school faculty is defined as full-time faculty plus one-third part-time law school faculty. Full-time equivalent students is defined as full-time law school students plus 0.667 of total part-time law school students.

• Library resources (0.0075): This is the total number of volumes and titles in the school's law library at the end of the 2018 fiscal year.

Overall Rank

Data were standardized about their means, and standardized scores were weighted, totaled and rescaled so that the top school received 100; others received their percentage of the top score. Law schools were then numerically ranked in descending order based on their scores.

Check back every now and then, as we occasionally add content to the website when we obtain additional data we think are useful – whether on job placement, GPA, LSAT test scores or other factors – or learn information that changes the data.

Schools Listed With a Ranking Range

U.S. News has numerically ranked the top three-quarters of the law schools. For schools in the bottom quarter of the rankings, U.S. News made an editorial decision to only display the bottom quartile ranking range in this ranking category. Schools listed with a ranking range are listed alphabetically.

U.S. News will supply schools listed in the ranking range with their numerical ranks if they submit a request following the procedures listed in the Information for School Officials.

Schools Not Ranked and Listed as Unranked

Concordia University in Idaho, Lincoln Memorial University in Tennessee and the University of North Texas—Dallas are unranked because, as of February 2019, they were only provisionally approved by the ABA.

Arizona Summit Law School, Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School and Thomas Jefferson School of Law are unranked because they were on probation status with the ABA as of February 2019.

Also unranked are Inter-American University in Puerto Rico, the University of Puerto Rico and Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico.

To be ranked and listed on the overall ranking tables, a law school must be accredited and fully approved by the ABA.

Specialty Rankings

Law school specialty rankings, such as clinical training, tax and health care, are based solely on peer assessments by law school faculty who teach in that specialty area. The peer assessment surveys for the specialty law school area rankings were conducted in fall 2018 and early 2019 by U.S. News.

This year for the first time, law school faculty members who teach in each specialty area rated the other law schools in that specialty area on a 5-point scale. Those schools with the highest average scores among those raters who rated them appear in the rankings and are ranked in descending order based on their average peer score they received in that specialty area. In all the previous law school specialty rankings, the law school raters chose their top 15 in a specialty area. This new methodology produced a significantly larger number of schools that were ranked in each specialty area – in some cases five or six times more.

In summer 2018, law schools provided U.S. News with the names of the law school faculty who teach in each specialty area.

The number of schools ranked in the nine law school specialty rankings and the response rate among those law school faculty surveyed in that specialty in fall 2018 were as follows:

In the law school specialty rankings, all programs that received 10 or more ratings are numerically ranked in that specialty. Schools with less than 10 ratings in a specialty aren't listed.

School Data

The schools provided the data listed in the rankings tables and on school profile pages. If a data point is listed as "N/A," the school did not provide it.

Searching for a law school? Get our complete rankings of Best Law Schools.