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Methodology: 2022 Best Law Schools

Rankings
Find out how U.S. News ranks law schools.
By Robert Morse, Kenneth Hines, Eric Brooks, Juan Vega-Rodriguez, and Ari Castonguay

Methodology: Best Law Schools Rankings

THE U.S. NEWS' BEST LAW Schools rankings evaluate institutions on their successful
placement of graduates, their faculty resources, the academic achievements of entering
students, and opinions by law schools, lawyers and judges on overall program quality.
The rankings measure 193 law schools that are fully accredited by the American Bar
Association, or ABA. Changes for the 2022 edition included two new placement
indicators on graduate indebtedness and a fully revamped approach to measuring
library resources.

In fall 2020 and early 2021, U.S. News collected statistical and reputation data directly
from law schools for the 20 (up from 13 previously) indicators used in the overall
rankings and 13 law school specialty rankings and to populate each school's
usnews.com profile.

SEE THE

Best Law Schools rankings. ]

Ranking Indicators

Quality Assessment

Quality assessment was composed of two indicators of expert opinion that contributed
40% to the overall rank.

Peer assessment score (weighted by 0.25): Law school deans, deans of academic
affairs, chairs of faculty appointments and the most recently tenured faculty members
rated programs' overall quality on a scale from marginal (1) to outstanding (5), marking
"don't know" for schools they did not know well enough to evaluate. A school's score is
the average of 1-5 ratings received. U.S. News administered the peer assessment
survey in fall 2020 and early 2021. Seventy percent of recipients responded.

Assessment score by lawyers and judges (0.15): Legal professionals – including hiring
partners of law firms, practicing attorneys and judges – rated programs' overall quality
on a scale from 1 (marginal) to 5 (outstanding), marking "don't know" for schools they
did not know well enough to evaluate. A school's score is the average of 1-5 ratings it
received across the three most recent survey years. U.S. News administered the legal
professionals survey in fall 2020 to recipients that law schools provided to U.S. News in
summer 2020.

Selectivity

Selectivity is a proxy of student excellence. Its three indicators contributed 21% in total
to the ranking.

Median Law School Admission Test and Graduate Record Examination scores (0.1125;
previously 0.125): These are the combined median scores on the LSAT and GRE
quantitative, verbal and analytical writing exams of all 2020 full- and part-time entrants
to the J.D. program. Reported scores for each of the four exams, when applicable, were
converted to 0-100 percentile scales. The LSAT and GRE percentile scales were
weighted by the proportions of test-takers submitting each exam. For example, if 85% of
exams submitted were LSATs and 15% submitted were GREs, the LSAT percentile
would be multiplied by 0.85 and the average percentile of the three GRE exams by 0.15
before summing the two values. This means GRE scores were never converted to LSAT
scores or vice versa. There were 60 law schools – 31% of the total ranked – that
reported both the LSAT and GRE scores of their 2020 entering classes to U.S. News.

Median undergraduate GPA (0.0875; previously 0.10): This is the combined median
undergraduate GPA of all the 2020 full- and part-time entrants to the J.D. program.

Acceptance rate (0.01; previously 0.025): This is the combined proportion of applicants
to both the full- and part-time J.D. programs who were accepted for the 2020 entering
class. A lower acceptance rate indicates greater selectivity.

Placement Success

Placement success is composed of five indicators that total 25.25% of each school's
rank. The two most heavily weighted indicators pertain to employment.

Employment rates for 2019 graduates 10 months after graduation (0.14) and at
graduation (0.04): For both ranking factors, schools received maximum credit when
their J.D. graduates – in alignment with ABA reporting rules – obtained long-term jobs
that were full time, not funded by the law school, and where a J.D. degree was an
advantage or bar passage was required. In contrast, jobs that were some combination
of short-term, part-time, funded by the law school and/or did not require bar passage
received less credit by varying amounts, determined by the combination. See Notes on
Employment Rates below for a more detailed explanation.

Bar passage rate (0.0225, previously 0.02): This is the ratio of the bar passage rate of a
school's 2019 graduating class to that jurisdiction's overall state bar passage rate for
first-time test-takers in winter and summer 2019.

The jurisdiction listed is the state where the largest number of 2019 graduates took the
state bar exam. The National Conference of Bar Examiners provided the state bar
examination pass rates for first-time test-takers in winter and summer 2019.

Average debt incurred obtaining a J.D at graduation (0.03, new) and the percent of law
school graduates incurring J.D. law school debt (0.02, new): According to a 2020
American Bar Association report, many new lawyers are postponing major life decisions
like marriage, having children and buying houses – or rejecting them outright – because
they are carrying heavy student loan debts. J.D. graduate debt is impacting Black and
Hispanic students the most since they borrow more, according to the ABA. We added
two new indicators to take into account this J.D. graduate debt load and its impact on
law school graduates, the legal profession and prospective law school students.

This data is based on J.D. candidate graduates in 2019-2020. The indicators were
calculated by comparing each school's value with the median value (midpoint) for that
indicator. Schools whose values were farthest below the median scored the highest,
and schools that were most above the median scored the lowest on each indicator.

Faculty, Law School and Library Resources

Faculty, law school and library resources is 13.75% of the ranking and is composed of
two indicators on expenditures, one on student-faculty ratio and seven on library
resources. The two metrics on expenditures per student, below, pertain to the 2019 and
2020 fiscal years.

The average spending on instruction, library and supporting services (0.09; previously
0.0975) and the average spending on all other items, including financial aid (0.01;
previously 0.015): As part of the faculty resources calculation for instruction, library and
supporting services – new this year in order to adjust for cost of living variations in law
school salaries between school geographic locations – U.S. News replaced Runzheimer
indexes with publicly available Bureau of Economic Analysis Regional Price Parities
index data.

Student-faculty ratio (0.02; previously 0.03): This is the ratio of law school students to
law school faculty members for 2020. The definition that U.S. News uses is a modified
version of the Common Data Set's student-to-faculty ratio definition, a standard used
throughout higher education based on the ratio of full-time equivalent students to full-
time equivalent faculty. For law schools, full-time equivalent faculty is defined as full-
time faculty plus one-third part-time law school faculty. Full-time equivalent students
are defined as full-time law school students plus two-thirds of total part-time law school
students.

Library resources and operations (0.0175 in total; previously 0.0075): We created

seven new ranking indicators using data for fiscal year 2019-2020, each weighted
0.0025. See indicators below.

 Number of hours per day law students have access to library study space during
regular semester and exam schedules.
 Number of hours per week law students have access to real-time
reference/research/library services during the regular semester schedule.
 Total number of licensed or owned digital/electronic databases available to law
students as members of the larger college or university.
 Total number of titles available to law students.
 Ratio of full-time equivalent professional and paraprofessional library staff to full-
time equivalent law students.
 Ratio of the number of seats with library spaces to full-time equivalent law
students.
 Ratio of the total number of presentations by library staff to full-time equivalent
law students.

Overall Rank

Data was standardized so that each school's value was compared with the mean and
standard deviations of all other schools, and standardized scores were weighted,
totaled and rescaled so that the top school received 100; others received their
percentage of the top score. Law schools were then numerically ranked in descending
order based on their scores.

Schools Listed With a Ranking Range

U.S. News has individually ranked the top three-quarters of law schools. For schools in
the bottom quarter of the rankings, U.S. News made an editorial decision to only display
the bottom quartile ranking range and display them alphabetically.

U.S. News will supply schools listed in the ranking range with their numerical ranks if
they submit a request following the procedures listed in the Information for School
Officials.

Unranked Schools
To be ranked, a law school must be accredited and fully approved by the ABA. The
University of North Texas—Dallas is unranked because, as of February 2021, it's
provisionally approved by the ABA. Also unranked are Inter-American University in
Puerto Rico, the University of Puerto Rico and Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto
Rico.

Notes on Employment Rates

In recent years, enhanced ABA reporting rules have led to more information becoming
available from law schools about the many types of positions law students take after
they graduate. Each year, the schools are required to report to the ABA how many of
their most recent graduates had various types of jobs lined up after graduation.

As in previous years, the ABA mandated that schools report law school and university
positions separately from all other nonuniversity-funded positions to make the
difference between the two types of jobs very clear. U.S. News continued to use this
standard for data collection for the class of 2019 at graduation and 10 months later.

These ABA standards require the law schools to go into great detail by reporting 45
different job types, as well as employment status and duration. That includes, for
example, whether each graduate's employment was long term – defined as lasting at
least a year – or short term, whether it was full or part time, and whether it required
passage of a bar exam.

U.S. News collected these same statistics when the schools were surveyed for the
annual rankings and gathered the same data on members of the class who were
employed at graduation and 10 months after graduation. U.S. News also collected data
on students' jobs when the law school was unable to determine length of employment
or full- or part-time status, as well as when employment status was unknown.

U.S. News incorporated this rich data into its computation of the employment measure
for the class of 2019 at graduation and 10 months later. Placement success was
calculated by assigning various weights to the number of graduates employed in 45 of
these different types of post-J.D. jobs, employment statuses and durations.

Full weight was given for graduates who had two types of jobs. The 100% weighted jobs
were those who had a full-time job not funded by the law school or university that lasted
at least a year and for which bar passage was required, or a full-time job not funded by
the law school or university that lasted at least a year where a J.D. degree was an
advantage. Many experts in legal education consider these real law jobs.

Less weight went to full-time long-term jobs that were professional or nonprofessional
and did not require bar passage, to pursuit of an additional advanced degree, and to
positions whose start dates were deferred. The lowest weight applied to jobs
categorized as both part-time and short-term and those jobs for which a law school was
unable to determine length of employment or whether they were full time.

Nevertheless, in terms of all law school and university positions, U.S. News continues to
apply a greater discount in our rankings calculations to the value of jobs graduates held
that the law school or university funded compared with the weight used for positions in
the same category that were not funded by the law school or university.

What this means is that full-time jobs lasting at least a year for which bar passage was
required or a J.D. degree was an advantage did not receive full weight in the
calculations if they were school or university funded. All other types of jobs, which
already receive less weight in the rankings calculations, were further discounted if they
were funded by the law school or university.

All these weighted employment figures were divided by the total number of 2019 J.D.
graduates. They were used in the ranking formula only and are not published.

Employment statistics displayed on usnews.com reflect actual rates, out of the total
number of 2019 J.D. graduates, for all jobs, excluding positions funded by the law
school or university, that are full-time and long-term and for which a J.D. and bar
passage are necessary or advantageous.

Actual rates for the other types of positions appear in the profiles of each school's
latest graduating class.

Employment data for both types of positions – those not funded by the law school or
university and those that were – is only available with a U.S. News Law School
Compass subscription.

Library Questions

U.S. News worked with organizations to develop the new library questions and make
suggestions on the analytical framework used to analyze library data, including:

 American Association of Law Libraries.

 Academic Law Libraries: Statistics, Analytics and Reports, and NELLCO library
consortium.
 Society of American Law Library Directors.
 Association of American Law Schools, section on law libraries and legal
information.

Specialty Rankings

Law school specialty rankings, such as clinical training, tax law and health care law, are
based solely on peer assessment surveys administered to law school faculty who teach
in that specialty area. The peer assessment surveys for the specialty law school area
rankings were conducted in fall 2020 and early 2021 by U.S. News.

In summer 2020, law schools provided U.S. News with the names of the law school
faculty who teach in each specialty area. This year for the third consecutive year, law
school faculty members who teach in each specialty area rated the other law schools in
that specialty area on a 5-point scale. Schools are ranked in descending order from
highest to lowest based on their average peer assessment scores in their specialty
area.

The number of schools ranked in the 13 law school specialty rankings and the response
rate among those law school faculty surveyed in fall 2020 and early 2021 were as
follows:

 187 schools ranked for business/corporate law (response rate: 54%).

 182 schools ranked for clinical training (64%).
 187 schools ranked for constitutional law (52%).
 187 schools ranked for contracts/commercial law (48%).
 187 schools ranked for criminal law (57%).
 111 schools ranked for dispute resolution (49%).
 181 schools ranked for environmental law (59%).
 181 schools ranked for health care law (54%).
 187 schools ranked for intellectual property law (65%).
 185 schools ranked for international law (56%).
 176 schools ranked for legal writing (60%).
 186 schools ranked for tax law (58%).
 187 schools ranked for trial advocacy (56%).

In the law school specialty rankings, all programs that received 10 or more ratings are
numerically ranked in that specialty. Schools with less than 10 ratings in a specialty,
schools that were unranked in the overall rankings and schools that didn't return the
U.S. News law school statistical survey for the most recent data collection aren't listed
in any specialty ranking.

School Data, Directory and Search

The schools provided the data listed in the rankings and their individual profiles in U.S.
News' directory. If a data point is listed as "N/A," the school did not provide it.

Users can filter rankings and profiles by characteristics like location, tuition, LSAT
scores and average starting salary, and create personalized short lists of schools to
examine further.
Check back every now and then, as we occasionally add content to the website when
we obtain additional data we think is useful – whether on job placement, GPA, LSAT
scores or other factors – or we learn information that changes the data.

Methodology: 2022 Best Part-Time

Law Programs Rankings
Find out how U.S. News ranks part-time law programs.
By Robert Morse, Juan Vega-Rodriguez, Ari Castonguay, Eric Brooks, and Kenneth Hines

PART-TIME LAW PROGRAMS play a vital role in legal education. For many working
adults, these programs are the only way to afford a law degree while meeting other
commitments. Fewer than half of the country's law schools offer part-time programs,
which generally take four years to complete.

The part-time law school rankings are based on four factors, which are outlined in the
methodology below. These include reputation among deans and faculty at peer law
schools; LSAT and GRE scores; undergraduate GPAs of students entering in fall 2020;
and the breadth of each school's part-time program. U.S. News surveyed law schools
for their part-time program data in fall 2020 and early 2021.

This year, U.S. News ranked 69 accredited law schools offering part-time programs. For
a school's program to be considered in the part-time law rankings, it initially had to have
at least 20 part-time students enrolled in fall 2019, then it must have reported at least
20 part-time students enrolled in fall 2020 and supplied separate admissions data on
fall 2020, including applications, acceptances and other part-time admissions data.

Quality assessment (weighted by 0.50): In fall 2020 and early 2021, deans and three
faculty members at each school were asked to rate programs on a scale of 1 (marginal)
to 5 (outstanding); 68.4% of the people surveyed responded. Scores for each school
were averaged to produce the average peer assessment score. U.S. News collected the
assessment data.

Selectivity (0.275): This measure combines median LSAT scores and GRE verbal,
quantitative and analytical writing scores (0.225 of this indicator) and undergraduate
GPAs (0.05) for part-time J.D. students entering in fall 2020. This was the third year that
any law schools with part-time programs reported that their entering students had GRE
scores. Seventeen law schools reported that their fall 2020 part-time law students had
GRE scores.
Part-time focus (0.225): An index was created from data reported by the schools about
their 2020 part-time programs. The nine factors used in the creation of this index
include the size of first-year sections for part-time students; the size of first-year small
sections for part-time students; the number of positions filled by part-time students in
law clinics, seminars, simulation courses and field placements; and the number of
students involved in law journals and interschool skills competitions and enrolled in
independent study.

Schools received separate credit in the part-time focus index in each of the nine
indicators if they reported data indicating that their part-time students took part in each
of the indicators listed above. Schools received additional credit in each of the nine
indicators if their score surpassed the average among schools in that particular
indicator.

Schools with highest part-time focus index value scored highest in this indicator.

Overall Rank

Schools' scores on each indicator were standardized, weighted, totaled and rescaled so
the top school received 100 and other schools received a percentage of the top score.
Part-time law programs were numerically ranked in descending order based on their
scores.

The part-time law program data listed on usnews.com for the fall 2020 acceptance rate
and enrollment is for informational purposes only and is not used in the computation of
the part-time J.D. program rankings.

Schools Listed With a Ranking Range

U.S. News has numerically ranked the top three-quarters of the part-time law programs.
For schools in the bottom quarter of the rankings, U.S. News made an editorial decision
to only display the bottom quartile ranking range. Schools listed with a ranking range
are listed alphabetically.

U.S. News will supply schools listed in the ranking range with their numerical ranks if
they submit a request following the procedures listed in the Information for School
Officials.

The schools provided the data listed in the rankings tables and on school profile pages.
If a data point is listed as "N/A," the school did not provide it.
Methodology: 2022 Most Diverse Law
Schools
Find out how U.S. News measures diversity at law
schools.
By Robert Morse, Juan Vega-Rodriguez, Kenneth Hines, Ari Castonguay, and Eric Brooks

2022 Most Diverse Law Schools

FOR THE FIRST TIME, U.S. News produced a ranking of the Most Diverse Law Schools
which compares schools based on each one's share of underrepresented minority
students. This is a new approach from previous rankings editions, which measured law
schools on their dispersion of all ethnic groups. U.S. News employed this revamped
approach to focus on ethnic groups that have been historically underrepresented at law
schools and in the legal profession.

According to a 2020 American Bar Association report "nearly all people of color are
underrepresented in the legal profession compared with their presence in the U.S.
population. For example, 5% of all lawyers are Black or African American – the same
percentage as 10 years earlier – but the U.S. population is 13.4% Black or African
American. Similarly, 5% of all lawyers are Hispanic – up from 4% a decade earlier –
although the U.S. population is 18.5% Hispanic. And 2% of all lawyers are Asian – up
slightly from 1.6% 10 years earlier – while the U.S. population is 5.9% Asian."

This new ranking measures which law schools are the most and least successful at
enrolling underrepresented minority students compared with other schools and based
on national and state population benchmarks.

To identify the most and least diverse law schools, U.S. News uses the proportion of a
law school's fall 2020-2021 full- and part-time J.D. students that are underrepresented
minorities, or URM. The values are based on the enrollment and ethnicity data collected
from each law school by U.S. News in fall 2020 through early 2021.
Underrepresented minorities are defined as students who are Asian, Black or African
American, Hispanic/Latino, American Indian or Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or other
Pacific Islander, and two or more races.

How Was This Diversity Ranking Calculated?

Using fall 2020 data, U.S. News calculated how many full-time and part-time J.D.
students are underrepresented minorities at each law school. Next, we calculate what
proportion of each school’s students are underrepresented minorities.

The ranking is composed of two indicators that credit a law school for enrolling URM
students both on an absolute and relative basis:

 How the actual percentage of underrepresented minority students compares

across law schools (0.66% weight in the rankings). Law schools with the highest
absolute percentage of URM students score the highest on this indicator, and
schools with the lowest percentage of URM students score the lowest.

 How each law school's percentage of underrepresented minority students

compares on a relative basis with either a state or national benchmark (0.34%
weight in the rankings). This comparison was done to measure how each law
school is performing in terms of enrolling underrepresented minority students
compared with the URM population of its state or the U.S. as a whole. To do this
relative comparison, we used 2019 state and national population data estimates
from the Census Bureau, which indicated what percent of 25- to 30-year-olds fall
into each racial and ethnic group. Then, we calculated national and state URM
percentages. Public law schools were compared with their state's URM
percentage and private law schools with the national URM percentage. This was
because J.D. students at public schools are more likely to come from within that
state and private law schools are more likely to enroll students from out-of-state.
A school with a percentage higher than its state or national benchmark scored
higher in the ranking. A school with a lower percentage scored lower in the
ranking.

Overall Most Diverse Law Schools Rank Calculation

Data was standardized so that each school's value was compared with the mean and
standard deviations of all other schools for the two law school diversity ranking
indicators. Standardized scores were weighted, then totaled and rescaled so that the
top-ranked school received an overall diversity score of 10.0; others received their score
based on a percentage of the top score. The scores ranged from 10.0 to 0.0, rounded to
one decimal place. Schools were then numerically ranked in descending order based on
their rounded scores. Schools with the same score were tied.
U.S. News has individually ranked the top three-quarters of law schools on their overall
diversity score. For law schools in the bottom quarter of the diversity rankings, U.S.
News made an editorial decision to only display the bottom quartile ranking range and
display them alphabetically.

U.S. News will supply schools listed in the ranking range with their numerical ranks if
they submit a request following the procedures listed in the Information for School
Officials.

To be included in the diversity ranking, a law school must be accredited by the ABA and
have completed the enrollment section of the U.S. News law school statistical survey
conducted in fall 2020 and early 2021. Law schools that didn't respond to the fall 2020
statistical survey were excluded from the diversity ranking since U.S. News didn't have
their fall 2020 J.D. enrollment and ethnicity data to use in the calculations. A small
number of schools in the Best Law Schools ranking of full-time programs were not in
the Most Diverse Law Schools ranking because they did not report student enrollment
information.