The U.S. News rankings of 198 law schools fully accredited by the
American Bar Association are based on a weighted average of the 12
measures of quality described below. Data were collected in fall 2014
and early 2015.
Specialty rankings are based solely on nominations by legal educators at peer institutions.
[See the Best Law Schools rankings.]
Quality assessment (weighted by 0.40)
Peer assessment score (0.25):
In fall 2014, law school deans, deans of academic affairs, chairs of
faculty appointments and the most recently tenured faculty members were
asked to rate programs on a scale from marginal (1) to outstanding (5).
Those individuals who did not know enough about a school to evaluate it
fairly were asked to mark "don't know."
A
school's score is the average of all the respondents who rated it.
Responses of "don't know" counted neither for nor against a school.
About 58 percent of those surveyed responded.
Assessment score by lawyers/judges (0.15):
In fall 2014, legal professionals, including the hiring partners of law
firms, practicing attorneys and judges, were asked to rate programs on a
scale from 1 (marginal) to 5 (outstanding). Those individuals who did
not know enough about a school to evaluate it fairly were asked to mark
"don't know." Names of those surveyed were provided to U.S. News by the
law schools themselves.
A school's score is the average of all
the respondents who rated it. Responses of "don't know" counted neither
for nor against a school.
The three most recent years of the
lawyer and judge surveys were averaged and weighted by 0.15. Assessment
data were collected by Ipsos Public Affairs.
Selectivity (weighted by 0.25)
Median LSAT scores (0.125):
These are the combined median scores on the Law School Admission Test
of all 2014 full-time and part-time entrants to the J.D. program.
Median undergraduate GPA (0.10): This
is the combined median undergraduate grade-point average of all the
2014 full-time and part-time entrants to the J.D. program.
Acceptance rate (0.025):
This is the combined proportion of applicants to both the full-time and
part-time J.D. program who were accepted for the 2014 entering class.
Placement success (weighted by 0.20)
Success
is determined by calculating employment rates for 2013 grads at
graduation (0.04 weight) and nine months after (0.14 weight), as well as
the bar passage rate, explained below.
In recent years, enhanced
American Bar Association reporting rules have led to a great deal more
information becoming available from law schools about the many types of
positions law students take after they graduate. Each year, the schools
are required to report to the ABA how many of their most recent grads
had various types of jobs lined up by nine months after graduation.
The
ABA standards require the law schools to go into a great deal of detail
by reporting 56 different job types, as well as employment status and
duration. That includes, for example, whether each graduate's employment
was long term – defined as lasting at least a year – or short term; was
full time or part time; and whether it required passage of a bar exam.
U.S.
News collected these same statistics when we surveyed the schools for
our annual rankings, and we gathered the same data on members of the
class who were employed at graduation. U.S. News also collected data on
students' jobs when the law school was unable to determine length of
employment or full- or part-time status, as well as when employment
status was unknown.
For the third year in row, U.S. News
incorporated this rich data into our computation of the employment
measure for the class of 2013 at graduation and nine months later.
Placement success was calculated by assigning various weights to the
number of grads employed in 43 of these different types of post-J.D.
jobs, employment statuses and durations.