Law School Rankings

At Northwestern Law, we support rankings as a source of consumer information and believe they provide one way to measure our reputation and our progress toward the objectives in our Strategic Plan. Though rankings fluctuate over the years, our overall trend has been positive and we are optimistic it will remain so, especially as more of our graduates enter the workforce following the new initiatives from our Working Group process.

The following is a compilation of Law School rankings from various sources.

U.S. News (April 2009):
Overall:	10th
U.S. News Specialty Rankings:
Trial Advocacy:	10th
Clinical Training:	13th
Tax Law:	4th
Legal Writing:	10th
Dispute Resolution:	15th
International Law:	19th
Diversity:	5th (1st among top law schools)

Princeton Review (October 2008):
Best Career Prospects:	2nd
Most Welcoming of Older Students	6th (1st among top law schools)
Toughest to Get Into:	8th
Best Environment for Minority Students:	8th (1st among top law schools)
Best Quality of Life:	8th
Best Classroom Experience:	10th

Vault (March 2008):
Top 25 Law Schools:	9th

National Law Journal (February 2009):
Percentage of Graduates Hired by NLJ 250 firms:	5th

Brian Leiter Rankings (updated in 2009):
Total Supreme Court Clerks 2000-2008 terms:	10th
Per Capita Supreme Court Clerkships	9th
Percentage of Federal Appellate Court Clerkships for 2008-09:	5th
Student Quality:	9th
Mean per capita scholarly impact (based on citations):	12th
Median per capita scholarly impact:	21st
Per Capita Placement in Law Teaching 2003-2007	12th
Success Rate of Law School Graduates on the Teaching Market 2006-2008	6th
Top 15 Schools From Which the Most "Prestigious" Law Firms Hire New Lawyers	9th