Paul L. Caron
Dean
Pepperdine Caruso
School of Law
Legal Ed Rankings
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Preview Of The 2026-27 U.S. News Law School Rankings: First-Time Bar Passage
In the current 2025-26 methodology, first-time bar passage counts 18% in the overall ranking: Bar passage rate for first-time test-takers (18%): U.S. News used its treatment of bar passage rates to incorporate all graduates who took the bar for the first time, and not just those from the state with the most test-takers. This de-emphasized the impact…
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Preview Of The 2026-27 U.S. News Law School Rankings: Admissions
In the current 2025-26 methodology, law school admissions count 10% in the overall ranking: Rank School Accept. Rate Rank UGPARank LSATRank Weighted Rank 1 Chicago 7 3 2 2.90 2 Yale 1 5 2 3.10 3 Harvard 6 5 2 3.60 4 Virginia 8 2 5 4.10 5 Stanford 2 5 5 4.70 6 Wash. U.…
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The Top 100 Legal Scholars of 2025
Rob Willey (George Mason) & Melanie Knapp (George Mason), The Top 100 Legal Scholars of 2025: Traditional legal scholarship rankings rely almost exclusively on career-long publication metrics, a method that inherently favors decades-old articles and often obscures the authors producing the most impactful research today. This article presents an alternative: a ranking of the 100…
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National Jurist: Top Law Schools for Social Justice
From The National Jurist website: “As social justice becomes central to legal education, students are learning not just doctrine, but how the law affects real people, real communities and their own career paths:” preLaw examined how social justice is embedded across legal education, from classroom instruction and experiential learning to clinics, centers and career support.…
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The Top 100 Law Schools, Based On 5-, 10-, And 15-Year Rolling Average U.S. News Rankings
Bradley A. Areheart (Tennessee), The Top 100 Law Reviews: A Reference Guide Based on Historical USNWR Data: The best proxy for how other law professors react and respond to publishing in main, or flagship, law reviews is the US News and World Report (USNWR) rankings. This paper utilizes historical USNWR data to rank the top…
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Law School Rankings Season
The 2026 rankings are starting to appear, including the Times Higher Education, QS World University, and PublicLegal-ILRG’s rankings. As with all rankings, there are limitations, anomalies, and they emphasize or focus on different areas. On the next page, are the top 25 rankings for the Times Higher Education Best Law Schools in the U.S. –…
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Best law schools for practical training
Everyone seems curious about law school rankings. Last March, National Jurist ranked the “Best law schools for practical training.” These were the top 10: 1 Northeastern University A+ 11 54.8 Yes Yes 287.9 95 0.53 4 2 Baylor University A+ 12 24.3 Yes 19.6 27 4.75 68 3 University of St. Thomas – Mn. A+…
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Muller: Impact of the Law School Applicant Surge on Discount Rates, Class Sizes, and 50th & 25th Percentile LSATs & UGPAs
Derek Muller analyzes the impact of the surge in law school applicants on discount rates, class sizes, median & 25th percentile LSATs & UGPAs on all 197 law schools
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The 25 Most Influential People in Legal Education (2026)
The 25 Most Influential People in Legal Education (2026), based on a survey of law school deans
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SSRN Author Rankings
Year end results for total 2025 downloads are here. Sort of our version of the NYTimes bestseller list. Those who appear are proud and excited. Those who do not point out that quantity and quality don’t always mesh. In any event, two scholars, Daniel Solove and Cass Sunstein clearly stand at the top of the…
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Legal Educators with Sway
National Jurist is out with a list of the 25 most influential people in legal education, a list they compiled mostly by surveying law school deans. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the list includes a large (some might say very large) number of deans and ex-deans. I know many of the chosen few (admittedly, an ex-dean myself) and…
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Could Yale Really Drop to #5 in the 2026-27 U.S. News Law School Rankings?
Yale could drop to #5 in the forthcoming 2026-27 U.S. News law school rankings because the quantity of jobs, rather than the quality of jobs, counts 33% in the overall ranking
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More on the Best Online Law School Programs In America (2026)
Law schools have been toying with online education. Earlier this week, Above The Law posted The Best Online Law School Programs In America (2026) from University Magazine. As Jeremy Paul blogged last month, here are the Top 10 online legal education programs on that list: There obviously been movement on the online law school market.…
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Above the Law: Law School Boycotts Made the U.S. News Rankings a Joke
Law school boycotts made the U.S. News rankings a joke
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Top 10 best law schools for government work
There are lots of rankings of law schools out there. preLaw Magazine rank the top 10 best law schools for placing graduates in government work.
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Projected 2026-27 U.S. News Law School Rankings
Projected 2026-27 U.S. News Law School Rankings for the Top 100 law schools
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Princeton Review’s Top 10 “Quality of Life” Law Schools
There are many reasons for applicants to pick a law school. Employment possibilities, prestige, education, geography, bar passage rate, diversity of faculty and student body, and much more. Quality of life can factor into the decision-making process. Princeton Review 2025 Law School Rankings rates the following schools as the Top 10 in “Quality of Life.”…
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Ranking of On-line and Flex JD Programs
University Magazine has released it’s ranking of the nation’s online and Flex JD Programs. You can find it here. universitymagazine.ca/best-online-law-schools-america Of course, I was delighted to see Northeastern at number one.
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2026 Law School ROI Rankings
2026 law school rankings on return on investment (cost, bar passage, and jobs)
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U.S. News and World Report: Law Schools With the Most Graduates in Public Interest Law
This has been out for a long while but I seem to have missed it (or forgot that I saw it). I have no excuse as the ranking was even reviewed critically on Above the Law. Here are the top law schools on the U.S. News and World Report list of Law Schools With the…
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U.S. News to Email Law School Ranking Surveys of 13 Legal Specialties to Faculty This Week; Peer and Lawyer/Judge Assessments in Mid-December
U.S. News to Release Law School Ranking Surveys of 13 Legal Specialties This Week; Peer and Lawyer/Judge Assessments in Mid-December
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Designing Better Metrics
Fans of The Wire, the greatest television show ever, know all too well that how we measure success can ultimately corrupt how we define it. So we owe Villanova Professor Cannan a debt for his efforts to explain how current measures of scholarly impact are deeply flawed and how we might do better. Law Library…
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2025 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Overall Ranking
I previously blogged the lists of the Top 5 law schools in fourteen categories in the 2025 edition of the Princeton Review’s Best Law Schools. In a series of posts, I will highlight the Top 50 schools in the five categories for which the Princeton Review provides individual law school data: Admissions Selectivity Academic Experience Professors…
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2025 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Career Rating
I previously blogged the lists of the Top 5 law schools in fourteen categories in the 2025 edition of the Princeton Review’s Best Law Schools. In a series of posts, I will highlight the Top 50 schools in the five categories for which the Princeton Review provides individual law school data: Admissions Selectivity Academic Experience…
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2025 Princeton Review Law School Rankings: Professors (Teaching And Accessibility)
I previously blogged the lists of the Top 5 law schools in fourteen categories in the 2025 edition of the Princeton Review's Best Law Schools. In a series of posts, I will highlight the Top 50 schools in the five categories for which the Princeton Review provides individual law school data: Admissions Selectivity Academic Experience…