Paul L. Caron
Dean
Pepperdine Caruso
School of Law
Law School Rankings
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2026 Top 50 Go-To Law Schools: Big Law
Law.com has their annual listing of the Top 50 “Go-To” Law Schools: Big Law. As described on the website: “Big Law report ranks the top 50 law schools by percentage of 2025 juris doctor graduates who took associate positions at the largest 200 firms as identified in The National Law Journal’s annual survey of the
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2026-27 U.S. News Omnibus Specialty Rankings v. Overall Rankings
Following up on yesterday’s post, 2026-27 U.S. News Omnibus Specialty Rankings: Here are the law schools whose U.S. News Omnibus Specialty Ranking most exceeds their overall U.S. News Ranking: School Specialty Rank Overall Rank Difference 1 American 33 108 +75 2 Santa Clara 77 150 +73 3 Illinois-Chicago 108 167 +59 4 Suffolk 71 128
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2026-27 U.S. News Omnibus Specialty Rankings
The new 2026-27 U.S. News Specialty Rankings include the rankings for 13 specialty programs at 195 law schools. Here are the Top 100 law schools, determined by giving equal weight to each of the 13 separate specialty rankings: School 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Avg. 1 Georgetown*
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Law Schools That Boycotted The U.S. News Rankings
2023-2024 (Rank) 2024-2025 (Rank) 2025-2026 (Rank) 2026-2027 (Rank) Stanford (1) Stanford (1) Stanford (1) Stanford (1) Yale (1) Yale (1) Yale (1) Yale (2) Virginia (8) Virginia (4) Virginia (4) Virginia (4) Penn (4) Penn (4) Penn (5) Penn (4) Duke (5) Duke (4) Duke (6) Duke (7) Harvard (5) Harvard (4) Harvard (6) Harvard
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“Dean’s List”: a Novel
Michael Orey (NYU Law Public Affairs Director and Adjunct Professor) has published a novel about legal academia, titled “Dean’s List.” A description, from amazon.com:
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2026-27 U.S. News Trial Advocacy Rankings
The new 2026-27 U.S. News Trial Advocacy Rankings include the trial advocacy programs at 195 law schools (the faculty survey had a 52% response rate). Here are the Top 50: Rank School 1 Stetson 2 Temple 3 Baylor 4 UCLA 5 Fordham 6 Mercer 6 South Texas 6 UC-Berkeley 9 Denver 9 Samford 9 Syracuse
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2026-27 U.S. News Legal Writing Rankings
The new 2026-27 U.S. News Legal Writing Rankings include the legal writing programs at 109 law schools (the faculty survey had a 63% response rate). Here are the Top 50: Rank School 1 Arizona State 1 Oregon 1 Stetson 1 UNLV 5 Suffolk 6 UC-Irvine 7 Wake Forest 8 Rutgers 8 Seattle 8 University of
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2026-27 U.S. News International Law Rankings
The new 2026-27 U.S. News International Law Rankings include the international law programs at 195 law schools (the faculty survey had a 48% response rate). Here are the Top 50: Rank School 1 NYU 2 Georgetown 2 Harvard 4 American 4 Columbia 4 UC-Berkeley 4 Yale 8 Michigan 8 Virginia 10 UCLA 11 Case Western
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2026-27 U.S. News Intellectual Property Law Rankings
The new 2026-27 U.S. News Intellectual Property Law Rankings include the intellectual property law programs at 194 law schools (the faculty survey had a 49% response rate). Here are the Top 50: Rank School 1 Stanford 1 UC-Berkeley 3 NYU 4 Santa Clara 5 George Washington 6 American 7 Columbia 7 Chicago-Kent 7 Houston 7
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2026-27 U.S. News Health Care Law Rankings
The new 2026-27 U.S. News Health Care Law Rankings include the health care law programs at 191 law schools (the faculty survey had a 50% response rate). Here are the Top 50: Rank School 1 St. Louis 2 Boston University 2 Georgia State 4 Harvard 4 Loyola-Chicago 6 Georgetown 6 Maryland 8 Stanford 9 Houston
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2026-27 U.S. News Environmental Law Rankings
The new 2026-27 U.S. News Environmental Law Rankings include the environmental law programs at 189 law schools (the faculty survey had a 52% response rate). Here are the Top 50: Rank School 1 Pace 2 Lewis & Clark 2 UC-Berkeley 4 UCLA 5 Harvard 5 Vermont 7 Colorado 8 Columbia 8 NYU 8 Oregon 8
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Best Law Schools for Practical Training (2026)
National Jurist has updated their annual Best Schools for Practical Training Honor Roll. You can find the 2025 list from a post earlier this year. The new list, which was released April 9th, explains the methodology: To determine our Best Schools for Practical Training Honor Roll, we looked at the number of students each school
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Rankings: Graduate Employment in Bar Required (FT, LT) Jobs
While attention has been devoted to USNWR’s annual rankings, Internet Legal Research Group has released its 2026 Law School rankings that allow you to sort and rank law schools using ABA data. You can also “build your own rankings.” Here, for example, are the top 30 schools listed by “percentage of graduates in long-term, full-time
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2026-27 U.S. News Dispute Resolution Rankings
The new 2026-27 U.S. News Dispute Resolution Rankings include the dispute resolution programs at 149 law schools (the faculty survey had a 53% response rate). Here are the Top 50: Rank School 1 Ohio State 2 Harvard 3 Pepperdine 4 Cardozo 5 Missouri-Columbia 5 Texas A&M 7 Mitchell | Hamline 8 Maryland 8 Northwestern 8
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2026-27 U.S. News Criminal Law Rankings
The new 2026-27 U.S. News Criminal Law Rankings include the criminal law programs at 195 law schools (the faculty survey had a 53% response rate). Here are the Top 50: Rank School 1 NYU 1 Stanford 3 Harvard 3 UC-Berkeley 5 Michigan 5 Virginia 7 Penn 7 Vanderbilt 9 Chicago 9 Columbia 9 Duke 9
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The T11 Has Replaced the T14 in the U.S. News Law School Rankings
Stuart Benjamin (Duke), The US News T14 Is Dead, and Has Been Replaced by the T11 (or, if You Prefer, the T10 with 11 Members): To state the obvious, many people put a lot of weight (far too much weight, in my view) on the US News law school rankings. Good evidence of this is
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2026-27 U.S. News Contracts/Commercial Law Rankings
The new 2026-27 U.S. News Contracts/Commercial Law Rankings include the contracts/commercial law programs at 195 law schools (the faculty survey had a 47% response rate). Here are the Top 50: Rank School 1 Chicago 1 Harvard 1 Stanford 4 Columbia 4 NYU 6 Penn 6 Yale 8 Cornell 8 Michigan 8 Virginia 11 Duke 11
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2026-27 U.S. News Constitutional Law Rankings
The new 2026-27 U.S. News Constitutional Law Rankings include the constitutional law programs at 195 law schools (the faculty survey had a 49% response rate). Here are the Top 50: Rank School 1 Yale 2 Chicago 2 Harvard 2 Stanford 5 Columbia 5 Michigan 5 NYU 8 Georgetown 8 UC-Berkeley 8 Virginia 11 Penn 12
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2026-27 U.S. News Clinical Training Rankings
The new 2026-27 U.S. News Clinical Training Rankings include the clinical training law programs at 185 law schools (the faculty survey had a 60% response rate). Here are the Top 50: Rank School 1 Georgetown 2 American 2 NYU 4 Baltimore 4 CUNY 4 Suffolk 4 Yale 8 Maryland 8 UC-Berkeley 8 Washington University 11
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2026-27 U.S. News Business/Corporate Law Rankings
The new 2026-27 U.S. News Business/Corporate Law Rankings include the business/corporate law programs at 195 law schools (the faculty survey had a 47% response rate). Here are the Top 50: Rank School 1 Harvard 2 Columbia 2 NYU 2 Stanford 5 Penn 6 Chicago 7 UC-Berkeley 7 UCLA 9 Virginia 9 Yale 11 Duke 11
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2026-27 U.S. News Tax Rankings
The new 2026-27 U.S. News Tax Rankings include the tax programs at 194 law schools (the faculty survey had a 52% response rate). Here are the Top 50: Rank School 1 NYU 2 Georgetown 3 Florida 3 Northwestern 5 Virginia 6 Michigan 7 Columbia 8 Boston College 8 Harvard 8 Loyola-L.A. 8 UC-Irvine 12 Chicago
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2026-27 U.S. News Law School Peer Reputation Rankings (And Overall Rankings)
Continuing a TaxProf Blog tradition, here is the full list of the 194 law schools ranked by academic peer reputation, as well as their overall rank, in the new 2026-27 U.S. News Law School Rankings (methodology): Peer Rank Peer Score School Overall Rank 1 4.8 Stanford 1 2 4.7 Harvard 6 2 4.7 Yale 2 4 4.6
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JD Degree Increases Lifetime Earnings By 41%; Amount Correlates to U.S. News Ranking of Law School
Following up on Sloan’s post yesterday: Inside Higher Ed, Graduate School Pays Off for Pharmacists, but Not Psychologists: On average, going to graduate school increases a student’s lifetime earnings by 17 percent. But that return on investment varies significantly depending on what they studied, according to new research published by the Postsecondary Education & Economics Research Center at
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2026 QS World University Rankings: Law and Legal Studies
QS World University rankings have released their 2026 rankings of universities for law and legal studies. Below are the top ten in the world. On the next page are the top 25 in the United States. Ranking University 1 Harvard University 2 University of Oxford 3 University of Cambridge 4 Yale University 5 Stanford University
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Cross-Admit Rankings
I previously noted some of the many rankings that exist for law schools (Law School Rankings Season, Feb. 25, 2026). Another one that recently was shared with me are rankings based on cross-admit decisions. Law School Data (LSD.com) has rankings that are described as “built from 136,000+ real cross-admit decisions across 135 schools.” The data