2024 QS Rankings Names Harvard Best Law School in the World

Earlier this week, QS dropped its 2024 World Law School Rankings. Harvard Law, once again took the top spot. In fact, the top nine remained the same as last year. The University of Melbourne emerged as the only new entrant into the top ten, moving up one slot from the 11th rank last year.

QS bases its law school rankings on an aggregate of four indicators: academic reputation, employer reputation, research citations per paper, and H-indices (a measure of the productivity and impact of a university department’s research). Harvard not only achieved a perfect score on three of the four indicators, but it was the only school to achieve a perfect score on any of the indicators. 

U.S.-based law schools showed well, taking six of the top ten spots, while U.K.-based schools took an additional three. Below, we’ve listed the top ten, as well as the U.S.-based schools ranked in the top 50. Check out the full ranking here. 

Top Ten:

1. Harvard University

2. University of Oxford, United Kingdom

3. University of Cambridge, United Kingdom

4. Yale University

5. Stanford University

6. New York University

7. The London School of Economics and POlitical Science, United Kingdom

8. Columbia University

9. University of California, Berkeley

10. The University of Melbourne, Australia

U.S.-based Schools Ranked in the Top 50:

11. University of Chicago

19. University of California, Los Angeles

23. Georgetown University

29. University of Pennsylvania

30. Duke University

34. Cornell University

36. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

50. University of Virginia

U.S. News and World Report Takes Down Law School and Medical School Rankings Previews

The U.S. News and World Report just removed the Best Law School and Best Medical School previews, which were posted earlier this month. In place of the previews, which showed the Top 14 Law Schools and Top 15 Medical Schools: Research, U.S. News posted this announcement, which explains that the organization has received a number of data update requests from law and medical schools:

As U.S. News previously announced, we are dealing with an unprecedented number of inquiries during our embargo period for the 2023-2024 Best Graduate Schools, including requests from law and medical schools to update data submitted after the collection period.

While we address these inquiries, we have removed the preview content for the 2023-2024 Best Medical Schools: Research and 2023-2024 Best Law Schools rankings published here on April 11. As previously noted, the rankings are not final until they are published in their entirety on USNews.com.

The previews’ removal falls after two announced delays in the publication of the full rankings for law and medical schools. The organization has not yet provided an expected publication date for the rankings, although it published other graduate school rankings, including business schools, today. 

U.S. News and World Report Postpones Law and Medical School Rankings Indefinitely

The U.S. News and World Report just announced that the release of the “Best Law School” and “Best Medical School” rankings will be postponed indefinitely. The news comes shortly after the organization delayed the publication of all graduate rankings by a week, from April 18th to April 25th, to account for additional data review and validation. U.S. News still plans to publish all other graduate program rankings, including business schools, on April 25th. 

The withdrawal of many law and medical schools from the rankings earlier this year spurred U.S. News to depend more heavily on publicly available data than in the past. After publishing a preview of the top 14 ranked law schools and top 15 ranked medical research programs earlier this month, the organization allowed school officials the opportunity to review the data under an embargo period. This standard practice led to an “unprecedented” number of questions and calls for additional review, which has apparently led to the delay. 

In a letter written to the U.S. News and shared with Reuters, Harvard Law Assistant Dean Marva de Marothy wrote, "Although we no longer participate in the U.S. News rankings, we expect the magazine to use accurate, publicly available numbers if it intends to continue to make representations about our law school.” 

U.S. News Will Delay Publication of Rankings After Unprecedented Number of Data Inquiries by Law Schools

U.S. News and World Report’s annual ranking of law schools will be delayed a week. In an email to law deans, published in part by Above the Law, U.S. News explained that during the law school data review period—a standard part of the pre-publication process—the organization received “an unprecedented number of inquiries from schools.” In order to fully address the inquiries, U.S. News added an additional week to the review period. Participating law deans are expected to receive access to the updated data on Wednesday, April 19th, and the final publication has been moved to April 25th.