What will the 2024 U.S. News & World Report law school rankings look like after more than 40 law schools have withdrawn from participation? According to an announcement from the magazine, we’ll find out on April 18, when the new Best Graduate Programs rankings are officially released.
A revolt against the U.S. News rankings started in mid-November, after Yale Law School opted out of the rankings, with its dean calling them “profoundly flawed.” Dozens of law schools — including the vast majority of the T14 — followed the elite law school’s lead, withdrawing from the rankings while sounding their own harsh notes of criticism.
According to Law.com, these are all the law schools that will no longer supply U.S. News with their own data (listed in order of the date of their withdrawal):
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- Yale Law School
- Harvard Law School
- University of California, Berkeley, School of Law
- Georgetown Law Center
- Columbia Law School
- Stanford Law School
- University of Michigan Law
- Northwestern Pritzker School of Law
- Duke Law School
- The University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law
- University of California, Irvine, School of Law
- University of California, Davis, School of Law
- The University of Washington School of Law
- University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School
- New York University School of Law
- University of Virginia School of Law
- Campbell University’s Norman Adrian Wiggins School of Law
- University of New Hampshire
- Southwestern Law School
- California Western School of Law
- University of Idaho College of Law
- St. John’s University School of Law
- University of California Law San Francisco
- Fordham University School of Law
- South Texas College of Law Houston
- Roger Williams University School of Law in Rhode Island
- University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law
- University of San Francisco School of Law
- Quinnipiac University School of Law
- Seattle University School of Law
- Gonzaga University School of Law
- University of Wisconsin Madison Law School
- Rutgers Law School
- Creighton University School of Law
- Tulane University Law School
- The University of Connecticut School of Law
- Vanderbilt Law School
- The University of Pittsburgh School of Law
Four other law schools, who told the American Bar Association that they won’t be submitting data, include: Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School, Penn State Dickinson Law, Penn State Law and Western Michigan University Thomas M. Cooley Law School.
With a new methodology (with yet-to-be disclosed weights) in hand, a rankings shake-up may be afoot. In the meantime, while you wait to see how your law school or alma mater fares in the U.S. News rankings, check out the Above the Law Top 50 Law School Rankings for a better, outcome-based methodology.
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Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked 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.