The annual list of top law schools from US News & World Report is out, and the only major surprise this year is the way it was formatted.  Rather than stop the numerical ranking of schools at 100 followed by alphabetical listings of what they deemed third and fourth tier schools, the new listing extends out to 145 numerically ranked law schools and an alphabetized final tier of 45. 

Nothing changed in the top five compared to last year’s rankings.  Yale, Harvard and Stanford still lead off the list.  Within the top 10, Michigan and Berkeley swapped spots, taking the 7th and 9th slots respectively, and the University of Virginia moved from 10th to a tie for 9th.