The Winter 2011 issue of preLaw magazine recognizes the 96 Best Law Schools for Public Interest — schools that make “an above average commitment to public service”:
Law schools make the Best Public Interest Law School rankings if they meet three main criteria: have one or more public interest clinics; have one or more faculty committees or administrators that oversee public interest; and have a loan repayment assistance program.By definition, a school that does not have all three would receive a grade below B-.
We then weighted the schools using three main categories: cost of legal education, placement and curriculum. For cost of legal education we factored in tuition (10%), public interest scholarship opportunities (2%), quality of FRAP program (8%) and a calculation of average debt payments minus average loan forgiveness (20%). For placement we factored in percent of graduates placed in public service, with greater weight being given for placement in public interest (32%). (Public service includes clerkships and government.) For curriculum, we factored in pro bono opportunities (3%), public interest courses offered (15%), public interest clinics (5%), and number of clinic positions to enrollment (5%). …
The Top 20 law schools are ranked, and the law schools in the remaining letter grades appear in alphabetical order.
A+ Law Schools
1. CUNY
2. Yale
A Law Schools
3. Rutgers-Newark
4. Stanford
5. UC-Berkeley
6. Arizona State
7. Maryland
8. Loyola-L.A.
9. Lewis & Clark
10. Ohio State
11. Northeastern
12. Harvard
13. Oregon
14. American
15. West Virginia
16. UC-Davis
17. Brooklyn
18. Vermont
19. Indiana-Bloom.
20. Wisconsin
A- Law Schools
Colorado
Columbia
Georgetown
Gonzaga
Iowa
Loyola-Chicago
Maine
Michigan
Nebraska
North Carolina Central
Temple
Tennessee
UCLA
Utah
U. Washington
William & Mary
B+ Law Schools
Arizona
Baltimore
Boston University
Cleveland State
Cornell
DePaul
Golden Gate
Hamline
Mercer
Miami
Minnesota
North Carolina
Northwestern
Penn State
Pittsburgh
San Diego
Seattle
South Carolina
South Texas
Touro
Villanova
Virginia
Washington & Lee
B Law Schools
Albany
Boston College
Catholic
Chicago
Chicago-Kent
Creighton
Duke
Duquesne
George Washington
Hofstra
Indiana-Indianapolis
Pennsylvania
Seton Hall
Suffolk
Texas
UC-Hastings
Wake Forest
Washington U.
B- Law Schools
Capital
Chapman
Emory
Fordham
John Marshall
McGeorge
Mississippi College
New York Law School
Pepperdine
Roger Williams
Santa Clara
St. Thomas U.
Vanderbilt
Whittier
Widener
Willamette
William Mitchell
