I know rankings are to be looked at critically, but does anybody have a link to an overview of the US News Law School Rankings since their beginning?

Would be interested to see the changes over the years :)

http://www.law.stanford.edu/publications/projects/lrps/pdf/lomiowayne_rp4.pdf

This was the 1993 ranking:

1) Yale
2) Harvard
3) Chicago
4) Standford
5) Columbia
6) Michigan
7) NYU
8) Virginia
9) Duke
10) Penn

1996 Ranking:

1) Yale
2) Harvard
3) Standford
4) Chicago
5) Columbia
6) NYU
7) Virginia
8) Berkeley
8) Duke
8) Michigan

1999 Ranking:

1) Yale
2) Standford
2) Harvard
4) Chicago
4) Columbia
6) NYU
7) Berkeley
8) Michigan
8) Northwestern
8) Duke
8) Penn

2005 ranking

1) Yale
2) Harvard
3) Standford
4) Columbia
5) NYU
6) Chicago
7) Michigan
7) Penn
9) Virginia
10) Duke

My advice: Dont trust in rankings (specially the US News Ranking). Every well informed person will tell you that some law school trick the ranking methodology in order to gain a better ranking.

Thanks a lot guys!

I know rankings are not to be trusted, but they still remain one of the premium sources for choosing a law school and spending the huge amount of money without wasting it.

Thanks a lot guys!

I know rankings are not to be trusted, but they still remain one of the premium sources for choosing a law school and spending the huge amount of money without wasting it.

I think Virginia is better than Northwestern, as I will be going there :p

What I was meaning is that it's always a big plus to be able to say on interviews that your LL.M. comes from a top 10 school, rather than top 12 or top 20.

My advice: Dont trust in rankings (specially the US News Ranking). Every well informed person will tell you that some law school trick the ranking methodology in order to gain a better ranking.

Santa, I think that you misunderstood the point. UVA and NW are great law schools, but maybe from the point of view of employers, Northwestern has an advantage, but they are both great law schools and I am sure that you will enjoy UVA, since, besides Californias law schools, UVA and Duke are the ones that are best located.

Santa, I think that you misunderstood the point. UVA and NW are great law schools, but maybe from the point of view of employers, Northwestern has an advantage, but they are both great law schools and I am sure that you will enjoy UVA, since, besides Californias law schools, UVA and Duke are the ones that are best located.

When looking at the following ranking, it seems that UVA is the best law school in the country!

http://www.legalforce.com/community/lawschool.aspx

No way Santa! I'm going to Northwestern, so it must be far better than UVA...eheh...just kidding of course. What I fear the most, in these rankings, is that they take into consideration student's employment rate 6 or 12 or 18 months after the JD is over...two short thoughts to share with you all. larger the program, higher the unemployment rate (this could effect large programs of course). secondly, all the rankings consider only JD students. LLMs are out...any comment?

The only relevant figure in law school rankings is peer assessment. Anything else is arbitrary and can be cooked. When you want to know what the rankings are for each law school, just look at the peer assessment column.

In my opinion the legalforce ranking is the best one. It shows the law schools with the highest amounts of BMWs in the parking lot. These must certainly be the best ones? A plus is always when they have a lot of nice girls. Virginia scores nicely in both departments!

In my opinion the legalforce ranking is the best one. It shows the law schools with the highest amounts of BMWs in the parking lot. These must certainly be the best ones? A plus is always when they have a lot of nice girls. Virginia scores nicely in both departments!