Oxford trumps Cambridge in world law school rankings, again

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By Thomas Connelly on

Eight UK institutions land top 50 slots, a drop on last year’s results

A new global university power list has said that the University of Oxford’s law faculty is better than Cambridge’s.

QS World University Rankings compiled the new data by questioning thousands of university academics and graduate employers. The research website then took this information and ranked law schools in accordance with six key criteria: academic reputation, employer reputation, student-to-faculty ratio, international attraction, research quality and impact of work published.

According to the new 2017 table, released this week, Oxford University is home to the United Kingdom’s top performing law school. Ranking second globally, Oxford, for the second consecutive year, saw off stiff competition from its Cambridge cousin, which finished in third.

It was also good news for the capital’s legal institutions. The London School of Economics (seventh), University College London (12th) and King’s College London (joint 18th) all landed top 20 slots.

The University of Edinburgh, which finished 28th last year, rose four places to claim 24th on the 2017 table. Rounding off the global top 50, Queen Mary University of London and Durham University finished 37th and 40th respectively. Neither Nottingham nor Bristol, which featured on the 2016 list in 41st and 49th place respectively, made it to the top 50 this time around.

For the fourth year running, the accolade for the world’s best law school went to Harvard University. You can view the full list here.

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