Several organizations rank law schools each year. Collectively, these organizations rank CWRU in a range from 56th to 72nd best law school in the nation (out of 204). In addition, some rank specialty programs, where CWRU particularly excels. Here are CWRU’s latest rankings from each organization, indicating the factors that went into each.
Overall Ranking
TaxProf’s extended calculation using the data from Princeton Review ranked CWRU the 56th best law school in the nation, based on an average score derived from five categories: admissions selectivity, academic experience, professors-teaching, professors-accessibility, and job placement.
Public Legal ranked CWRU the 58th best law school in the nation, based on seven factors: GPA, LSAT, acceptance rate, student/faculty ratio, employment at graduation, employment at 10 months, and Bar pass rate.
TFE Times ranked CWRU the 65th best law school in the nation, based on: mean LSAT score, mean starting salary, mean undergraduate GPA, acceptance rate, graduates employed at graduation, and graduates employed three months after graduation.
In March 2021, U.S. News and World Report ranked CWRU the 72nd best law school in the nation based on nine factors: peer assessment score, lawyers/judges score, undergrad GPA, LSAT scores, acceptance rate, faculty/student ratio, grads employed in law jobs at graduation, grads employed in law jobs ten months after graduation, and the school’s bar passage rate in its primary jurisdiction.
Ranking of Specialty Areas
Law schools are also ranked on their specialty areas. In 2020-2021, PreLaw Magazine ranked CWRU as a "Top Law School" in 12 specialty areas:
- Health Law (A+)
- International Law (A+)
- Intellectual Property Law (A+)
- Tech Law (A+)
- Environmental Law (A)
- Trial Advocacy and Litigation (A)
- Business and Corporate Law (A)
- Criminal Law (A-)
- Human Rights Law (A-)
- Public Policy Law (A-)
- 9th best in the nation in Public Interest Law
- 20th in Criminal Justice/Public Defense
- 6th best in the nation in Practical Training
These rankings were determined through an analysis of six academic areas: concentrations (30%), clinics (20%), externships (10%), specialty journals (7%), student groups (8%) and other factors such as LLM programs, labs and the breadth of the curriculum (15%). Only a few of the most elite law schools in the nation received this many top specialty rankings from PreLaw magazine.
The March 2021 rankings issue of U.S. News and World Report ranked CWRU #11 in the nation in Health Law and #16 in International Law. The U.S. News specialty ranking is based on surveys by one expert in each specialty at each law school.
Faculty Ranking
The 2019 Head and Sichelman study of scholarly impact, based on SSRN downloads and HeinOnline citations ranked the CWRU faculty 30th in the nation. In addition, Leiter and Sisk rank several of CWRU Law School’s faculty members as among the most cited in their fields. The work of CWRU faculty has been recently cited in U.S. Supreme Court opinions, a judgment by the International Criminal Court and even the U.S. House of Representatives' Jan. 2021 impeachment report.
Bar Pass Ranking
CWRU grads ranked first of the nine Ohio law schools among first-time takers in the October 2020 Ohio Bar Exam with a pass rate of 94%. And, CWRU's nationwide 2020 bar pass rate was 95%, one of the highest of any law school.