The University of Alabama School of Law has once again received national recognition as one of the top law schools in the country.
Above the Law released its fourth annual list of the 50 best law schools in the nation, largely based on the success law students have finding jobs after graduation. The site believes “potential students should prioritize their future employment prospects over all other factors in deciding whether and where to attend law school. The relative quality of schools is a function of how they deliver on the promise of gainful legal employment.”
The University of Alabama is number 26 on this year’s list, rising six spots from last year. In 2014 the school came in at number 28, and landed at number 27 in 2013. UA is the only law school in Alabama to be included on the list.
Five other SEC schools were included: Vanderbilt Law School (15), University of Georgia Law School (23), University of Florida – Levin College Law (30), LSU’s Herbert Law Center (43), and University of Missouri (44).
Most of the top schools on the list are Ivy League institutions. Yale Law was number 1, knocking off Harvard from that position last year. Stanford Law School, University of Chicago School of Law, University of Pennsylvania Law School, and Harvard Law School completed the top five.
Above the Law put a strong focus on outcomes for this list, so they studied data concerning students who obtain real law jobs, the quality of those positions, cost of school and amount of debt, and alumni satisfaction. In the class of 2015, only 59% of law school graduates landed “real lawyer jobs.” Twenty-eight percent found employment in other fields, ten percent were unemployed, and three percent were in law school funded positions, meaning forty-one percent of law school grads did not secure jobs in the law.
Inclusion on this list is just one of many accolades the University of Alabama School of Law has received. In 2015 the U.S. News & World Report ranked it among the top 25 law schools in the country, and graduates of the school pass the bar exam on their first try more often than graduates from Yale, Vanderbilt, Duke, and Cornell.
