Several organizations rank law schools each year. In addition, some rank areas of specialization, where CWRU particularly excels. Law schools are also ranked on faculty scholarly impact and bar pass percentages. Here are CWRU’s latest rankings from each organization, indicating the factors that went into each.
Overall Ranking
In 2022, TFE Times ranked CWRU the 66th 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 2022, U.S. News and World Report ranked CWRU the 78th best law school in the nation (2nd best law school in the State of Ohio) based on nine factors: peer assessment score, lawyers/judges assessment 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. Forty percent of the U.S. News overall score is based on surveys of faculty, deans, judges and practitioners who rank all law schools on a 1-5 scale.
Ranking of Specialty Areas
Law schools are also ranked based on their specialty areas. In 2021-2022, preLaw magazine ranked CWRU as a "Top Law School" in 12 specialty areas:
- Health Law (A+) (Back to School Issue 2020)
- International Law (A+) (Winter 2022)
- Intellectual Property Law (A+) (Spring 2021)
- Tech Law (A+) (Winter 2021)
- Trial Advocacy and Litigation (A+) (Winter 2022)
- Practical Training (A+) (Spring 2021).
- Environmental Law (A) (Spring 2021)
- Business and Corporate Law (A) (Fall 2020)
- Criminal Law (A) (Winter 2022)
- Human Rights Law (A-) (Back to School Issue 2020)
- Public Policy Law (A-) (Winter 2022)
- 9th best in the nation in Public Interest Law (Winter 2020)
- 20th in Criminal Justice/Public Defense (Winter 2020)
- 6th best in the nation in Practical Training (Spring 2021)
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 2022 rankings issue of U.S. News and World Report ranked CWRU #13 in the nation in Health Law, #21 in International Law, #36 in Intellectual Property Law, #44 in Environmental Law, and #64 in Clinical Education. The U.S. News specialty rankings are based on surveys by one expert in each specialty at each law school.
Faculty Rankings
The Head and Sichelman study of scholarly impact, based on SSRN downloads and HeinOnline citations, ranked the CWRU faculty 30th in the nation.
The Sisk/Leiter study ranked the CWRU faculty 36th in the nation based on citations to their publications over the past three years. In addition, Sisk/Leiter rank several of CWRU Law School’s faculty members—Jonathan Adler, Sharona Hoffman and Casandra Robertson as among the most cited in their fields.
Bar Pass Ranking
CWRU’s graduates traditionally have among the highest bar pass rates of the nine Ohio law schools for first-time takers in the Ohio Bar Exam. Here is how CWRU placed in each of the past five years on the July Ohio Bar Exam.
- 2017: 1st
- 2018: 2nd
- 2019: 1st
- 2020: 1st
- 2021: 3rd