The 2018 Law School Rankings Are Here, With Major Employment-Driven Changes At The Top
Our rankings have a new number 1. Are we seeing a 'Trump Effect' in employment?
The ATL Law School Rankings are out. Scroll down to see our top 50 national law schools.
For those new to the game, the Above the Law rankings are completely outcomes-driven. We don’t care about LSAT scores or professorial scholarship or the size of the law school library. We use the updated ABA employment stats for the current year. And we limit our published list to the top 50 schools, on the theory that beyond a certain point, regional differences make ordinal lists pretty silly.
This year, we have a new number one. The University of Chicago Law School was number two last year, but takes the top spot this year. The school’s large law firm placement was up 11 percent, and its federal clerkship placement was up four percent. Their graduates are landing great opportunities, and that is reflected in our rankings.
In fact, our entire top three is different this year. Chicago is at number one, the University of Virginia School of Law is number two, and Duke Law is number three.
Hmm…
All of those schools had upticks in their federal clerkship rates. UVA was up a full eight percent, year over year. Meanwhile, Harvard Law School (ranked number 4) and Yale Law School (ranked number 7) saw their federal clerkship rates go down four percent each.
Hmm…
It’s hard for me to look at these numbers and not see the invisible hand of #MAGA supremacy at play. As Trump and McConnell take over the federal judiciary, it’s interesting to me that more people from Chicago and UVA and Duke are getting clerkships, while fewer people from Harvard and Yale are. It could be a one-year blip… it could be a 25-year blip if the Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation continue to have their way.
What should that mean for a student trying to decide on where to go to law school? I wonder if it kind of depends on whether you think there are “fine people on both sides.”
Congratulations to the new number one, may God help us all.
Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.
