In the best law schools of 2010, the position of the top ten has some tied positions. UC Berkeley and the University of Chicago are tied for sixth place, while Duke, Northwestern and UVA are tied three-way for 10th place. This means that the top ten list actually includes 12 different schools. Below is the final list of the top ten law schools in 2010.

1) Yale
2) Harvard
3) Stanford
4) Colombia
5) New York University
6) University of California at Berkeley
6) University of Chicago
8) Pennsylvania
9) University of Michigan at Ann Arbor
10) Duke University
10) Northwestern University
10) University of Virginia

While it seems inappropriate for a top ten list to contain 12 items, the combination of student surveys and quantitative assessment scores creates equal placements on the list for many schools. While there have been many changes to the top 100 schools list, the top ten have remained largely the same. Harvard recently eclipsed Stanford, taking the number two position, while some schools, like Berkeley, are holding on to their position by a thread.

Law schools are rated by many different sources, including Kaplan, the Princeton Review, and media sources like US News. The main ratings and evaluations come from the school’s Quality Score and Placement Success.

The quality score is found by combining a peer review score, attorney/judge review score, selectivity, your mean LSAT scores, mean undergraduate GPA, and your acceptance rate. These are also quite similar to the rankings of undergraduate institutions.

Placement success is based on the bar passing rate of graduates as well as their employment rates. This is quite different from undergraduate institutions, as all law school graduates head into the same profession with the same resources. Quality score and placement success rates give you the opportunity to choose the best school for you based on what is most important to you.