{"id":100447,"date":"2025-01-15T09:03:58","date_gmt":"2025-01-15T17:03:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/01\/15\/historic-u-s-news-law-school-rankings-shakeup-is-yale-law-out-of-the-top-spot\/"},"modified":"2025-01-15T09:03:58","modified_gmt":"2025-01-15T17:03:58","slug":"historic-u-s-news-law-school-rankings-shakeup-is-yale-law-out-of-the-top-spot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/01\/15\/historic-u-s-news-law-school-rankings-shakeup-is-yale-law-out-of-the-top-spot\/","title":{"rendered":"Historic U.S. News Law School Rankings Shakeup: Is Yale Law Out Of The Top Spot?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wow! Could it be? We’ll have to wait and see in the real U.S. News law school rankings.
\nThe post Historic U.S. News Law School Rankings Shakeup: Is Yale Law Out Of The Top Spot? appeared first on Above the Law.<\/p>\n

\"US-News-Rankings-Logo-no-year\"We\u2019re just a few months out from the release of the latest iteration of the U.S. News law school rankings, but we know that many are incredibly eager to see what the future may hold. For those of you who are growing too restless to wait any longer, we\u2019ve got a surprise for you.<\/p>\n

Today, we unveil a new rankings prediction<\/a>, courtesy of noted law school consultant Mike Spivey of the Spivey Consulting Group. With the recent release of the 2024 ABA-required 509 disclosures, Spivey was able to calculate the upcoming U.S. News law school rankings using the magazine\u2019s current methodology. Here are some additional details on how that task was performed:<\/p>\n

\n

The ABA has published the\u00a02024 Standard 509 disclosures<\/a>\u00a0for all law schools, including the final official LSAT\/GPA data from the 2023-2024 admissions cycle (compiled with +\/-\u00a0from the prior cycle\u00a0here<\/u><\/a>). This means that we can now predict the upcoming 2025-2026\u00a0U.S. News<\/em>\u00a0law school rankings with a high degree of accuracy using their current methodology, which primarily relies on publicly available data.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Spivey cautions, however, that his predictions may not be completely accurate because this year\u2019s results are \u201cso tightly clustered that even extremely minor, unpublished calculation changes (e.g., changing how certain numbers are rounded) could result in a very different set of rankings.\u201d That being the case, he\u2019s published the predicted rankings in groups, rather than assigning a specific rank to a specific school.<\/p>\n

That being said, what could the new edition of U.S. News law school rankings look like? You can check out Spivey\u2019s prediction for the full complement of 196 law schools, but here are the schools that may<\/em> comprise the T14 based the calculations he\u2019s run:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Current 2024 Ranking<\/th>\nPredicted 2025 Ranking Group<\/th>\nPredicted 2025 Raw Score<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
Group 1<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
Stanford University<\/td>\n1<\/td>\nGroup 1<\/td>\n100<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Yale University<\/td>\n1<\/td>\nGroup 1<\/td>\n99.55503189<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
University of Chicago<\/td>\n3<\/td>\nGroup 1<\/td>\n99.08244746<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Group 2<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
University of Virginia<\/td>\n4<\/td>\nGroup 2<\/td>\n97.7375265<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
University of Pennsylvania<\/td>\n4<\/td>\nGroup 2<\/td>\n97.4961672<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Harvard University<\/td>\n4<\/td>\nGroup 2<\/td>\n97.16804728<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Group 3<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
Duke University<\/td>\n4<\/td>\nGroup 3<\/td>\n96.07104827<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
University of Michigan<\/td>\n9<\/td>\nGroup 3<\/td>\n95.7808896<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Northwestern University<\/td>\n9<\/td>\nGroup 3<\/td>\n95.72502558<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
New York University<\/td>\n9<\/td>\nGroup 3<\/td>\n95.59032168<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Columbia University<\/td>\n8<\/td>\nGroup 3<\/td>\n95.49293619<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Group 4<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
University of California, Los Angeles<\/td>\n13<\/td>\nGroup 4<\/td>\n93.15227925<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
University of California, Berkeley<\/td>\n12<\/td>\nGroup 4<\/td>\n92.70541776<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Washington University in St. Louis<\/td>\n16<\/td>\nGroup 4<\/td>\n92.23597085<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Vanderbilt University<\/td>\n19<\/td>\nGroup 4<\/td>\n91.98658968<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Georgetown University<\/td>\n14<\/td>\nGroup 4<\/td>\n91.6471114<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

What\u2019s this? Has Yale lost its edge? On top of that, it looks like one school may have been kicked out of the T14 entirely, and another is on the verge of being elbowed out as well! Will new schools actually enter the hallowed ground that is the T14!?! What\u2019s going on here?<\/p>\n

We know you want to see these schools with actual rankings assigned to them, and for that, we turn to Professor Derek Muller of Notre Dame Law at Excess of Democracy<\/a>. He\u2019s run similar calculations and offers a similar warning that we \u201cproceed with caution\u201d while viewing his rankings prediction. Buckle up, because this is going to be a wild ride.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
School<\/td>\nProjected Rank<\/td>\nThis Year\u2019s Rank<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Stanford<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Chicago<\/td>\n2<\/td>\n3<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Yale<\/td>\n3<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Virginia<\/td>\n4<\/td>\n4<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Penn<\/td>\n4<\/td>\n4<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Harvard<\/td>\n4<\/td>\n4<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Duke<\/td>\n7<\/td>\n4<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Michigan<\/td>\n7<\/td>\n9<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Northwestern<\/td>\n7<\/td>\n9<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
NYU<\/td>\n10<\/td>\n9<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Columbia<\/td>\n10<\/td>\n8<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
UCLA<\/td>\n12<\/td>\n13<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Berkeley<\/td>\n13<\/td>\n12<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Washington Univ.<\/td>\n14<\/td>\n16<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Vanderbilt<\/td>\n14<\/td>\n19<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Stanford overtakes Yale to become the best law school in the nation, with Yale falling to No. 3! Yale has resided in the No. 1 spot since the inception of the U.S. News law school rankings, so this change would be historic<\/em>. NYU and Columbia both drop for a tie at #10. Last, but certainly not least, Cornell and Georgetown are both out of the T14 entirely \u2014 and Washington University and Vanderbilt, two schools that have never been in the T14 before, have replaced them!<\/p>\n

Will any or all of these things actually happen? That\u2019s unclear for the moment, but given our experience with the rankings, these could all be very serious possibilities. Stay tuned for the release of the U.S. News law school rankings, which will likely be published sometime in this spring.<\/p>\n

Predicted 2025-2026 U.S. News Law School Rankings<\/a> [Spivey Consulting]
Updated projected 2025-2026 USNWR law school rankings (to be released March 2025 or so)<\/a> [Excess of Democracy]<\/p>\n

\n

\"StaciStaci Zaretsky<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she\u2019s worked since 2011. She\u2019d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email<\/a> her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on\u00a0Bluesky<\/a>,\u00a0X\/Twitter<\/a>, and\u00a0Threads<\/a>,\u00a0or connect with her on\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wow! Could it be? We’ll have to wait and see in the real U.S. News law school rankings. The post Historic U.S. News Law School Rankings Shakeup: Is Yale Law Out Of The Top Spot? appeared first on Above the Law. We\u2019re just a few months out from the release of the latest iteration of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":100448,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law","category-legal_matters"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/US-News-Rankings-Logo-no-year-dunhGv.png?fit=300%2C295&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}