{"id":148971,"date":"2026-04-16T15:58:45","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T23:58:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/04\/16\/the-t14-is-not-dead-it-is-undying-and-thats-okay\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T15:58:45","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T23:58:45","slug":"the-t14-is-not-dead-it-is-undying-and-thats-okay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/04\/16\/the-t14-is-not-dead-it-is-undying-and-thats-okay\/","title":{"rendered":"The T14 Is Not Dead. It Is Undying, And That\u2019s Okay"},"content":{"rendered":"

Once upon a time, asking how many schools were in the T14 landed the same as asking for the number to 911. But once strict textualism died and U.S. News ranked 17<\/em> schools in the top 14<\/em><\/a>, it became harder to not ask yourself if utility or inertia was the thing keeping the term afloat. As the number discrepancy suggests, the who of the T14 started changing too. There may have been some occasional re-orderings, but you could count on Yale being your dream school\u2019s dream school, Harvard and Stanford forming the prestige triumvirate, all while Georgetown and UT fought over last place. Now, with Yale knocked out of the top spot and new names like Vanderbilt and Wash U. being relevant players, the title is going through a signification crisis that it probably won\u2019t weather. Reuters<\/a> has coverage:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not reflective of anything anymore. It\u2019s not a remotely coherent grouping,\u201d \u200bsaid Duke law professor Stuart Benjamin, who analyzed 36 years of rankings data in a post on the Volokh Conspiracy blog that \u200bargued the T-14 is obsolete.
\u2026
Law school admissions consultant Mike Spivey, who closely tracks the rankings, said the T-14 has outlived its usefulness as an indicator of which law schools are consistently the best. A system that \u200bgroups law schools into tiers \u200bwould be more useful \u2060for applicants than an ever-changing ordinal ranking, he said, noting that U.S. News\u2019 medical school rankings follow the tier model.<\/p>\n

Benjamin said a single term for the most consistently high-performing schools is \u200bstill valuable and suggested the \u201cT-11,\u201d since 11 schools have remained more stable at the top \u200bof the rankings.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

There\u2019s been a definite vibe shift in what meaning is left in the term; we gave our extended thoughts on its significance on last week\u2019s episode of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. And there\u2019s an open question on what\u2019s to blame here: are schools actually jumping around in quality year to year or does this have more to do with the observer? UC Berkeley\u2019s Erwin Chemerinsky commented that the school\u2019s ranking results from shifts in U.S. News\u2019 formula rather than any meaningful change in his school<\/a>. That\u2019s also what you\u2019d expect to hear from a school that fell out of the T14 \u2014 I haven\u2019t come across any naysaying from Stanford about stealing Yale\u2019s spot.<\/p>\n

Stuart Benjamin over at Volokh made the point much better than I did on the podcast that the T14 referent is heavily nostalgia-based \u2014 he brought the data to prove it<\/a>! His proposed replacement for the T14 is to go with the T10. Doing so would knock my alma mater out of the conversation, but sacrifices must be made for nice round numbers.<\/p>\n

Even if the data shows the T14 is dead, I wager we will witness its undying for years to come. Former members of the T14 wouldn\u2019t benefit from giving up the association (Georgetown and UT come to mind). Newcomers like Wash U. and Vandy have no incentive to get off the pot when they just sat down. And do you really think that partner who is reticent to open PDFs is going change the mental school ranking schema they\u2019ve had for four decades because someone showed them a graph? The \u201cT14\u201d will go the way of \u201cIvy League.\u201d Ivy League wasn\u2019t even a prestige designation at first \u2014 it was a cohort of old schools that played sports together<\/a>. You probably know the canon Ivy schools: Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton, and Yale. But there are many claimants to the Ivy title. You have your public Ivies like Rutgers and William and Mary<\/a> \u2014 with Rutgers being an especially strong candidate from a historical perspective<\/a>. You have your \u201cIvy Plus<\/a>\u201d schools like Stanford and MIT. There\u2019s even a whole book written about the 63 \u201cHidden Ivies\u201d <\/a>you could read if you need a scholastic break from billing those hours.<\/p>\n

What will be lost if U.S. News debuts next year\u2019s T14 list with 20 members? As a practical matter, not much. Assuming the list tracks job placement after graduation, a list of 20 well-placing schools means that applying students have a wider safety net of schools they can apply to that will let them pay off their gargantuan student loans. If you\u2019re a data-driven prestige hound, you can stick to the T10 to stem the bleeding for a while but let\u2019s not kid ourselves \u2014 isn\u2019t this just a legal take on the New Ivies rebranding<\/a>? Chemerinsky is probably right in that the rankings changing don\u2019t have all that much to do with the schools themselves. The real change is happening inward and our internal models of where these schools fall won\u2019t change all that much.<\/p>\n

Law School Ranking Shakeup Sparks Calls To Retire \u2018T-14\u2019<\/a> [Reuters]<\/p>\n

Earlier<\/strong>: End Of An Era: Yale Booted From No. 1 Spot In Historic U.S. News Law School Rankings Shakeup<\/a><\/p>\n

All You Need To Know About The 2025 U.S. News Law School Rankings<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord\u2122 in the Facebook group\u00a0Law School Memes for Edgy T14s . \u00a0He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boat builder who is learning to swim and is interested in rhetoric, Spinozists and humor. Getting back in to cycling wouldn\u2019t hurt either. You can reach him by email at christopherrashadwilliams@gmail.com<\/a> and by Tweet\/Bluesky at\u00a0@WritesForRent<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The post The T14 Is Not Dead. It Is Undying, And That\u2019s Okay<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Once upon a time, asking how many schools were in the T14 landed the same as asking for the number to 911. But once strict textualism died and U.S. News ranked 17<\/em> schools in the top 14<\/em><\/a>, it became harder to not ask yourself if utility or inertia was the thing keeping the term afloat. As the number discrepancy suggests, the who of the T14 started changing too. There may have been some occasional re-orderings, but you could count on Yale being your dream school\u2019s dream school, Harvard and Stanford forming the prestige triumvirate, all while Georgetown and UT fought over last place. Now, with Yale knocked out of the top spot and new names like Vanderbilt and Wash U. being relevant players, the title is going through a signification crisis that it probably won\u2019t weather. Reuters<\/a> has coverage:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not reflective of anything anymore. It\u2019s not a remotely coherent grouping,\u201d \u200bsaid Duke law professor Stuart Benjamin, who analyzed 36 years of rankings data in a post on the Volokh Conspiracy blog that \u200bargued the T-14 is obsolete.
\u2026
Law school admissions consultant Mike Spivey, who closely tracks the rankings, said the T-14 has outlived its usefulness as an indicator of which law schools are consistently the best. A system that \u200bgroups law schools into tiers \u200bwould be more useful \u2060for applicants than an ever-changing ordinal ranking, he said, noting that U.S. News\u2019 medical school rankings follow the tier model.<\/p>\n

Benjamin said a single term for the most consistently high-performing schools is \u200bstill valuable and suggested the \u201cT-11,\u201d since 11 schools have remained more stable at the top \u200bof the rankings.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

There\u2019s been a definite vibe shift in what meaning is left in the term; we gave our extended thoughts on its significance on last week\u2019s episode of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. And there\u2019s an open question on what\u2019s to blame here: are schools actually jumping around in quality year to year or does this have more to do with the observer? UC Berkeley\u2019s Erwin Chemerinsky commented that the school\u2019s ranking results from shifts in U.S. News\u2019 formula rather than any meaningful change in his school<\/a>. That\u2019s also what you\u2019d expect to hear from a school that fell out of the T14 \u2014 I haven\u2019t come across any naysaying from Stanford about stealing Yale\u2019s spot.<\/p>\n

Stuart Benjamin over at Volokh made the point much better than I did on the podcast that the T14 referent is heavily nostalgia-based \u2014 he brought the data to prove it<\/a>! His proposed replacement for the T14 is to go with the T10. Doing so would knock my alma mater out of the conversation, but sacrifices must be made for nice round numbers.<\/p>\n

Even if the data shows the T14 is dead, I wager we will witness its undying for years to come. Former members of the T14 wouldn\u2019t benefit from giving up the association (Georgetown and UT come to mind). Newcomers like Wash U. and Vandy have no incentive to get off the pot when they just sat down. And do you really think that partner who is reticent to open PDFs is going change the mental school ranking schema they\u2019ve had for four decades because someone showed them a graph? The \u201cT14\u201d will go the way of \u201cIvy League.\u201d Ivy League wasn\u2019t even a prestige designation at first \u2014 it was a cohort of old schools that played sports together<\/a>. You probably know the canon Ivy schools: Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton, and Yale. But there are many claimants to the Ivy title. You have your public Ivies like Rutgers and William and Mary<\/a> \u2014 with Rutgers being an especially strong candidate from a historical perspective<\/a>. You have your \u201cIvy Plus<\/a>\u201d schools like Stanford and MIT. There\u2019s even a whole book written about the 63 \u201cHidden Ivies\u201d <\/a>you could read if you need a scholastic break from billing those hours.<\/p>\n

What will be lost if U.S. News debuts next year\u2019s T14 list with 20 members? As a practical matter, not much. Assuming the list tracks job placement after graduation, a list of 20 well-placing schools means that applying students have a wider safety net of schools they can apply to that will let them pay off their gargantuan student loans. If you\u2019re a data-driven prestige hound, you can stick to the T10 to stem the bleeding for a while but let\u2019s not kid ourselves \u2014 isn\u2019t this just a legal take on the New Ivies rebranding<\/a>? Chemerinsky is probably right in that the rankings changing don\u2019t have all that much to do with the schools themselves. The real change is happening inward and our internal models of where these schools fall won\u2019t change all that much.<\/p>\n

Law School Ranking Shakeup Sparks Calls To Retire \u2018T-14\u2019<\/a> [Reuters]<\/p>\n

Earlier<\/strong>: End Of An Era: Yale Booted From No. 1 Spot In Historic U.S. News Law School Rankings Shakeup<\/a><\/p>\n

All You Need To Know About The 2025 U.S. News Law School Rankings<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord\u2122 in the Facebook group\u00a0Law School Memes for Edgy T14s . \u00a0He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boat builder who is learning to swim and is interested in rhetoric, Spinozists and humor. Getting back in to cycling wouldn\u2019t hurt either. You can reach him by email at christopherrashadwilliams@gmail.com<\/a> and by Tweet\/Bluesky at\u00a0@WritesForRent<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The post The T14 Is Not Dead. It Is Undying, And That\u2019s Okay<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Once upon a time, asking how many schools were in the T14 landed the same as asking for the number to 911. But once strict textualism died and U.S. News ranked 17 schools in the top 14, it became harder to not ask yourself if utility or inertia was the thing keeping the term afloat. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":148972,"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],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-148971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Chris-Williams-2025-hYQqBG.jpg?fit=512%2C288&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148971","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"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}