Yale loses top spot in US law school rankings after 36 years
WASHINGTON, D.C.: Yale Law School has lost its long-held position at the top of the U.S. News & World Report law school rankings, slipping to No. 2 for the first time in more than three decades. Stanford Law School now holds the No. 1 spot outright after previously sharing the top ranking with Yale since 2023, according to the latest list released April 7. Yale is tied at No. 2 with the University of Chicago Law School, which moved up from No. 3. A Yale Law spokesperson said the school remains "focused on providing a rigorous and excellent legal education and increasing access and opportunity to law school and the profession." A slight dip in employment outcomes appears to have contributed to the shift. This year, 94.9 percent of Yale graduates secured long-term, full-time roles requiring bar passage or offering a law degree advantage within 10 months of graduation, compared with 95.5 percent in 2025. Other key indicators, including bar pass rates and median LSAT scores, remained largely unchanged. The U.S. News rankings, which evaluate 198 American Bar Association-accredited law schools, are widely followed by prospective students and employers as a benchmark of institutional performance. The latest rankings also reshaped the so-called "T-14", the group of schools that traditionally occupy the top 14 positions and send a disproportionate number of graduates into federal clerkships and high-paying law firm roles. The University of California, Berkeley School of Law fell out of the T-14 for the first time, dropping to No. 16. "The change in our ranking is a result of shifts in the U.S. News formula, not any meaningful change in Berkeley Law," said Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. Georgetown University Law Center also dropped out of the top 14, falling from No. 14 to No. 18 last year. It had similarly slipped below the T-14 in 2023. Other schools saw gains. Cornell Law School rose five places to No. 13 after falling out of the T-14 last year, while Vanderbilt University Law School climbed two spots to No. 12. Among the top-ranked institutions, the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School moved up one position to tie with the University of Virginia School of Law at No. 4. Harvard Law School held steady at No. 6, while Duke Law School slipped one spot to No. 7. New York University School of Law, Columbia Law School and Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law each rose by one place. The rankings have become more volatile in recent years following changes to the methodology introduced by U.S. News four years ago. Several elite law schools, including Yale and Berkeley, had previously boycotted the rankings, arguing that earlier criteria disadvantaged diversity and affordability. The revised methodology places greater emphasis on data reported to the American Bar Association, particularly employment and bar passage rates.