The Best Law Schools For Tax Law (2025)
A ranking for what may be considered one of the most prestigious and sophisticated practice areas. The post The Best Law Schools For Tax Law (2025) appeared first on Above the Law.
As we’ve mentioned time and time again here at Above the Law, there are lots of factors that go into deciding what your perfect law school is. While net cost and job outcomes likely will — and should — dominate any decision calculus, there are still other things to look at when making your final determination.
If you’re lucky enough to know the exact practice area you’re interested in post-graduation, then you probably want to take a look at the latest U.S. News Specialty Rankings. (Though it should be noted that what specialty you want to practice as an attorney may vastly differ from the ideas you have before you enter law school.)
Today, we’re looking at the rankings for what may be considered one of the most prestigious and sophisticated practice areas: tax law. If you want to take a number of tax courses as a J.D. student or are interested in pursuing an LL.M. in tax, this is the ranking for you. Here’s the methodology for the specialty rankings:
Law school specialty rankings … are based solely on peer assessment surveys administered to law school faculty who teach in that specialty area. …
Law school faculty members who teach in each specialty area rated the other law schools in that specialty area on a 5-point scale. …
All programs that received 10 or more ratings are numerically ranked in descending order from highest to lowest based on their average peer assessment scores in their specialty area. Schools receiving fewer than 10 ratings in a specialty aren’t listed in that specialty ranking.
Without further ado, here are the top law schools in the specialty of tax — and of course, because this is U.S. News, there are multiple ties:
Rank Score School 1 4.8 NYU 2 4.4 Florida 3 4.3 Georgetown 3 4.3 Northwestern 5 3.9 Virginia 6 3.8 Chicago 6 3.8 Michigan 8 3.7 Columbia 8 3.7 UC-Irvine 10 3.6 Duke 10 3.6 UCLA
As noted by Dean Paul Caron over at TaxProf Blog, these are the law schools that saw the most movement in the tax ranking:
[H]ere are the biggest upward moves:
- 14: Ohio State (#35)
- 13: American (#41)
- 9: Miami (#31)
- 8: Emory (#41), Notre Dame (#41)
- 5: George Washington (#23), Pepperdine (#23), Alabama (#31), Arizona State (#35), Pittsburgh (#35)
Here are the biggest downward moves:
- -11: UC-Berkeley (#31)
- -10: Vanderbilt (#50)
- -9: Houston (#41)
- -7: Florida State (#35)
- -5: Loyola-L.A. (#18), Georgia (#41), University of Washington (#41)
For the full ranking, check out U.S. News, where you’ll see how 195 law schools fared.
Best Tax Law Programs [U.S. News]
2025-26 U.S. News Tax Rankings [TaxProf Blog]
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Bluesky, X/Twitter, and Threads, or connect with her on LinkedIn.
The post The Best Law Schools For Tax Law (2025) appeared first on Above the Law.
