I don't know what rankings are really worth...in the end, I always wonder why a Law School is said to be better than another one...but it's always interesting.

Here's one based upon the number of publications downloaded by users through the ssrn website. Of course, one may say that few readers are aware of this website and that these rankings are not accurate. More than that, one can state that a large law school with 100 professors will have more publications than one with 40 (such as Yale for instance), which is true. But still, it remains always nice to have some rankings as long as we remain critic and aware of their respective defaults :)

SSRN TOP 20 LAW SCHOOLS (BETA)

1 Harvard University - Harvard Law School
2 Stanford Law School
3 University of Chicago - Law School
4 Columbia University - Columbia Law School
5 University of California, Los Angeles - School of Law
6 University of Texas at Austin - School of Law
7 George Mason University - School of Law
8 University of California, Berkeley - School of Law (Boalt Hall)
9 Yale University - Law School
10 University of Virginia - School of Law
11 George Washington University - Law School
12 Georgetown University Law Center
13 New York University - School of Law
14 Vanderbilt University - School of Law
15 University of San Diego - School of Law
16 University of Pennsylvania - School of Law
17 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign - College of Law
18 Boston University - School of Law
19 University of Michigan at Ann Arbor - Law School
20 Fordham University - School of Law

The other flaw is that only some papers are available on SSRN. Better rankings would include Hein online and Westlaw (for starters) as well.

Better yet, just look at citations in other journals (as the traditional journal rankings do). Surely this shows better how truly useful those articles are.

It's a very strange ranking!

For instance, according to the U.S. News ranking San Diego University has never been ranked higher than 59th place. As a person living in California I can confirm that it's true.

This is a very pretentious subject, as Law people we should be more worried on how make a more fair and just society, instead of spending time an effort trying to get the more "prestigious" option. You guys are all very shallow. Every post in here is to see who got what or went where, the whole point of going to Law school is to help society as a whole like being a Doctor, you dont do it for the prestige you do it for the satisfaction of helping others. That is the way I see it and this trend and this whole forum in general is alarming, so superficial...
I will see you guys in court.

Gatogus,

I don't really see your point. Trying to do the best you can in life is not something to be ashamed of. Personally, I am going to get an LLM to make a difference - through publication or by furthering my professional background to let me achive a higher level where I can actually make some sort of difference.

The ideal goals of practice of law should not be wielded to lash on the innocent people charting about a primary investment, and for the asymmetrical nature of what to be pursued, we welcome any sensible information that tends to be more helpful to law students out of U.S. jurisdiction.

Yeah right!...

Gatogus,

I don't really see your point. Trying to do the best you can in life is not something to be ashamed of. Personally, I am going to get an LLM to make a difference - through publication or by furthering my professional background to let me achive a higher level where I can actually make some sort of difference.

Hi everybody, and what difference between US and UK univ.
Who knows?
Because we know worldwide rankings, but some people give preference to UCL(London) more than to HLS(USA) for example.
Who can compare?
I am planning to do my LLM in US ivy-leaque, but might be somebody can advice UK "ivy-leaque" (only London) as better and more effective

Gatogus,
You may take the ranking issue from another perspective. It is not a matter of prestige... at least it is not not only a matter of prestige. We have to acknowledge that we are not able to get all the information that we would require to choose the best university. Obviously, we all want to get the best available option and spend a year learning from the best professors, getting the best education, etc.
Rankings are just another tool to achieve that. The information that a ranking may provide will help us to decide whether a university is the best choice for us.

W