Law Schools

The LEAKED 2019 U.S. News Law School Rankings Are Here

If these are accurate, there are some key changes at the top of the rankings -- including a new T14.

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UPDATE (6:45 p.m.): You may have noticed earlier that the Top 50 rankings were incomplete and only went up to the Top 47, but thanks to the latest leak, we’ve finished them off.

Now, for the rest of the law schools in the Top 50, where there are three four-way ties and a five-way tie. As you can see, there was A LOT of movement here:

32. Indiana University—Bloomington (-2)
32. Ohio State University (-2)
32. University of Georgia (-2)
32. University of Washington (-2)
32. Wake Forest University (+4)
37. Fordham University (-1)
37. University of California—Davis (+2)
37. University of Illinois—Urbana-Champaign (+7)
37. William & Mary Law School (+4)
41. Brigham Young University (+5)
41. George Mason University
41. University of Arizona (+7)
41. University of Florida
45. University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill (-6)
46. University of Colorado—Boulder (-10)
47. Florida State University (+1)
47. Temple University (+6)
49. University of Maryland (-1)
50. Baylor University (+1)
50. Southern Methodist University (-4)
50. University of Connecticut (+4)
50. University of Richmond (+7)

The biggest winners here were Illinois, Arizona, and Richmond, which each moved up seven places in the 2019 law school rankings. The biggest losers here were UNC and Colorado, with six- and 10-spot drops, respectively. Colorado’s entering class for 2017 was just slightly less well-credentialed than its entering class in 2016 and the school’s employment statistics aren’t too shabby. We wonder what happened. As for IU-Bloomington, Ohio State, UGA, and Washington, whatever you’re doing, you better shape up, because you’ve already been shipped out of the Top 30.

Once again, we see the importance of job statistics and keeping up appearances when it comes to GPAs and LSAT scores for U.S. News rankings. Some schools suffered and some schools soared, but it seems like many have learned their lesson, since there was one double-digit drop in the Top 50 in the 2019 edition of the U.S. News rankings.

UPDATE (9:30 p.m.): Mike Spivey posted the following observation about the rankings on Twitter:

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Note that while Arizona and Berkeley both improved their ranks in the 2019 edition of the rankings, we haven’t seen South Dakota make an appearance yet. Let’s see if they improve too.

So what do you think of the rankings? Feel free to sound off by email, by text message (646-820-8477), or by tweet (@ATLblog). If you don’t like what you see, you may want to check out the upcoming Above the Law Top 50 Law School Rankings. We care about the most important thing you’ll care about when you graduate — and that’s whether you’ll be able to land a job that pays enough to allow you to service your ever-increasing law school debt. Please stay tuned for their release this spring!

We’ll be right there with you on March 20 as we await the remainder of the 2019 U.S. News law school rankings — unless, of course, there’s another leak before that time.

2019 USNWR Rankings (2018 Release) Are Here! [Spivey Consulting]

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Staci ZaretskyStaci Zaretsky has been an editor at Above the Law since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

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