Here are the best US law schools

The top three law schools in the US remain Yale University, Stanford University, and Harvard University, according to the latest U.S. News & World Report’s 2021 Best Law Schools list.

The top three are the same for three years running, but the fourth spot was clinched by Columbia University, which moved up by one spot and displaced University of Chicago.

The list includes the 194 law schools fully accredited by the American Bar Association. The ranking is based on a weighted average of 12 measures of quality, which includes scores from peer assessments, evaluation by lawyers and judges, selectivity, placement success, and faculty resources.

For peer assessment, the publication had law school deans, deans of academic affairs, chairs of faculty appointments, and the most recently tenured faculty members rate programs of schools on the list. The evaluation by lawyers and judges included hiring partners of law firms, practicing attorneys, and judges.

Judging selectivity involved evaluating the median scores of each school in the Law School Admission Test and the Graduate Records Examinations, their median undergraduate grade point average, and their acceptance rate.

For placement success, the ranking took into account the employment rates of the schools 2018 graduates at graduation and 10 months after. She list also evaluated the bar passage rate of schools, as well as their expenditure for student, student-faculty ratio, and library resources.

The 20 top law schools in the US according to U.S. News & World Report are:

1. Yale University
2. Stanford University
3. Harvard University
4. Columbia University
5. University of Chicago
6. New York University
7. University of Pennsylvania (Carey)
8. University of Virginia
9. Northwestern University (Pritzker)
10. University of California, Berkeley
11. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
12. Duke University
13. Cornell University
14. Georgetown University
15. University of California, Los Angeles
16. University of Texas, Austin
17. Washington University in St. Louis
18. University of Southern California (Gould)
19. Vanderbilt University
20. Boston University