Every year US News ranks law schools overall as well as by specialty areas, one of which is dispute resolution.  Fortunately the specialty rankings are purely peer-based as opposed to some arbitrary number – like bar passage.  It’s so unfair that some states have diploma privilege and therefore law schools in those states get a 100% pass rate for US News ranking purposes and states like Arizona have the highest bar cut score in the country and our school is penalized for it – despite having a great pass rate (much higher than the state average, which would be a much better metric), but I digress.

Ohio State maintains its top ranking followed in the top 5 by Harvard (+1 from last year), Pepperdine (-1), Cardozo (+1), and Texas A&M and Missouri (both -2).  Full listing of the top 25 (ok top 30 due to ties) below.  And note, some really big jumps by some schools led by UC-Berkley’s and Penn’s respective moves up 25 spots.

And with that preview, here are the 2025 USNews rankings for law school Dispute Resolution Programs. Drumroll please. . . . .

1. Ohio State

2. Harvard

3. Pepperdine

4. Cardozo

5. Missouri and Texas A&M

7. Mitchell-Hamline

8. Maryland, Northwestern, and UNLV

11. Arizona State, Georgetown, and Oregon

14. Fordham, Stanford, Suffolk, and UC-San Francisco

18. Denver, Florida, Quinnipiac, and St. Mary’s (Tx)

22. Michigan and Stetson

24. Illinois, Pacific, Penn, S. Texas, UC-Berkeley, UCLA, and Vanderbilt