Columbia Law School

Columbia Law School (or CLS) is one of the professional graduate schools of Columbia University. A member of the Ivy League, Columbia is located in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. David Schizer is the current dean. Every year since U.S. News and World Report began its law school rankings in 1989, Columbia has appeared in the Top 5, an honor shared only with Yale, Harvard, and Stanford. In addition, U.S. News & World Report consistently ranks Columbia among the top four institutions for academic reputation. In U.S. News latest 2010 survey, Columbia Law ranked 4 overall. For the past two years, Columbia ranked 1 in The National Law Journal survey of "Go-To Law Schools" as determined by the percentage of law school graduates hired by the nation's top 250 law firms. In 2005 Columbia earned the top spot in the National Law Journal's first-ever ranking of law schools from which the 50 largest American law firms hired first-year associates. Similarly, Brian Leiter's recent law school rankings (an alternative to the U.S. News survey) ranked Columbia 1 for job placement at the nation's "most prestigious" law firms and, for the past several years, 3 for student numerical quality (average LSAT 172.5 & GPA 3.700), surpassed only by Yale Law School (average LSAT 173 & GPA 3.890) and Harvard Law School (average LSAT 173 & GPA 3.855). Admission to Columbia Law is among the most selective in the U.S. with only 14.7% of applicants being accepted in 2008. Columbia has produced a large number of distinguished alumni including, among others: two Presidents of the United States; nine Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States (three of whom were Chief Justices); numerous U.S. Cabinet members and Presidential advisors; U.S. Senators, Representatives, and Governors; members of the federal trial and appellate courts; academicians and diplomats, and civil rights and human rights activists. Alumni of the Law School have been the president of more than twenty-six colleges and universities. More current members of the Forbes 400 attended Columbia than any other law school. For its teaching and scholarship, Columbia is lauded in corporate and securities law, international and comparative law, intellectual property, public interest and human rights law, and legal history and legal theory — administrative law, constitutional law, criminal law, critical race theory, and gender studies and family law, among others, are also exceptionally strong. Columbia, well known for corporate law, has a storied job placement rate at the nation's top law firms.