Law Schools

What Are The Best Law Schools, Historically Speaking?

Year after year, these law schools are ranked among the best.

By Kathryn Rubino on April 30, 2019 10:45 am

Everybody loves a good law school ranking. Yes, even Above the Law gets in on the madness. And though many have tried to come for the industry leader, the most enduring ranking remains the U.S. News & World Report.

When the annual rankings drops, we cover the smallest shifts in position as breathlessly (okay, maybe even more breathlessly) as anybody else. (Seriously though, who can forget the shockwaves that went through legal academia when Georgetown University Law Center dropped one place — but crucially out of the celebrated T14?) But if you’re looking for a little more long-term stability in your rankings, Bradley A. Areheart from the University of Tennessee College of Law has your back.

In his paper, Areheart looks at historical USNWR rankings to suss out the best law reviews. That’s certainly an interesting endeavor, but as TaxProf Blog notes, that includes creating a ranking of law schools based on their 10-year rolling average overall USNWR ranking. Now that’s some juicy data perfectly distilled to have maximum impact on an Above the Law reader.

(As a note, this is how Areheart describes his methodology for dealing with ties: “If two law school’s 10-year rolling averages were within 2/10 of a point, I tied them and then attempted to break those ties based on the current year’s peer reputation scores. You’ll see that where there was a tie, I have included the peer rep scores in parentheses for those schools. If the peer rep scores were the same, I allowed the tie to remain.”)

So, without further ado, here are the historical rankings of the top 75 law schools.

Rank School 10-Year Rank
1 Yale 1.0
2 Harvard (4.8) 2.4
3 Stanford (4.7) 2.4
4 Chicago (4.7) 4.3
4 Columbia (4.7) 4.3
6 NYU 6.0
7 Penn 7.0
8 Virginia 8.2
9 Michigan (4.4) 8.7
9 UC-Berkeley (4.4) 8.9
11 Duke 10.4
12 Northwestern 11.4
13 Cornell 13.1
14 Georgetown 13.9
15 Texas 15.0
16 UCLA 15.8
17 Vanderbilt 16.5
18 USC 18.4
19 Washington U. 18.7
20 Minnesota 20.5
21 George Washington (3.5) 22.4
21 Notre Dame (3.5) 22.5
23 Emory 22.9
24 Boston University 24.0
25 Iowa 25.1
26 UC-Irvine 26.0
27 Alabama 27.4
28 Indiana 28.4
29 Boston College (3.4) 29.5
30 Arizona State (3.2) 29.4
31 U. Washington 30.3
32 Georgia 31.2
33 Wisconsin 31.7
34 UC-Davis 32.2
35 William & Mary (3.3) 32.6
36 Washington & Lee (3.2) 32.7
37 Ohio State 33.5
38 North Carolina (3.4) 34.8
39 Fordham (3.3) 35.0
40 Illinois (3.3) 36.7
41 Wake Forest (3.1) 36.6
42 BYU 40.1
43 Arizona 41.1
44 Colorado (3.1) 42.3
45 George Mason (2.7) 42.2
46 Florida 44.5
47 Utah 45.3
48 Maryland 46.0
49 SMU 47.8
50 Florida State (3.1) 49.1
51 Tulane (3.0) 49.0
52 UC-Hastings 51.3
53 Baylor 53.6
54 Houston (2.7) 55.7
54 Temple (2.7) 55.8
56 Connecticut (2.9) 56.8
57 Pepperdine (2.7) 56.7
58 Richmond 58.1
59 Cardozo 60.2
60 Georgia State 60.7
61 Tennessee 61.6
62 Case Western (2.6) 62.9
62 Kentucky (2.6) 63.0
64 Seton Hall 63.7
65 Loyola-L.A. 64.8
66 American 66.7
67 Miami (2.8) 67.5
68 Penn State-Dickinson (2.7) 67.5
69 Oklahoma 68.4
70 UNLV (2.6) 70.0
71 Penn State-Univ. Park (2.4) 70.0
72 Denver 70.3
73 Cincinnati (2.4) 70.7
73 Nebraska (2.4) 70.8
75 Kansas 72.7

headshotKathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).