The Top 10 Underrated Law Schools

Summary: A new way of ranking law schools based on LSAT median scores, employment outcomes, and citations has uncovered several law schools with strong programs but not much public attention.

Everyone knows of the most popular and prestigious law schools but there are plenty of other law schools that produce just as talented graduates. A law professor at the University of North Carolina, Alfred Brophy, developed a ranking system on three criteria.

He looked at employment, median Law School Admission Test scores, and the number of citations a school’s law review is given. He says he is able to determine what really matters – how well a law school prepares their students for the profession.

While many may not care about the number of citations when looking at attending a school for three years, employment outcomes and test scores do count for many prospective students. For the employment criteria, Brophy only used the numbers of students that found permanent employment that required passing the bar exam. He did not include students that were employed by their law school through special projects.

Brophy warns students that they need to look at all the numbers before choosing schools. The job market is competitive so looking at the employment statistics from graduates is critical. Here are the ten most underrated schools from his list based on just LSAT scores and employemt compared to the U.S. News rankings.

1. Campbell University – unranked by U.S. News vs ranked 112^th by Brophy
2. Drexel University (Kline) – ranked 127^th by U.S. News vs ranked 87^th by Brophy
3. University of Montana – ranked 113^th by U.S. News vs ranked 73^rd by Brophy
4. Mercer University (George) – ranked 118^th by U.S. News vs ranked 81^st by Brophy
5. University of South Dakota – ranked 145^th by U.S. News vs ranked 111^th by Brophy
6. Albany Law School – ranked 138^th by U.S. News vs ranked 108^th by Brophy
7. University of Idaho – ranked 127^th by U.S. News vs ranked 98^th by Brophy
8. Louisiana State University (Hebert) – ranked 94^th by U.S. News vs ranked 65^th by Brophy
9. Northern Illinois University – unranked by U.S. News vs ranked 125^th by Brophy
10. Villanova University – ranked 87^th by U.S. News vs ranked 61^st by Brophy

Brophy’s full list looks very similar to the list U.S News produces each year. The biggest surprise was with Campbell University. Brophy ranked the school at 112^th whereas they receive no ranking by U.S. News. The school’s graduates are employed at a rate of 60 percent. Compare this to Emory, which Brophy ranked at 28^th, where their graduates are employed in full-time law jobs at a rate of 63 percent.

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-30/the-10-most-underrated-law-schools

Photo: stewartinc.com