Methodology

This is a summary overview. For a full technical overview, please download this PDF (coming soon).

For info on the stoplight indicators, jump here.

The LSRP rankings focus on how well schools accomplish the three main goals of every law student: learning the law, getting a good job, and avoiding crushing debt. Each school is assigned a normalized index value from 0.00 to 1.00, with 0.00 representing the school with the worst outcomes and 1.00 representing the school with the best. From there, a weighted average is calculated as listed below. To our knowledge, these rankings include all of the publicly available data on each of those three topics that has value to law students.

Weighting:

Academic index: 40% overall
Incoming student LSAT: 12%
Incoming student GPA: 8%
Faculty productivity: 8%
Bar passage rates: 8%
Attrition: 2%
Conditional scholarship revocation: 2%

Job index: 37% overall
Firm jobs: 15%
Bar passage required vs. J.D. advantage jobs: 5%
Federal clerkships: 2%
Underemployment: 15%

Debt/cost: 23% overall
Tuition minus aid: 3%
Estimated % graduates with debt exceeding salary: 10%
Estimated % graduates with debt exceeding salary by $40,000 or more: 5%
Estimated % graduates with debt exceeding salary by $100,000 or more: 5%

Details for each category:

Academic index:

Incoming student LSAT: The incoming class’s 25^th, 50^th, and 75^th percentile LSAT scores were used. Adjustments were made for GRE/GMAT test takers, as well as transfer students and students admitted with ACT scores. The last two mechanisms are used by some law schools to boost their class size and tuition revenue base without lowering their U.S. news ranking and official LSAT statistics.

Incoming student GPA: The incoming class’s 25^th, 50^th, and 75^th percentile GPAs were used. Adjustments were made for transfer students and “GPA excluded” students, which could include international students without a U.S. GPA. The last two mechanisms are used by some law schools to boost their class size and tuition revenue base without lowering their U.S. news ranking and official GPA statistics.

Faculty productivity: Two research groups have produced high-quality law school faculty productivity rankings: one led by Brian Leiter and Gregory Sisk, and one led by Matthew Sag. Both groups went through a careful, labor-intensive process, and each used different databases: Leiter and Sisk’s group used the Westlaw database, while Sag’s group used the HeinOnline database. We calculated normalized index values from both ranking sets and averaged them. Both sets of authors were very generous with LSRP, and citations to both of their articles (along with links) are below:

Sag, Matthew, Inclusive Citation Rankings of U.S. Law Schools (May 16, 2022). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3929021 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3929021

Sisk, Gregory C. and Catlin, Nicole and Anderson, Alexandra and Gunderson, Lauren, Scholarly Impact of Law School Faculties in 2021: Updating the Leiter Score Ranking for the Top Third (2021). 17 University of St. Thomas Law Journal 1041 (2022), U of St. Thomas (Minnesota) Legal Studies Research Paper No. 22-04, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3910536 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3910536

Bar passage rates: The ABA collects bar passage data for each law school and publishes it in an individual form on abarequireddisclosures.org . The most meaningful value on that form is box J, which is the “difference in weighted average” between a school’s bar passage rates and the average bar passage rates in each state. We calculated our index based on this value.

Attrition: The number of law students dropping out in a given year was compared to size of a school’s first year class.

Conditional scholarships: The total number of conditional scholarships revoked in a given year was compared to the size of a school’s first year class.

Job index:

Firm jobs: We used law firm size as a proxy for job quality; this data is readily available for each school and is strongly predictive of wages and career progression opportunities for new graduates. Law firms with 500+ employees usually pay the prevailing “Cravath scale” wage, which at the time of this writing is $215,000/year for new graduates excluding annual bonuses, while law firms with 1-10 employees often pay new graduates less than $70,000/year. Law firms with sizes between those extremes tend to pay wages between those extremes, though there are exceptions, such as small, prestigious boutique litigation firms that pay Cravath scale wages. We assigned a weight to the various law firm size categories listed in the ABA’s required disclosures and used that to calculate an index value.

Bar passage required vs. J.D. advantage jobs: In its mandatory disclosure reports, the ABA has two overarching categories for legal jobs: “bar passage required” and “J.D. advantage”. Bar passage required jobs are usually classic legal jobs, such as working at an attorney at a law firm. J.D. advantage jobs are a mixed group, but many of these jobs aren’t all that great and aren’t the kind of jobs that incoming law students are hoping to get when they graduate. In our estimation, any school that sends more than 7% of its graduating class into J.D. advantage jobs is likely struggling to help students get desirable bar passage required jobs and is compensating for that. We calculated the percent of each school’s graduating class that landed in J.D. advantage jobs, subtracted 7%, and assigned a normalized index value accordingly.

Federal and international clerkships: A clerkship is a one year apprenticeship with a judge. Clerkships with federal judges are highly sought after, and students who complete them are often able to land good legal jobs afterwards. We calculated the percentage of each graduating class that was placed in a federal clerkship and assigned an index value accordingly.

Underemployment: We calculated the number of students in the following categories, who we deem “underemployed”, and divided that number by the school’s graduating class size. We then calculated an index value.

• Employed in a part time job
• Employed in a short term job
• Employed in an “other” job, which indicates that the job was not “bar-passage required”, “J.D. advantage”, or “professional” and which could include something like flipping burgers
• Engaged in further graduate studies despite having graduated from a law school other than one of the top 10 law schools for faculty productivity. Some desperate law school graduates try to get an LLM or something to improve their employment prospects; the top 10 carveout is designed to remove aspiring law school professors with strong employment prospects from being included in this category.
• Unemployed and seeking a job
• Unemployed and not seeking a job, if more than 1% of the graduating class falls into this category, in which case only individuals outside of that 1% were included
• Solo practitioner (hanging out a shingle right after graduating law school is generally a terrible idea; people seldom do this unless they are desperate and unable to find a job at a law firm)

Cost / debt index:

Tuition minus aid: we estimated the total amount of tuition and fees charged and aid money given per student for each school, then subtracted the two and used that number for our index. We used in-state and out-of-state tuition numbers reported to the ABA, along with the 25^th, 50^th, and 75^th percentile aid awards reported to the ABA. These numbers are not completely precise: some schools don’t publish what percent of students are in-state vs. out-of-state, forcing us to estimate, and any aid money exceeding the percentile benchmarks was not included in our calculations.

Debt exceeding salary by >$0, $40,000, and $100,000: A rough rule of thumb is that a student’s total debt should not exceed their salary at graduation. In line with that, we estimated what percent of students have debt exceeding their salary at graduation by >$0, $40,000, and $100,000, and we calculated indexes for each value. Our numbers are rough estimates, and they likely represent a worst case scenario “damage ceiling” rather than the actual number of highly indebted students at each school. Specifically, we assume that (a) the students with the most debt get the worst jobs and (b) a student’s total debt at graduation is equal to net tuition and fees plus $20,000 in living expenses. Students’ salaries were based on employment status at graduation according to the table below; students with public sector jobs were excluded because we assume those students are going to use the public service loan forgiveness program. These salary estimates are generous in our view and are based off of NALP survey data for several schools.

Fed / international clerkship*	$180,000
500+ firm	$180,000
250+ firm	$160,000
101+ firm	$130,000
51+ firm	$90,000
26+ firm	$80,000
11+ firm	$70,000
2+ firm	$55,000
Education	$70,000
“other” (i.e. nonprofessional)	$40,000
Unemployed seeking	$20,000
PT/ST	$40,000
Solo	$20,000
Grad studies	$0
Unemployed not seeking	Exclude
State/local/tribal clerkships	$90,000
Government	Exclude
Public interest	Exclude
Employment status unknown	Exclude
Employer type unknown	Exclude
Law firm unknown size	Exclude
B&I minus nonprofessional	$90,000
Start date deferred	Exclude
Employed undeterminable	Exclude

*Federal clerkships don’t pay that well, but any student who gets one will likely land a Cravath scale-level litigation job at graduation.

Stoplight indicators:

We have assigned each school a stoplight indicator: green schools are worth attending, yellow schools have significant issues, and red schools should be completely avoided in our view. Each school was assigned an indicator across the academic, job, and debt/cost categories based not on the overall ranking but on a few “key indicator” benchmarks within each field that we view as critical to success. Here is a chart with the subcategories by school, following by an explanation of the cutoffs used:

School	Stoplight	Bar passage	Jobless	Net earnings	Rank no cost	Cost rank	U.S. news
Yale	green	green	green	green	1	60	1
UChicago	green	green	green	green	2	97	3
Harvard	green	green	green	green	3	139	4
Stanford	green	green	green	green	4	67	2
NYU	yellow	green	green	yellow	5	121	7
U Penn	green	green	green	green	6	113	6
Columbia	yellow	green	green	yellow	7	115	4
Duke	green	green	green	green	8	51	11
UVA	green	green	green	green	9	110	8
UC Berkeley	green	green	green	green	10	103	9
Cornell	green	green	green	green	11	81	12
Northwestern	green	green	green	green	12	94	13
U of MI	green	green	green	green	13	54	10
Vanderbilt	green	green	green	green	14	77	17
WUSTL	green	green	green	green	15	61	16
Georgetown	green	green	green	green	16	151	14
UCLA	green	green	green	green	17	89	15
UT Austin	green	green	green	green	18	68	17
USC	green	green	green	green	19	123	20
Boston U	green	green	green	green	20	117	17
Fordham	green	green	green	green	21	144	37
Notre Dame	green	green	green	green	22	83	25
U of MN	yellow	green	green	yellow	23	167	21
Boston College	yellow	green	green	yellow	24	142	35
GW	yellow	green	green	yellow	25	158	25
U of GA	green	green	green	green	26	29	29
BYU	green	green	green	green	27	2	23
Ohio State	red	green	green	red	28	175	30
U of NC	green	green	green	green	29	35	23
UC Irvine	yellow	green	yellow	green	30	108	37
Emory	red	green	yellow	red	31	189	30
U of FL	green	green	green	green	32	21	21
Wake Forest	green	green	green	green	33	57	37
William and Mary	yellow	green	yellow	green	34	65	30
Villanova	green	green	green	green	35	93	56
U of IL	green	green	green	green	36	40	35
IU Bloomington	green	green	green	green	37	114	43
SMU	yellow	green	green	yellow	38	153	58
U of IA	green	green	green	green	39	84	28
UC Davis	yellow	green	yellow	yellow	40	148	37
U of AL	yellow	green	yellow	green	41	32	25
Wash. and Lee	green	green	green	green	42	85	35
Temple	green	green	green	green	43	24	63
U of UT	yellow	green	yellow	green	44	49	37
Seton Hall	red	green	yellow	red	45	163	73
Cardozo	red	green	green	red	46	160	52
St. John's	yellow	green	green	yellow	47	162	84
U of WI	yellow	green	yellow	green	48	105	43
U of WA	red	green	yellow	red	49	149	49
AZ State	yellow	green	green	yellow	50	104	30
George Mason	yellow	green	yellow	green	51	19	30
Texas A&M	green	green	green	green	52	53	46
U of CO	yellow	green	yellow	green	53	39	49
FL State	yellow	green	yellow	green	54	9	47
Northeastern	yellow	green	yellow	green	55	98	73
U of KS	yellow	green	yellow	green	56	8	67
Wayne State	yellow	green	yellow	green	57	25	58
U of Houston	yellow	green	yellow	green	58	124	58
U of Miami	red	green	yellow	red	59	179	73
U of TN	yellow	green	yellow	yellow	60	136	56
Baylor	red	green	green	red	61	191	58
Pepperdine	red	green	yellow	red	62	177	52
U of MD	green	green	green	green	63	128	47
U of Richmond	yellow	green	yellow	yellow	64	118	52
U of KY	yellow	green	green	yellow	65	165	67
UC Hastings	yellow	green	yellow	green	66	116	51
Loyola Los Angeles	red	green	yellow	red	67	182	67
PA State	red	green	yellow	red	68	120	64
U of MO	yellow	green	yellow	green	69	15	67
FIU	yellow	green	yellow	green	70	31	98
U of Cincinnati	green	green	green	green	71	1	88
U of OK	yellow	green	green	yellow	72	5	88
Tulane	red	green	yellow	red	73	172	55
Drexel	yellow	green	yellow	green	74	70	78
U of AZ	yellow	green	yellow	green	75	13	45
American	yellow	green	yellow	green	76	109	73
U of San Diego	red	green	yellow	red	77	154	64
U of Denver	red	green	yellow	red	78	150	78
Case Western	red	green	yellow	red	79	147	78
U of SC	yellow	green	yellow	green	80	14	84
U of Pittsburgh	yellow	green	yellow	green	81	112	78
Brooklyn	red	green	yellow	red	82	159	98
U of CT	red	green	yellow	red	83	171	64
UNLV	yellow	green	yellow	green	84	38	67
GA State	yellow	green	yellow	green	85	111	78
Texas Tech	red	green	yellow	red	86	47	105
Loyola Chicago	red	green	yellow	red	87	79	73
PA State Dickinson	red	green	red	green	88	30	58
Howard	red	red	yellow	green	89	27	98
Marquette	red	green	green	red	90	140	105
Saint Louis	yellow	green	yellow	yellow	91	80	98
Rutgers	yellow	green	yellow	green	92	56	86
St. Thomas MN	red	green	yellow	red	93	50	127
Syracuse	red	green	red	yellow	94	91	103
Belmont	red	green	red	red	95	187	133
U of OR	red	green	yellow	red	96	138	67
U of NH	red	green	yellow	red	97	100	105
U of NE	red	green	red	green	98	55	78
Duquesne	red	green	red	red	99	135	129
Chicago-Kent	yellow	green	yellow	yellow	100	95	94
WVU	yellow	green	yellow	green	101	36	118
Chapman	red	green	yellow	red	102	169	118
IU Indianapolis	yellow	green	green	yellow	103	41	98
LA State	red	green	red	yellow	104	86	105
Mercer	red	green	yellow	red	105	52	122
U of MT	green	green	green	green	106	16	103
U of Louisville	yellow	green	yellow	green	107	23	94
MI State	yellow	green	yellow	yellow	108	59	91
Stetson	red	green	yellow	red	109	119	111
Albany	red	green	yellow	red	110	76	122
Gonzaga	red	green	green	red	111	43	116
Lewis and Clark	red	green	yellow	red	112	75	88
Detroit Mercy	red	green	yellow	red	113	166	139
U of NM	red	green	yellow	red	114	168	91
Drake	red	green	yellow	red	115	126	111
Regent	red	green	yellow	red	116	44	142
Hofstra	red	yellow	yellow	red	117	181	118
SUNY Buffalo	yellow	yellow	yellow	green	118	18	94
Suffolk	red	green	red	red	119	155	122
U of MS	red	green	red	red	120	176	111
Depaul	red	green	yellow	red	121	143	105
Samford	red	green	yellow	red	122	130	139
Cleveland State	red	green	red	green	123	42	127
NY Law School	red	yellow	red	red	124	131	129
Campbell	red	green	red	red	125	127	unranked
Seattle U	red	green	yellow	red	126	106	116
Catholic	red	green	red	red	127	92	94
Liberty	red	green	red	red	128	33	unranked
U of Tulsa	yellow	green	yellow	green	129	17	118
Loyola New Orleans	red	green	red	red	130	146	133
U of HI	red	green	red	red	131	188	91
U of AR Fayetteville	red	green	red	green	132	87	86
Pace	red	yellow	red	red	133	96	142
U of WY	red	green	yellow	red	134	58	129
Santa Clara	red	green	red	red	135	193	133
Elon	red	green	red	red	136	63	unranked
U of ME	red	green	red	red	137	99	114
CUNY	red	yellow	red	green	138	12	133
Toledo	red	green	red	red	139	37	unranked
UMKC	red	green	red	green	140	78	114
U of SD	red	green	yellow	red	141	101	133
Nova Southeastern	red	green	red	red	142	164	unranked
Ohio Northern	red	green	yellow	red	143	10	unranked
Washburn	red	green	red	yellow	144	34	105
U of ND	red	green	red	red	145	48	unranked
U of Dayton	yellow	green	green	yellow	146	6	122
U of Akron	red	yellow	red	green	147	3	unranked
U of Memphis	red	green	red	yellow	148	26	142
South Texas	red	green	red	red	149	122	unranked
Southwestern	red	green	red	red	150	190	unranked
McGeorge	red	green	red	red	151	170	133
Creighton	red	green	red	red	152	183	139
UNT	red	green	red	red	153	28	unranked
New England	red	green	red	red	154	125	unranked
OK City	red	green	red	red	155	74	unranked
St. Mary's	red	green	red	red	156	152	unranked
UIC	red	yellow	red	red	157	141	unranked
U of San Francisco	red	yellow	red	red	158	185	unranked
Northern Kentucky	red	green	red	red	159	72	unranked
Quinnipiac	red	green	red	red	160	161	unranked
U of ID	red	green	red	red	161	129	142
Capital U	red	green	red	red	162	82	unranked
U of Baltimore	red	green	red	red	163	137	122
Widener PA	red	red	red	red	164	90	unranked
VT Law	red	yellow	red	red	165	133	142
U of AK Little Rock	red	green	red	yellow	166	20	unranked
Southern Illinois	red	red	red	green	167	4	unranked
Faulkner	red	green	red	red	168	69	unranked
MS College	red	green	red	green	169	7	unranked
St. Thomas FL	red	red	red	red	170	192	unranked
Northern IL	red	yellow	red	yellow	171	11	unranked
Charleston	red	red	red	red	172	157	unranked
Barry	red	green	red	red	173	102	unranked
Willamette	red	yellow	red	red	174	186	129
Widener DE	red	red	red	red	175	107	unranked
Ave Maria	red	green	red	red	176	134	unranked
Roger Williams	red	red	red	red	177	145	unranked
CA Western	red	yellow	red	red	178	184	unranked
Mitchell Hamline	red	red	red	red	179	62	unranked
John Marshall	red	yellow	red	red	180	180	unranked
Touro	red	red	red	red	181	178	unranked
Lincoln Memorial	red	red	red	red	182	66	unranked
TX Southern	red	red	yellow	yellow	183	64	unranked
FL A&M	red	red	red	red	184	73	unranked
Western State	red	red	red	red	185	132	unranked
U of MA	red	red	red	red	186	45	unranked
NC Central	yellow	yellow	yellow	yellow	187	46	unranked
W. New England	red	red	red	red	188	71	unranked
Southern U	red	yellow	green	red	189	156	unranked
Appalachian	red	green	red	red	190	88	unranked
Golden Gate	red	green	yellow	red	191	174	unranked
Cooley	red	green	red	red	192	173	unranked
DC	red	green	red	yellow	193	22	unranked

Yellow:
Academic: Bar passage is ≥10% lower than the weighted state average
Job: ≥10% of the graduating class is underemployed
Cost/debt: On average, graduates’ “earning power” is lower than the total cost of their law degrees. We define earning power as the average first-year salary of graduates who get law firm jobs.

Red:
Academic: Bar passage is ≥15% lower than the weighted state average
Job: ≥20% of the graduating class is underemployed
Cost/debt: On average, graduates’ “earning power” is ≥$15,000 lower than the total cost of their law degrees. We define earning power as the average first-year salary of graduates who get law firm jobs.