Mason law school ranked among top 50 in the nation

Mason's School of Law was ranked among the top 50 in the nation (photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons).

U.S. News & World Report recently ranked George Mason University’s School of Law as number 41 on their 2014 list of best law schools in the country.

The degree to which the U.S. News & World Report increases enrollment is unclear.

“In the past, many students told us that USNews rankings were very important to helping them decide which law school to attend,” wrote Daniel Polsby, dean of the law school, in an email. “Today, cost factors seem to be more important, and USNews less important, to this decision.”

Nonetheless, Mason’s law school has been regularly ranked with the top 50 programs for the last ten years.

“The reason for this relatively high ranking is that we get competitive students, have a great faculty and curriculum, and put it all together in a serious, hard-working culture that leads to good bar exam performance and good careers for our graduates,” Polsby wrote in an email. “It is helpful of course to be located in a very large and diversified legal market.”

According to Polsby, 194 of the 202 fully accredited American Bar Association law schools were ranked. On their website U.S. News & World Report explain the methodology in which they put together the rankings.

The rankings are based on an average score in which 12 qualifications are taken into account. For example, there is an assessment score provided by lawyers and judges, in which they rank programs on a scale of one to five.

Other statistics such as selectivity, which is based on numbers like median LSAT scores, and the Bar passage rate are also taken into account.

Other ranked Virginia universities included the University of Virginia at number seven, Washington and Lee University at number 26, the College of William and Mary at number 33, and the University of Richmond at number 53.

“Our objective is to have the best law program that we can have. It is gratifying to have our efforts recognized, by U.S. News as well as others, but our objective is to structure our law school around what is best for our students and our profession and not around U.S. News,” Polsby wrote.

Last year, the school was ranked 39th in the nation.