Welcome To The ATL Law School DIY
ATL’s ranking of the Top 50 Law Schools reflects our belief that the tremendous investment of time and money into a legal education means that the greatest consideration be given to future employment prospects. However, we recognize that the motives that send people to law school and their views on what makes schools appealing are wide-ranging.
We are therefore pleased to introduce the ATL Law School DIY.
With this dynamic tool, you can now design your own rankings to match your personal needs and goals. We have included 11 different criteria whose weight you can adjust as you see fit, including elements such as law school acceptance rate and median LSAT score that are not components of our Top 50 Rankings. If Biglaw job placement doesn’t matter as much to you as having a diverse student population, adjust the weights accordingly. If your dream is to work in the nonprofit world, perhaps you want to focus on schools that combine high placement in public interest roles with relatively low cost. Choose your own formula and generate your own rankings. It’s up to you.
How to use this tool: Weighting for any category can be adjusted by +/-50% or 100%. Increasing a category by 100% doubles the weight given to that category; decreasing by 100% takes that category out of the scoring equation. Click directly on the range for a category to increase or decrease its weight. Give the rankings a few seconds to recalibrate after making changes.
| School | Median LSAT | Acceptance Rate | Projected Cost | BIPOC Representation | First-time Bar Passage Rate | Full-time Legal Employment | Large Law Firm Jobs | Public Interest Jobs | Federal Clerkships | Federal Judges | SCOTUS Clerkships | Overall Score |
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Methodology / Definitions
Overall Score: The Overall Score for each school is based on a combination of all weighted scores. The maximum score available is 100. (While more is better for most criteria, schools are rewarded for having lower cost and admission rates.)
Median LSAT: Median (50th percentile) LSAT score for the 2024 entering class.
Acceptance Rate: Acceptance rate (ratio of offers to applications) for the 2024 entering class.
Projected Cost: Estimated cost of three years of law school for full-time students starting in 2025, based on cost of attendance (including tuition, fees, and living expenses) for 2024-25 academic year. Scores are adjusted for regional cost of living.
BIPOC Representation: Percentage of school’s enrollment in 2024-25 identifying as a person of color.
First-time Bar Passage Rate: Percentage of first-time takers of the bar exam in 2024 who passed.
Full-time Legal Employment: Percentage of 2024 graduates employed in full-time, long-term positions that require bar passage.
Large Law Firm Jobs: Percentage of employed 2024 graduates with full-time, long-term positions in law firms with more than 100 attorneys.
Public Interest Jobs: Percentage of employed 2024 graduates with full-time, long-term public interest positions.
Federal Clerkships: Percentage of employed 2024 graduates embarking on full-time federal judicial clerkships. (Values are displayed in quintiles; the lowest values fall in the first quintile, the highest in the fifth quintile.)
Sitting Federal Judges: Percentage of currently sitting Article III judges who are graduates, as adjusted for enrollment size. (Values are displayed in quintiles; the lowest values fall in the first quintile, the highest in the fifth quintile.)
SCOTUS Clerks: Percentage of U.S. Supreme Court clerks since 2020 who are graduates, as adjusted for enrollment size. (Values are displayed in quintiles; the lowest values fall in the first quintile, the highest in the fifth quintile.)
Data regarding median LSAT score, acceptance rate, enrollment and race/ethnicity, bar passage, and employment from the American Bar Association. Projected cost based on data from the American Bar Association and ATL Research. Data on federal judges and SCOTUS clerks from ATL Research.
Penn State Dickinson Law and Penn State Law, which previously operated as two separately accredited law schools, now operate as a single school with two locations under the name Penn State Dickinson Law. Some of the data for Penn State Dickinson Law may reflect Penn State Dickinson prior to the unification.
This year's law school rankings are sponsored by Barbri, which offers on-demand, customizable training modules designed to set law firms apart. In today’s legal world, expertise alone isn’t enough. The most successful firms focus on building skills that drive collaboration, leadership, and business growth. Barbri delivers practical, high-impact learning for attorneys and staff—when and where they need it most.