Texas A&M University School of Law is moving on up.
And, no, the school’s new building being constructed in downtown Fort Worth hasn’t announced plans for a taller construction.
Rather, in the latest rankings released by the U.S. News & World Report, Texas A&M Law now ranks 26th in the nation as one of the country’s best law schools.
Moving up three spots from last year’s list, Texas A&M Law School Dean Bobby Ahdieh said, the school’s goal is to continue to make jumps in the rankings year after year.
“Are we appropriately focused on the ingredients of building a great law school?” Ahdieh said. “Our hope is that rankings will capture that effectively. And, I think we are.”
Since the Fort Worth law school joined the Texas A&M system in 2013, the school has risen from the depths of the unranked to becoming one of the top 30 law schools in the country, according to the U.S. News & World Report.
“When I worked to acquire this law school a decade ago, even I did not dream it would move up in the rankings this fast,” Texas A&M University System Chancellor John Sharp said in a press release sent to the Fort Worth Report.
Texas A&M Law also ranks as the second best law school in Texas. The University of Texas at Austin School of Law ranks 16th.
Texas A&M Law has risen 57 spots in the U.S. News & World Report rankings during the past five years.
Ahdieh attributed the rise to the steady progress the school has made in answering a core question: What goes into making a better law school?
He said three questions shape the success of a law school:
- What is the quality of students admitted to the school?
- What is the quality of the education?
- What results do you see on bar exams?
“Each year, we are seeing further progress, further increases in the direction of the quality of institution that we’re building,” Ahdieh said. “The fact that there’s underlying substance behind it is really awesome.”
Texas A&M School of Law boasts the highest graduate employment rate and the highest GPA of incoming students in the country, Ahdieh said. Students at Texas A&M Law also pass the bar exam at a higher percentage than at any other school in the state.
“It’s capturing something about the quality of our students, the quality of our faculty, the quality of our programs, the quality of our staff and the results they produce,” Ahdieh said. “That’s valuable.”
Texas A&M Law’s dispute resolution program, which emphasizes negotiation, mediation and arbitration skills, ranked fifth nationally. The university’s program for intellectual property ranked ninth and its legal analysis research and writing program ranked 11th.
In each of these categories, Texas A&M Law ranked highest in Texas.
The rankings tell Texas A&M Law that it’s on the right track, Ahdieh said, but it also sends prospective students a message.
“Lawyers choose where to go to law school,” Ahdieh said. “As far as I can tell, human beings are pretty well programmed. We care about which football team is better. We care about who gets more votes.”
The U.S. News & World Report rankings will be refuge for those who intrinsically need a leaderboard, he said.
While Texas A&M Law’s ultimate goal is a continued rise in the rankings, extra incentive sits 10 spots ahead.
“If you ask the Aggie what the goal is at this stage … the Aggies can almost smell it,” Ahdieh said.
That goal? An eventual overtaking of UT-Austin as the best law school in Texas.
Matthew Sgroi is an education reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at matthew.sgroi@fortworthreport.org or @MatthewSgroi1 on X. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
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