Stanford and Yale Continue Reign Atop U.S News’ Best Law Schools Ranking

The U.S. News and World Report has posted the 2024-2025 Best Law School rankings. For the second year in a row, Stanford and Yale Law Schools are tied for the top spot followed by University of Chicago in the third rank. 

Notable changes to the T14 from the last year’s rankings include: 

• A four-way tie for the fourth rank. Duke, Harvard, and UVA joined UPenn in the fourth position this year. Duke and Harvard moved up one spot from a tie at 5th in 2023. UVA made the largest year-over-year gain in the T14, jumping up four places from last year. 

• NYU experienced the largest drop within the T14, moving down four spots to join Northwestern and Michigan in a three-way tie at 9th. 

• Georgetown moved up one rank to officially join the T14 in a tie at 14th with Cornell.  

Outside of the T14, highlights include: 

• Washington University of St. Louis jumped up four spots to tie for the 16th rank with University of Minnesota and University of Texas-Austin. 

• Notre Dame became one of the year’s big winners with a seven spot improvement from 2023, joining the University of Southern California in a tie for 20th. 

• Boston University rejoined the top 25 this year, moving from the 27th rank in 2023 to 24th.

• Brigham Young, Ohio State, and the University of Florida dropped out of the top 25 this year, after being a part of a five-way tie at 22nd last year. Ohio State fell four positions to rank 26th in a tie with Texas A&M. Brigham Young and Florida both fell six positions to tie for the 28th rank alongside Boston College, George Mason, and the University of Utah. 

Slight adjustments were made to the methodology this year. A description is available here. 

Rank School Name, Change from 2023

1 Stanford University (tie), –

1 Yale University (tie), –

3 University of Chicago, –

4 Duke University (tie), +1

4 Harvard University (tie), +1

4 University of Pennsylvania (tie), –

4 University of Virginia (tie), +4

8 Columbia University, –

9 New York University (tie), -4

9 Northwestern University (tie), +1

9 University of Michigan (tie), +1

12 University of California–Berkeley, -2

13 University of California–Los Angeles, +1

14 Cornell University (tie), -1

14 Georgetown University (tie), +1

16 University of Minnesota (tie), –

16 University of Texas–Austin (tie), –

16 Washington University in St. Louis (tie), +4

19 Vanderbilt University, -3 

20 University of Georgia (tie), –

20 University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill (tie), +2

20 University of Notre Dame (tie), +7

20 University of Southern California (tie), -4

24 Boston University, +3

25 Wake Forest University, -3

Stanford and Yale Law Schools Announce Plans for Earlier Virtual On-Campus Interviewing

Stanford and Yale Law Schools are making waves with their recent announcements to move virtual on-campus interviews up to June, which is ahead of the formal OCI processes.

Stanford Law School’s announcement explained that they want to better align with firms’ recent hiring practices. Many firms, they noted, are now doing significantly more hiring early in the process through direct applications and interviews. The schedule change will not only provide students with access to those open positions, it will also allow them to focus on their finals and/or their summer internships. 

Yale’s announcement also focused on its desire to align with firms’ hiring patterns. Kelly Voight, Yale Law School’s Assistant Dean for the Career Development Office, said that the school is making this decision to, “best serve our students by maximizing student choice, promoting informed decision-making, and leveling the playing field for law firm recruiting,” in an email to Law.com.

Prospective law students interested in big law should keep an eye on how other elite schools respond to Stanford and Yale’s announcements, and also how they plan to support their students amidst an evolving employment market. 

Application Tips: How to Approach Stanford Law School’s Optional Essays

In addition to the standard personal statement and resume, Stanford Law School (SLS) invites applicants to submit responses to up to three optional essays. SLS provides one optional diversity essay prompt, as well as four short-answer essay questions of which candidates may answer up to two. We urge you to respond to the maximum number that you can. Compelling responses will only strengthen your candidacy. 

Optional Essay. At Stanford Law School, we value the ability to communicate constructively across differences – even when the stakes are high or the differences significant. Please discuss a time when you encountered a viewpoint that contrasted with your own and explain how you responded. Would you do anything different if the same thing happened today? Your essay should be approximately one to two pages in length.

This is a timely question. SLS generated headlines and controversy last year after students disrupted a guest speaker, 5th Circuit Judge, Kyle Duncan. In the aftermath of the incident, SLS officials made a public apology noting that the protest was not aligned to the school’s values around free speech and that students would be required to attend free speech training. Similar controversies at Yale and other elite programs have led the ABA to push forward legislation that would require law schools to enact policies protecting the free exchange of ideas on campus.  

Given this context, SLS is looking for students who are able to exchange ideas respectfully and with humility, even when impassioned. Engage the reader in a situation when you disagreed with another party or were challenged to learn more about a contrasting position. Were you able to listen and learn from someone you disagreed with? How did you remain calm? Did maintaining respect for the other speaker allow you both to come closer to one another’s position? Did you come to an agreement? If not, how did you maintain your relationship despite the differences? What parts of the interaction were you proud of? What mistakes did you make? Be sure to provide insight into what you learned from the experience and how those insights will inform your interactions with students, professors and visiting speakers at SLS.

Optional Short Essays. If you think these optional short essays could help us get a better sense of who you are, we encourage you to consider submitting your responses to no more than two of the following questions.  Note that there is a 100 to 250-word limit for each question. 

As you consider the four short-answer essays, keep in mind your overall application. Select the questions that will allow you to enhance and complete your profile.

If you could sit and chat with anyone, living or from any time in history, who would you chat with?  What's one question you'd ask?  Why?  

The key part of the question is the “Why?”. Give a person and a question, but spend most of your limited word count on the why. What about this person do you admire and/or are curious about? What do you hope to learn from them? 

You're given the opportunity to teach a one-day class to your fellow students at Stanford Law School.  Based on your particular skills and talents, what would you teach?

This essay provides a great opportunity to showcase a non-academic side of yourself with the admissions committee. Do you have a unique hobby or interest? Have you mastered the chocolate souffle? Are you an avid guitar player? Show the admissions committee what you are most passionate about.

The library in the town where you grew up has been destroyed.  Choose three books to contribute to rebuilding the library's collection. 

The key part of the question is also the “Why?”. Give three titles, then explore why each one is meaningful to you. Did one prompt a significant evolution in your perspective and/or have a particular impact on your community? Is another relevant to the town’s history? Did your third title elevate minority voices? Show the reader what you value most through the books you select.

Music has a way of setting tone and mood for any occasion.  With this in mind, pick three songs or musical works to be playing in the background as the Admissions Committee reviews your materials. 

It’s time to get creative and show some personality! SLS is looking for students who will be collaborative and form lasting personal and professional relationships, so exposing a bit of vulnerability to showcase a quirky or sentimental side is a good idea. You could choose three titles or musical works that correspond to different parts of your life (i.e., a running mix, a study mix, and a social mix). You could propose a theme and pick three titles that fall under that theme. Or you may opt for three songs representing different eras in your life. As with the other optional questions, be sure to spend most of the word count on the “why?”. 

It’s Back. U.S. News Posts Updated 2023-2024 Best Law School Rankings

The U.S. News and World Report has posted the final 2023-2024 Best Law School rankings. And there has been significant change since last year due to the new methodology. Notably, even since the preview released in April, Harvard has dropped one spot and NYU has ticked up one spot to form a three-way tie at the fifth rank with Duke University. 

Changes to the T14 from the 2022-2023 rankings include: 

• Yale shares the top spot with Stanford, which moved up from the second spot in 2022.

• UPenn climbed in the rankings from 6th in 2022 to 4th this year.

• Harvard dropped from the 3rd spot in last year’s ranking to tie for the 5th spot in 2023 with Duke. Duke moved up five positions from the 10th rank last year.

• Columbia dropped from the 4th rank in 2022 to tie for 8th with UVA this year. 

• Northwestern jumped up two positions moving from 12th in 2022 to tie for 10th alongside UC Berkeley and University of Michigan. 

Outside of the T14, highlights include: 

• USC Gould and the University of Minnesota moved up from the 19th and 22nd ranks last year, respectively, to tie for 16th with Vanderbilt, University of Texas, and University of Minnesota in 2023. 

• Washington University in St. Louis dropped from the 16th rank last year to tie for 20th with the University of Georgia. Georgia moved up from the 27th rank in 2022. 

• Ohio State and Wake Forest jumped from the 40th and 41st ranks, respectively, last year, to enter the top 25. They are both part of a five-way tie for 22nd along with Brigham Young, University of Florida, and University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. Brigham Young moved up to the 22nd rank from 29th last year. 

• Boston University fell out of the top 25, moving from the 20th rank in 2022 to 29th this year.

Rank School Name

1 Stanford University (tie)

1 Yale University (tie)

3 University of Chicago

4 University of Pennsylvania (Carey) (tie)

5 Duke University (tie)

5 Harvard University (tie)

5 New York University (tie)

8 Columbia University (tie)

8 University of Virginia (tie)

10 Northwestern University (Pritzker) (tie)

10 University of California, Berkeley (tie)

10 University of Michigan—Ann Arbor (tie)

13 Cornell University

14 University of California—Los Angeles

15 Georgetown University

16 University of Minnesota (tie)

16 University of Southern California (Gould)

16 University of Texas--Austin

16 Vanderbilt University

20 University of Georgia

20 Washington University in St. Louis

22 Brigham Young University (Clark)

22 Ohio State University (Moritz)

22 University of Florida (Levin)

22 University of North Carolina--Chapel Hill

22 Wake Forest University

Following Months of Controversy, U.S. News Unveils Preview of 2024 Best Law School Rankings

The U.S. News just published a preview of its 2024 Best Law School Rankings. And there weren’t many surprises. Stanford Law moved up from the second rank to tie Yale University for the top spot. Columbia Law dropped from the fourth rank to the eighth, Georgetown Law fell out of the top-14, and UCLA moved up from the 15th rank to take Georgetown’s place. 

There were some notable updates to U.S. News’ methodology, however, which the news organization said were based upon the input of over 100 law deans and legal experts. Some of the named changes include: an increase in the weight given to the bar pass rate and the addition of the “ultimate bar pass pass rate” (the bar pass rate of a graduating class two years post-grad); an increase in the weight given to employment ten months post-graduation; changes to the credit assigned for students entering into fellowships or graduate school post-graduation; and a significant reduction in the weight given to reputation surveys, LSAT/GRE scores, and median GPA scores. 

Briefly addressing the controversy, U.S. News explained that it ranked all schools using publicly available data, and removed some of the metrics that were not available (e.g. expenditures, at-graduation employment rate, and JD graduate indebtedness). 

The U.S. News plans to publish the full methodology, including measures and weights, alongside the complete rankings, on April 18. 

Rank School Name

1 Stanford University (tie)

1 Yale University (tie)

3 University of Chicago

4 Harvard University (tie)

4 University of Pennsylvania (Carey) (tie)

6 Duke University (tie)

6 New York University (tie)

8 Columbia University (tie)

8 University of Virginia (tie)

10 Northwestern University (Pritzker) (tie)

10 University of California, Berkeley (tie)

10 University of Michigan—Ann Arbor (tie)

13 Cornell University

14 University of California—Los Angeles

Yale and Harvard Law Schools Will No Longer Participate in the U.S. News Law School Rankings

Yale Law School announced yesterday that it would no longer participate in the U.S. News ranking of law schools. Harvard followed, withdrawing from participation a few hours later. The two schools routinely topped the rankings with Yale holding the number one spot since 1990 and Harvard, most recently, taking the fourth rank. 

In making the announcement, Yale Law Dean, Heather Gerken, called the rankings “profoundly flawed” and criticized the methodology. “Its approach not only fails to advance the legal profession, but stands squarely in the way of progress,” she said. She specifically criticized the methodology’s treatment of students who receive school-funded fellowships to pursue public-interest work, or go on to pursue further graduate-level education. US News classifies them as unemployed. She also noted that the rankings reward schools that provide financial aid to students with high LSAT scores rather than demonstrated financial need, and that the ranking methodology does not incorporate schools’ loan-forgiveness programs, which can help ease the burden of debt.

Harvard Law’s announcement, made by Dean John Manning, noted many of the same methodological concerns as Dean Gerken. He also communicated that the ranking’s inclusion of the student-debt metric may reward not only schools that offer significant financial aid, but also schools that opt to admit wealthier students who do not need to take out loans.  

“Dean Gerken has made some very salient points, and like many, we have long been concerned about the U.S. News law school rankings methodology and will be giving this careful thought,” Stephanie Ashe, Stanford Law’s Director of Media Strategy, told the Wall Street Journal. 

The University of Chicago (ranked third) and Columbia University (tied for fourth rank with Harvard) declined to provide a comment to the WSJ.

Update 11/18/2022: The UC Berkeley School of Law has also announced plans to withdraw from the U.S. News ranking. As have the law schools at Georgetown and Columbia.

Update 11/28/2022: Ten law schools, total, have joined the boycott of the U.S. News Ranking. These include Berkeley, Columbia, Duke, Georgetown, Harvard, Michigan, Northwestern, Stanford, UCLA, and Yale.

Non-Profit Pilots Innovative Law School Funding Model to Alleviate Student Debt Burdens and Promote Career Choice for Graduates

Stanford Law School recently announced it would begin piloting a new tuition financing method for law school students in partnership with a 501(c)(3) nonprofit called The Flywheel Fund for Career Choice. In an effort to alleviate student debt concerns and allow for students to have greater choice in seeking out legal careers, the Flywheel fund has created safeguards around repayments for both lower and higher-income earners.

The pilot program, set to commence this fall, will include up to 20 Fellows who are current students at Stanford Law and have not yet committed to employment post-graduation. The Fellows will receive up to $170,000 up-front to pay for law school tuition and fees, which will be funded by philanthropic donations to the organization. Repayment will begin when the Fellows start their chosen employment post-graduation.

The terms of the pilot program include the following:

• A 12-year payment term, with a maximum of 18 years.

• Fellows will not pay anything until they have started employment (no payments will be requested during any period of unemployment post-graduation).

• Repayment is tied to income, with special consideration given to both low and high-income earners. For Fellows earning less than $100,000 per year, Stanford has agreed to cover all payments. For those earning between $100,000 and $115,000, Stanford will cover partial payments. A cap is also in place for those who opt to take high-income positions, ensuring that payments are never out-sized. The cap is placed at $225,000 per year/$18,750 per month, and Fellows will not be asked to pay a percentage of their income beyond that level.

• Fellows will never need to repay more than they would have if the Fellow had taken out a Grad PLUS Loan at the rate in effect at the time they entered into the pilot program.

• Fellows will also take part in ongoing research on the various factors, including debt, that go into shaping their career selection decisions.

 “We believe this new model for financing a legal education can alleviate financial pressure, encourage students to pursue alternative careers more quickly after graduation, improve our LRAP [Loan Repayment Assistance Program] program, and have a ‘greater good effect’ in terms of helping to finance the legal education of future students at Stanford Law School,” said Frank Brucato, Senior Associate Dean for Administration and the CFO at Stanford Law School.