What are the best law schools in the US?
Here, you’ll get a list with the highest ranking US law schools in 2023.
Want to learn more? Read on!
The Best US Law Schools
The US News and World Report publishes the #1 yearly law school rankings in the US.
These rankings use 10 factors to score schools. 60% of the rankings methodology focuses on successful placements of graduates after law school. The rest looks at things like faculty resources, opinions by law professionals, and the achievements of entering students.
Here are the top 50 law schools from the US News rankings along with acceptance rates, LSAT and GPA scores, tuition, grants, and employment rates.
| University | Accept. rate | Median LSAT | Low LSAT | High LSAT | Median GPA | Low GPA | High GPA | Tuition | Students receiving grants | Employment 10 months after graduation |
| Stanford University | 6.9% | 173 | 170 | 176 | 3.92 | 3.84 | 3.99 | $71,609 | 65% | 87% |
| Yale University | 5.7% | 178 | 171 | 175 | 3.94 | 3.87 | 3.99 | $71,425 | 64% | 79.8% |
| University of Chicago | 14.2% | 173 | 169 | 175 | 3.91 | 3.81 | 3.97 | $74,607 | 80% | 95.3% |
| University of Pennsylvania (Carey) | 9.7% | 172 | 167 | 173 | 3.9 | 3.61 | 3.96 | $73,008 | 55% | 93% |
| Duke University | 10.7% | 170 | 168 | 171 | 3.85 | 3.73 | 3.94 | $72,632 | 94% | 96.8% |
| Harvard University | 10.1% | 174 | 170 | 176 | 3.92 | 3.82 | 3.99 | $71,734 | 43% | 88% |
| New York University | 15.7% | 172 | 169 | 174 | 3.88 | 3.72 | 3.94 | $76,290 | 59% | 93.3% |
| Columbia University | 11.9% | 173 | 171 | 175 | 3.87 | 3.78 | 3.95 | $78,278 | 65% | 96.3% |
| University of Virginia | 12.9% | 171 | 166 | 173 | 3.94 | 3.69 | 3.99 | $68,500 | 68% | 93.4% |
| Northwestern University (Pritzker) | 15% | 171 | 166 | 172 | 3.89 | 3.63 | 3.93 | $72,212 | 71% | 94.1% |
| University of California (Berkeley) | 12.5% | 170 | 167 | 172 | 3.83 | 3.74 | 3.9 | $59,306 | 86% | 90.2% |
| University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) | 13.5% | 171 | 166 | 172 | 3.83 | 3.59 | 3.92 | $66,808 | 85% | 93.1% |
| Cornell University | 17.4% | 172 | 170 | 174 | 3.87 | 3.76 | 3.94 | $74,183 | 86% | 94.3% |
| University of California –Los Angeles | 15.5% | 171 | 166 | 172 | 3.9 | 3.76 | 3.97 | $53,910 | 85% | 91.5% |
| Georgetown University | 17.6% | 171 | 166 | 172 | 3.86 | 3.63 | 3.94 | $71,996 | 64% | 89.7% |
| University of Minnesota | 37.2% | 168 | N/A | N/A | 3.83 | N/A | N/A | $47,454 | 85.5% | 92% |
| University of Southern California (Gould) | 12.7% | 168 | 165 | 169 | 3.87 | 3.76 | 3.94 | $73,998 | 96.4% | 95.3% |
| University of Texas – Austin | 14.6% | 170 | 166 | 171 | 3.84 | 3.71 | 3.92 | $36,429 | 92.6% | 92% |
| Vanderbilt University | 14.5% | 170 | 163 | 170 | 3.9 | 3.57 | 3.98 | $68,816 | 85% | 92.7% |
| University of Georgia | 14.8% | 168 | 156 | 169 | 3.87 | 3.56 | 3.94 | $18,994 | 87% | 97% |
| Washington University in St. Louis | 18% | 172 | 164 | 173 | 3.94 | 3.43 | 4 | $65,229 | 95.4% | 94.6% |
| Brigham Young University (Clark) | 31.4% | 168 | 165 | 171 | 3.92 | 3,66 | 3.96 | $14,636 | 89% | 85.7% |
| Ohio State University (Mortiz) | 37.1% | 164 | 159 | 166 | 3.86 | 3.58 | 3.95 | $33,361 | 95.7% | 94.4% |
| University of Florida (Levin) | 16.9% | 169 | 162 | 170 | 3.9 | 3.52 | 3.97 | $21,803 | 81.5% | 90.7% |
| University of North California – Chapel Hill | 14.6% | 166 | 162 | 167 | 3.77 | 3.61 | 3.88 | $24,492 | 82.9% | 94.7% |
| Wake Forest University | 33% | 165 | 159 | 166 | 3.72 | 3.47 | 3.84 | $51,000 | 93.3% | 96.5% |
| Boston University | 16.3% | 170 | 164 | 171 | 3.84 | 3.57 | 3.91 | $62,534 | 88.1% | 88.3% |
| University of Notre Dame | 24.6% | 168 | 162 | 170 | 3.81 | 3.65 | 3.89 | $65,936 | 93.3% | 87% |
| Boston College | 10.2% | 166 | 162 | 167 | 3.74 | 3.55 | 3.81 | $63,130 | 91.9% | 91.2% |
| Fordham University | 18.8% | 167 | 164 | 168 | 3.72 | 3.55 | 3.81 | $96,166 | 85% | 94.1% |
| Texas A&M University | 16.3% | 164 | 158 | 166 | 3.93 | 3.54 | 3.98 | $32,634 | 86.3% | 94.7% |
| Arizona State University (O’Connor) | 19.7% | 167 | 158 | 168 | 3.85 | 3.42 | 3.94 | $27,464 | 94.1% | 94.6% |
| George Mason University (Scalia) | 19.6% | 166 | 158 | 167 | 3.83 | 3.45 | 3.93 | $26,569 | 83.2% | 90.7% |
| University of Utah (Quinney) | 31.9% | 163 | 158 | 164 | 3.87 | 3.71 | 3.96 | $33,634 | 78.8% | 92% |
| Emory University | 26% | 168 | 161 | 169 | 3.8 | 3.43 | 3.9 | $64,300 | 94.9% | 88.9% |
| George Washington University | 25% | 168 | 162 | 169 | 3.84 | 3.52 | 3.93 | $67,380 | 80.8% | 89.5% |
| University of Alabama | 25.8% | 166 | 159 | 168 | 3.95 | 3.4 | 4 | $24,390 | 89.8% | 89.1% |
| University of California – Irvine | 19.5% | 167 | 162 | 168 | 3.72 | 3.51 | 3.83 | $54,183 | 98% | 81.5% |
| University of Iowa | 41.3% | 163 | 161 | 165 | 3.66 | 3.49 | 3.83 | $30,152 | 82.4% | 92.7% |
| University of Kansas | 55.3% | 158 | 153 | 160 | 3.73 | 3.41 | 3.85 | $22,769 | 86.7% | 95.9% |
| University of Wisconsin – Madison | 35.2% | 165 | 157 | 167 | 3.73 | 3.41 | 3.85 | $33,158 | 91% | 89.7% |
| Washington and Lee University | 32.7% | 164 | 159 | 166 | 3.66 | 3.47 | 3.78 | $54,460 | 96.3% | 89.8% |
| University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign | 34.7% | 166 | 162 | 167 | 3.71 | 3.47 | 3.86 | $39,800 | 97.6% | 90.2% |
| Villanova University (Widger) | 16.5% | 163 | N/A | N/A | 3.76 | N/A | N/A | $53,555 | 85.7% | 93.7% |
| Indiana University – Bloomington (Maurer) | 43.3% | 164 | 158 | 165 | 3.81 | 3.42 | 3.92 | $38,185 | 98% | 89.4% |
| Pepperdine University (Caruso) | 27.7% | 164 | 159 | 166 | 3.85 | 3.54 | 3.93 | $63,660 | N/A | 90% |
| SMU (Dedman) | 33.9% | 164 | 160 | 165 | 3.71 | 3.35 | 3.87 | $61,058 | 95.8% | 92.7% |
| William & Mary Law School | 46% | 165 | 160 | 166 | 3.75 | 3.5 | 3.85 | $38,274 | 96.8% | 85.5% |
| Baylor University | 23.9% | 163 | 159 | 164 | 3.72 | 3.48 | 3.85 | $61,877 | 90.9% | 91.5% |
| University of Washington | 30.3% | 164 | 160 | 166 | 3.7 | 3.5 | 3.83 | $41,688 | 77% | 86.5% |
What is the #1 law school in America?
According to the US News and World report, two law schools are tied on the first place:
Stanford University and Yale University.
Another well-known ranking is Above the Law’s law school rankings. In these rankings, the top law schools are:
- Duke University
- University of Virginia
- Cornell University
- University of Chicago
- Vanderbilt University
- Washington University in St. Louis
- University of Michigan – Ann Arbor
- Columbia University
- Northwestern (Pritzker)
- University of Pennsylvania (Carey)
These rankings primarily look at employment after law school, but also law school cost and debt.
What is considered a Tier 1 law school?
Tier 1 law schools, also known as T14 law schools, are schools that are consistently ranked between #1-#14 by US News and World.
However, the US News report was overhauled in 2023 with a more comprehensive assessment of bar passage rates for first-time test takers and paring down library resources metrics. While most of the Tier 1 law schools remained unchanged, Georgetown University was pushed out of the top 14.
The law schools that typically rank 1-14 are:
Yale Law School
Stanford Law School
Harvard Law School
University of Chicago
Columbia Law School
New York University
University of California, Berkeley
University of Pennsylvania
University of Virginia
University of Michigan – Ann Arbor
Duke Law School
Northwestern Law School
Cornell Law School
Now, University of California Los Angeles has taken up spot #14.
What are the best law schools in the world?
There are several rankings that rank the best law schools in the world.
Some of the best known ones are:
QS World University Rankings looks at academic and employer reputation, faculty/student ratio and research citations to rank universities. This list ranks the following law schools as the top schools:
- Harvard University
- University of Oxford
- University of Cambridge
- Yale University
- Stanford University
- New York University
- The London School of Economics and Political Science
- Columbia University
- University of California, Berkeley
- University of Chicago
Times Higher Education ranks law schools based on the learning environment (32.7%), research (30.8%), citations (25%), international outlook (9%), and industry income (2.5%).
The top law schools on this list are:
- Stanford University
- New York University
- University of Cambridge
- University of Oxford
- Yale University
- Harvard
- The London School of Economics and Political Science (tied)
- University of Melbourne (tied)
- National University of Singapore
- University of Chicago
Are law school rankings important?
Law school rankings typically list the law schools that are some of the hardest to get accepted to. However, the schools have a lot of name recognition and these rankings will ultimately not make a big difference for the schools.
For instance, Harvard dropped out of the top three when US News overhauled its system. The fact that Harvard dropped down a spot will have likely zero implications on how the school is viewed by prospective employers.
The Harvard name, and really the name of the T-14 or T-20 schools, carries enough weight that no one really remembers what number the school is ranked within. And realistically, most people hiring you from your first job are going to just remember the ranking of the school when they were around.
These law schools rank based on one set of criteria. But there are so many others that can be highly individual – this is by no means a universal “best list” of the law schools in the US.
Do law school rankings matter?
No, because the best law school is the school that will best help you achieve your dreams as a lawyer. Which law school is right for you depends on a myriad of factors—your specific career path, where you want to practice, what kind of opportunities you want, etc.
A ranking cannot and will not be able to tell you what school is best for YOU.
That said, the T-20 law schools are well-known and competitive law schools, so they are well-regarded in highly competitive practice areas (such as corporate law) and highly competitive cities (such as New York). Attending one of these schools helps you land those types of jobs as many of these employers hire almost exclusively from the top ranking law schools.
However, if you graduated from a lower ranking law school, the doors aren’t closed to Biglaw. And if you have other career aspirations, rankings matter even less. ‘
Other factors that may matter more to you are:
- Location
- Cost and financial aid
- Admitted student profile
- Employment after law school
- Academic programs
- Size
- Student culture
- Program timeline
- Curriculum
- Support services
What’s a good LSAT score to get into law school?
Finally, what type of LSAT score do you even need to make it to law school?
The median, lowest, and highest LSAT scores are listed above for the 50 highest ranking law schools.
What makes a good LSAT score depends on the law school you’re applying to. You don’t need the same score if you’re applying to, say, Boston University as you would to get into University of Chicago.
But as you can see, law schools don’t only care about LSAT scores. You can get in with a lower LSAT score than the median score if your overall application makes up for it.
However, there are LSAT scores that are too low for law school. The image below shows the law schools that accept the lowest LSAT scores and as you can see, the lowest score is 139.
A good rule of thumb is that you want to at least break 140 to make taking on the cost of law school economically feasible. Because you also need to get a job afterwards and pass the bar.
Over to you!
There you have it! Those are the best law schools in the US (and the world).
Ultimately, the best law schools don’t build their reputation purely on rankings. They have strong brands and a drop in rankings will hardly affect that.
Are you looking to apply to these law schools and want to maximize your chances of getting accepted?
I help my students get accepted by their dream law schools.
Read more about working with me here.
Learn more:
What GPA do you need for law school?
How to be top of your class in law school
