The LSU Law Center moved up 12 spots to No. 82 in the latest law school rankings released today by U.S. News and World Report. The Law Center remained in the top 100 law schools in the nation in the closely watched rankings, moving up from No. 94 in the previous year.
Some 196 accredited public and private law schools are reviewed by the magazine. LSU Law is one of 55 public law schools in the country to be ranked in the top 100. Additionally, LSU Law is one of only six public law schools and one of 10 public or private law schools along the Gulf Coast, from Texas to Florida, ranked in the top 100. LSU Law entered the U.S. News Top 100 for the first time in 2004.
“The Paul M. Hebert Law Center of LSU diligently pursues its missions to serve its students, alumni, the legal profession, the state of Louisiana and the legal academy. We are gratified that our pursuit of these missions is reflected in an improvement in the U.S. News and World Report ranking. We are particularly gratified that we have been able to achieve so much under difficult financial circumstances,” said Interim Dean William R. Corbett. “The successes of the Law Center are the product of the hard work and devotion of our Law Center community—our students, faculty, staff and alumni. Our people often overcome financial challenges through hard work and self-sacrifice for the good of the institution. To the members of our Law Center community, we express our gratitude, and we join you in celebrating this recognition. We particularly express gratitude for our departed colleague Interim Co-Dean and Professor Cheney Joseph, who epitomized the work ethic of the Law Center,” he concluded.
Factors in the rankings include: quality assessment (peer assessment and assessment scores by lawyers, recruiters and judges); selectivity (median LSAT scores, median undergraduate grade-point average and acceptance rate); placement success (employment rates for graduates of the Class of 2014 at graduation and 10 months after graduation, as well as their bar passage rate); and faculty resources (expenditures per student for instruction, library and supporting services, and student/faculty ratio).
The Law Center’s scores improved in several important categories, including quality assessment and selectivity. Additionally, placement success was up for the Law Center, reflecting the strong employment rates for graduates at graduation and some 10 months following receipt of their diplomas. Top passage rates on the Louisiana State Bar Examination also benefitted the Law Center in the 2017 rankings.
LSU Law has consistently been ranked in the top 10 Best Value Law Schools in the country by National Jurist/Prelaw Magazine. Those rankings are designed to identify law schools where graduates have excellent chances of passing the state bar examination and obtaining legal employment without taking on large debt. In 2015, LSU Law was the only Louisiana law school, public or private, included in the top 10 Best Value rankings.
Thomas C. Galligan, Jr., former LSU Law faculty member and Dean of the University of Tennessee Law School, will take over as Dean of the state’s flagship public law school in July. Mr. Galligan is currently the President of Colby-Sawyer College in New Hampshire.
From its founding in 1906, the LSU Law Center has offered its students a legal education recognized for its high standards of academic excellence, an outstanding teaching and research faculty, and integrated programs in Louisiana civil law and Anglo-American common law. Students at LSU Law are trained rigorously in the same common law and federal law subjects that are taught at other leading American law schools. The curriculum also reflects the Law Center’s unique role as a curator of the civil law and provides students a perspective on international and comparative law.
