Yale loses longtime No. 1 spot on latest US law school ranking

By Karen Sloan

April 7 (Reuters) - Yale Law School slipped to No. 2 on U.S. News & World Report’s latest law school rankings, marking the first time in 36 years that the elite institution has not topped the list.

Stanford Law School is now the sole occupant of the No. 1 spot after sharing top billing with Yale since 2023 on U.S. News’ closely-watched list — the latest version of which was released Tuesday. Stanford law did not respond to a request for comment.

Yale is now tied at No. 2 with the University of Chicago Law School, which rose in the rankings from No. 3.

A Yale law spokesperson said the school is "focused on providing a rigorous and excellent legal education and increasing access and opportunity to law school and the profession."

A slightly lower employment rate appears to have contributed to the school’s drop from the previous year. This year, 94.9% of Yale graduates were in long-term, full-time jobs that either require bar passage or for which a law degree is an advantage within 10 months after graduation, down from 95.5% in 2025. Yale’s bar pass rates and median LSAT score were largely unchanged.

U.S. News' law school rankings seek to measure the overall quality of all the nation's 198 American Bar Association-accredited law schools, making them a key benchmark for students and employers.

Yale’s decline and Stanford’s ascent were among a series of notable shifts to this year’s so-called T-14, which are the schools that traditionally occupy the top 14 spots on U.S. News’ rankings. Those schools send a higher proportion of graduates into federal clerkships and highly-paid associate positions at the nation’s largest law firms.

The University of California, Berkeley School of Law fell below the T-14 in Tuesday's rankings to land at No. 16. The Bay Area school had previously always ranked among the top 14 schools.

“The change in our ranking is a result of shifts in the U.S. News formula, not any meaningful change in Berkeley Law,” said the school’s dean, Erwin Chemerinsky.

Another T-14 mainstay, Georgetown University Law Center, was also bumped from the top 14, ending up at No. 18. Georgetown ranked No. 14 on last year’s list. It also ranked below the T-14 in 2023. A Georgetown spokesperson did not provide comment.

Cornell Law School is among this year’s big rankings winners. It moved up five spots to No. 13 after falling out of the T-14 last year. Vanderbilt University Law School gained two spots to land at No. 12 this year.

The rankings have been more volatile since U.S. News made changes to its methodology four years ago in response to a boycott by elite schools. The schools that boycotted, including Yale and Berkeley, said that the prior ranking methodology hurt student diversity and affordability.

U.S. News now relies more heavily on data schools report annually to the American Bar Association. Small increases or decreases in bar passage and employment rates result in larger rankings shifts because top schools tend to have very similar outcomes in those areas.

The University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School moved up one spot to tie with the University of Virginia School of Law at No. 4. Harvard Law School remained at No. 6 while Duke Law School fell one spot to No. 7. New York University School of Law, Columbia Law School, and Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law each gained one spot on this year’s ranking.

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