The 2023 US News & World Report law school ranking is out and, low and behold, there’s a shakeup near the top. No, do not fret or fear, Yale Law School remains the top law school in America according to the well-circulated publication, a position its held for many years. But Harvard Law School has slipped to a tie for #4 with Columbia University. It marks the first time since 1990 — 32 years by our arithmetic — that Harvard Law has not placed among the top three in the annual ranking. A shocking turn of events indeed! And which school supplanted Harvard Law in the ranking? Wonder no more!

After the usual suspects in the annual US News law school ranking — Yale Law School and Stanford Law School (Stanford has held the #2 slot since 2015) — it’s the University of Chicago Law School that rounds out the top three legal schools in the land. After the fourth place tie of Columbia Law School and Harvard Law School comes the University of Pennsylvania Carey School of Law at #6, New York University School of Law at #7, the University of Virginia School of Law at #8, the UC Berkeley School of Law at #9, and the University of Michigan Law School at #10. Alright, you want us to go deeper? Next comes the Duke University School of Law at #11, Cornell Law School at #12, the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law at #13, Georgetown University Law Center at #14, UCLA School of Law at #15, the Washington University School of Law at #16, the Boston University School of Law, the University of Texas at Austin School of Law, and Vanderbilt Law School all at #17, and the University of Southern California’s Gould School of Law at #20.

So, besides Harvard Law’s slip in the ranking, the NYU School of Law slipped slightly from last year (a tie for #6 to #7. Duke’s law school slipped a smidge as well — from a tie for #10 to #11. Cornell and Northwestern’s law schools traded places from last year, flipping from #13 to #12 and vice versa, respectively. More significantly than these minor slips and gains, BU’s law school rose from #20 to #17 in the span of a year. Well done, BU Law…moving on up!