Rankings
The JusticeInside ranks law schools, law firms and litigation practices in India and the United States on published, repeatable criteria. This page explains what we rank, how we rank it, and when each edition appears.
What we rank and when
| Series | Covers | Basis | Next edition |
|---|---|---|---|
| Law Schools: India | National law universities and other law schools offering the five-year programme | Placement data, faculty, moot and clinical record, student survey | March 2027 |
| Law Schools: US | ABA-accredited law schools | Bar passage, employment outcomes at ten months, cost of attendance, clerkship placement | March 2027 |
| Law Firms: India | Full-service and specialist firms with 50 or more lawyers | Reported matters, client references, lateral and partner-track data, pay and hours disclosures | June 2027 |
| Law Firms: US | The 200 largest firms by revenue, and litigation and transactional boutiques | Reported matters, client references, associate survey, pro bono hours | June 2027 |
| Litigation Practices | Counsel and chambers in the Supreme Court of India and the high courts; trial and appellate practices in the US federal courts | Reported appearances and outcomes, peer and bench references | September 2027 |
Law schools
Two editions, one for India and one for the United States, published together each March so that applicants to either system have them before they commit.
For India, we survey every national law university and the other law schools offering the five-year integrated programme, and we weight placements by the quality and durability of the roles rather than the headline salary: a graduate still in the same job two years out counts for more than a day-zero offer that did not last. Faculty strength is measured by publication and teaching load, not head-count. Moot and clinical records are taken from the organisers, not the schools.
For the United States, we rank ABA-accredited schools on bar passage, full-time long-term employment requiring bar passage at ten months, clerkship placement and the cost of attendance net of grants. We do not use reputation surveys of other schools' deans, because they measure reputation, not outcomes.
Read our law schools coverage while the first edition is in preparation.
Law firms
Firm rankings are published each June, by practice area and overall, for firms in India with 50 or more lawyers and for the 200 largest US firms by revenue together with the litigation and transactional boutiques that compete with them.
The basis is reported work: matters that the firm submits and we verify against the public record, references from the clients on those matters, and interviews with lawyers on the other side. Firms also disclose pay bands, billable targets and partner-track data, and we publish what they disclose alongside the ranking. A firm that declines to disclose is ranked on the public record only, and we say so.
Read our law firm coverage, including the lateral-hiring and billing reporting that feeds into the ranking.
Litigation practices
A September ranking of counsel and chambers in the Supreme Court of India and the high courts, and of trial and appellate practices in the US federal courts, built from reported appearances and outcomes over the preceding three years and from references taken from the bench and the bar.
We rank by outcome in contested matters, not by the number of appearances, and we discount matters in which the result was a consent order or a withdrawal. Designated senior advocates and other counsel are ranked separately.
Methodology
Every series follows the same rules.
- Criteria and weights are published before data collection begins and do not change during an edition.
- Submissions are verified against the public record. A claim we cannot verify is not counted.
- No fee is charged to be ranked, to be considered, or to appear on any list. Firms and schools cannot buy a place or a badge.
- Referees are interviewed by our staff, not by the institution being ranked, and are not identified.
- Conflicts are declared. Staff who have a financial or family connection to an institution do not work on the series in which it appears.
- Corrections to a published ranking are made in the published table and noted on our corrections page.
The full methodology for each series is published with that series. Questions about the method, or requests to be included in a survey, go to contact@justiceinside.com.