The new 2025-26 U.S. News Criminal Law Rankings include the criminal law programs at 195 law schools (the faculty survey had a 47% response rate). Here are the Top 50:
| Rank | School |
| 1 | NYU |
| 1 | Stanford |
| 3 | Harvard |
| 3 | Michigan |
| 3 | Penn |
| 3 | Virginia |
| 7 | UC-Berkeley |
| 8 | UCLA |
| 9 | Chicago |
| 9 | Columbia |
| 9 | Duke |
| 9 | Georgetown |
| 9 | Vanderbilt |
| 9 | Yale |
| 15 | Northwestern |
| 16 | Fordham |
| 16 | Ohio State |
| 16 | Texas |
| 16 | UC-Davis |
| 20 | Brooklyn |
| 21 | Boston University |
| 21 | Cardozo |
| 21 | Cornell |
| 21 | Minnesota |
| 21 | North Carolina |
| 21 | UC-Irvine |
| 21 | Washington Univ. |
| 21 | William & Mary |
| 29 | American |
| 29 | Maryland |
| 29 | USC |
| 32 | Arizona State |
| 32 | George Washington |
| 34 | Emory |
| 34 | Florida State |
| 34 | University of Washington |
| 34 | Utah |
| 34 | Wake Forest |
| 34 | Wisconsin |
| 40 | Boston College |
| 40 | Denver |
| 40 | Florida |
| 40 | Georgia State |
| 40 | Illinois |
| 40 | Indiana (Maurer) |
| 40 | Richmond |
| 40 | Rutgers |
| 40 | San Diego |
| 40 | SMU |
| 40 | Tulane |
2024-25 U.S. News Criminal Law Rankings
2025-26 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:
- Business/Corporate Law
- Clinical Law
- Constitutional Law
- Contracts/Commercial Law
- Criminal Law
- Dispute Resolution
- Environmental Law
- Health Care Law
- Intellectual Property Law
- International Law
- Legal Writing
- Trial Advocacy
- Tax Law
Editor’s Note: If you would like to receive a daily email with links to legal education posts on TaxProf Blog, email me here.




