Business Insider’s List of the Best Law Schools

Summary: Business Insider’s “The 50 Best Law Schools in America” list takes a different approach to determining which law school is best.

Business Insider has created their own version of the best law schools by looking at the numbers from a different approach. With employment rates still suffering for recent law school graduates, Business Insider was primarily focused on determining which law schools have graduates in top legal jobs worldwide.

They took data from the ABA to rank the law schools by the percentage of graduates with full-time, long-term jobs that are highly coveted such as at big law firms with over 251 employees and federal clerkships and positions that are long-term, full-time jobs that require bar passage. The data they looked at also included the number of unemployed graduates, bar-passage rates, median LSAT scores, and tuition costs.

By calculating their data differently than other law school ranking lists, the results are somewhat surprising. See the top 15 below:

1. University of Pennsylvania: Bar passage rate of 98 percent, 75 percent of graduates have highly coveted jobs, and the median LSAT score is 169.
2. University of Chicago: Bar passage rate of 92 percent, 80 percent of graduates have highly coveted positions, and the median LSAT score is 170.
3. Harvard: Bar passage rate is 95 percent, 68 percent of graduates have highly coveted positions, and the median LSAT score is 173.
4. Stanford: Bar passage rate is 90 percent, 73 percent of graduates have highly coveted jobs, and the median LSAT score is 171.
5. New York University: Bar passage rate is 96 percent, 65 percent of graduates have highly coveted jobs, and the median LSAT score is 169.
6. Duke University: Bar passage rate is 94 percent, 68 percent of graduates have highly coveted positions, and the median LSAT score is 169.
7. Columbia University: Bar passage rate is 92 percent, 77 percent of graduates have highly coveted jobs, and the median LSAT score is 171.
8. Cornell University: Bar passage rate is 92 percent, 62 percent of graduates have highly coveted jobs, and the median LSAT score is 167.
9. University of Virginia: Bar passage rate is 94 percent, 68 percent of graduates have highly coveted jobs, and the median LSAT score is 168.
10. Yale: Bar passage rate is 92 percent, 66 percent of graduates have highly coveted jobs, and the median LSAT score is 173.
11. University of Michigan: Bar passage rate is 93 percent, 56 percent of graduates have highly coveted positions, and the median LSAT score is 168.
12. Vanderbilt University: Bar passage rate is 93 percent, 39 percent of graduates have highly coveted positions, and the median LSAT score is 166.
13. University of Alabama: Bar passage rate is 95 percent, 17 percent of graduates have highly coveted jobs, and the median LSAT score is 163.
14. University of California at Berkeley: Bar passage rate is 88 percent, 54 percent of graduates have highly coveted positions, and the median LSAT score is 166.
15. Washington University: Bar passage rate is 86 percent, 32 percent of graduates have highly coveted jobs, and the median LSAT score is 167.

Which of the top 15 are you most surprised about? Tell us in the comments below.

To learn more about law school rankings, read these articles:

2017 Law School Rankings by U.S. News & World Report

Yet Another Set of Law School Rankings: The Best Law Schools in the World.

Law Schools Where Alumni Have Smallest Amount of Debt.

Photo: businessinsider.my