Law Schools, Rankings

The Best Law Schools in the World

Is your law school one of the best in the world? Now you can find out!

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It’s a good thing lawyers love law school rankings, because there are tons of them. Every year, it seems like there’s a whole new crop of them. Aren’t you getting tired of them? No, of course not. You just want MOAR RANKINGS!

You’ve seen the National Jurist law school rankings (and you raised an eyebrow at the usage of RateMyProfessors.com). You’ve seen the U.S. News law school rankings (and you watched your dean play the blame game). You’ve seen the ATL law school rankings (and you cheered for realistic, employment-based metrics). You’ve even seen the Cooley law school rankings (and you’re eagerly awaiting the latest edition just for sheer comedic value).

But have you seen a ranking of the best law schools in the world? Here’s your chance….

Before we get to the World Law School Rankings, let’s discuss the methodology used by the Quacquarelli Symonds team at Top Universities (you can explore more in depth explanations here):

QS has three extensive datasets that enable us to drill down by subject area: our ACADEMIC and EMPLOYER reputation surveys, and the Scopus data we use for our CITATIONS per Faculty indicator in the global rankings. These have been combined to produce our subject results.

Of course, you want to see if any American law schools cracked the list, and we won’t make you wait anymore. Here they are in all of their prestigious glory, the top 10 best law schools in the world:

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1. Harvard
2. Cambridge
3. Oxford
4. Yale
5. Melbourne
6. NYU
7. London School of Economics
8. Columbia
9. Stanford
10. Sydney

USA! USA! USA! Half of the top 10 of the world’s best legal academies are in America! Be sure to grab your ivy and roll around in it, because the majority of those American law schools are in the Ivy League. You already thought you were elite, but now the entire world has to give you a pat on the back.

Farther down the list, but still within the top 25 law schools in the world, you’ll see Chicago (#15), UC Berkeley (#17), and Georgetown (#23). Going deeper into the list, but still within the top 50 law schools in the world, you’ll find Pennsylvania (#29), Michigan (#30), UCLA (#31), Cornell (#33), Duke (#39), and Northwestern (#48). But… where’s UVA? Every other U.S. News T14 school has already been listed.

Yeah yeah yeah, we know you “don’t do that anymore,” but it’s time to lower your collars to half mast, because UVA was ranked outside of the top 50 law schools in the world. Quacquarelli Symonds didn’t even bother to show UVA’s rank — all we know is that it fell somewhere between 51 and 100. We guess they don’t give extra points for softball championship rings. Sure, it’s great to be ranked so highly on a world scale, but it’s disappointing to be the only T14 school to be left out of the world’s top 50.

What do you think about these new law school rankings? Feel free to congratulate or condemn your alma mater in the comments — but be careful, because now the entire world is watching.

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Quacquarelli Symonds World University Rankings by Subject 2013 – Law [Top Universities]
2013 World Law School Rankings [TaxProf Blog]

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