"Once upon a time, the U.S. News & World Report law school rankings served a purpose. Not a particularly noble purpose, mind you, but a functional one. Instead of nurturing its reputation as a magazine chronicling "U.S. News" or giving a "World Report," it would churn out annual school rankings. The line between the 99th and 100th best Drama degree programs was a mostly vacuous distinction, but it gave prospective students something to guide genuinely life-altering decisions other than brochures put together by school marketers."
"For all the nonsense fueling the law school rankings, U.S. News provided useful, broad guidance. As a marker of prestige and future portability of a degree, was Yale really better than Harvard? Maybe, maybe not. But the "HYS" schools - in whatever order - were roughly better for prospective students than the "CCN" schools, which were in turn roughly better than the rest of the top 14, which we all decided would be better than the next tier."
U.S. News law school rankings historically offered prospective students a rough hierarchy indicating institutional prestige and degree portability. The rankings condensed insider knowledge into a crude but legible ordering, separating elite tiers such as "HYS" and "CCN" from lower groups. Recent updated projections for 2026–2027 released by Professor Derek Muller produce unexpected outcomes, including a three‑way tie for fifth among Yale, Harvard, and Duke. Those projections produce counterintuitive recommendations—such as favoring UVA over Yale in some philosophies—and challenge U.S. News's effectiveness as a prestige barometer compared with outcome-focused lists like Above the Law.
Read at Above the Law
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