The UF Levin College of Law has reclaimed its position as top law school in the state.
Levin was placed as the No. 1 law school in Florida in U.S. News and World Report’s annual ranking of graduate schools released Tuesday.
Last year, Levin placed second behind Florida State University, the first time the college had not been named first in the state since the rankings began, according to the college.
Levin placed 24th among public schools in the nation and 47th out of more than 150 schools.
George Dawson, interim dean of the college, said the ranking is based on several factors, including GPA and LSAT scores of newly admitted students, student-to-faculty ratio, bar results, resources the school allocates to students and job placement statistics for students nine months after graduation, among other things.
“It’s a fairly detailed formula,” he said.
Dawson credited the rise in UF’s ranking to the college’s Center for Career Development, which works with students to find jobs after graduation.
According to the college, nearly 73 percent of its graduates are employed nine months after graduation in full-time jobs that require passing the bar exam.
The rise in ranking comes the same week as the college’s search for a new dean, and Dawson said he thinks it will have a positive effect.
Elizabeth White, a second-year law student, said she’s noticed Levin doesn’t have the cutthroat competitive nature other law schools have.
“Our community here is so strong and so helpful,” the 23-year-old said.
White said the ranking is important because potential employers take it into consideration.
However, rankings shouldn’t be a definitive judgment on any law school because they don’t measure everything, Dawson said.
Dawson said while he is glad Levin moved up in the ranking, some of its unique aspects weren’t noted.
“What (the rankings) do is they provide people with a way of trying to figure out whether there is a higher-ranked law school that they get into or not,” he said, “but I don’t think they do much more than that.”
[A version of this story ran on page 5 on 3/12/2015 under the headline “Levin ranks as FL’s top law school”]
