Which Law School Will Rank Highest in Forthcoming US News & World Report Law School Rankings?

Choosing the law schools’ rankings from the upcoming U.S. News & World Report can be a vexed issue, but the effort has been made by a number of experts, as reported in the ABA Journal with a reasonably predictable outcome for many – except for the Number 1 law school.

While Yale and Stanford are expected to lead, there’s disagreement over which will claim the top spot.

Yale tops one prediction, while Stanford leads in others. The rankings generally agree on the University of Chicago and University of Virginia following closely at third and fourth positions.

However, they differ on other rankings within the top 14, except for the University of California at Los Angeles and Georgetown University.

Here’s a summary of the likely top 10 law schools based on the analysis undertaken by Pepperdine University School of Law Dean Paul Caron at TaxProf Blog.

1. Yale University
2. Stanford University
3. University of Chicago
4. University of Virginia
5. University of Pennsylvania
6. Harvard University
7. Duke University
8. Columbia University
9. University of Michigan
10. New York University

The predictions are based on analysis of data provided by the American Bar Association (ABA) since many law schools declined to offer data to U.S. News.

Last year, ABA data heavily influenced the rankings, accounting for 75% of the criteria. Caron’s projections are calculated using ABA data and last year’s methodology.