Choosing a Law School

How does one decide which law school to apply to? Is it the academic standards or the performance in moot court competitions? Is it the reputation of the law school in the industry or the reputation amongst other law schools? Rankings are always harbingers of controversy. Rankings released by different sources often conflict resulting in a fair bit of confusion, to say the least.

Here are the most important ingredients to decide which law school to pick:

1) Industry Reputation
2) Reputation amongst Foreign Law Schools
3) Peer Reputation
4) Academic Standards / Quality of Faculty
5) Recruitment Statistics
6) Location
7) Student Community / Campus Life
8) Hostel Quality
9) IT Infrastructure / Library
10) Quality of Entrance Process

In our opinion, a list of top colleges for 2006 should include the following in the given tier slabs (no rankings within the tier):

Tier 1:
NLSIU Bangalore
NALSAR Hyderabad
NUJS Kolkata

Tier 2:
NLIU Bhopal
NLU Jodhpur
Delhi Faculty of Law

Tier 3:
Christ College of Law
ILS Pune
Symbiosis Pune
GNLU Gandhinagar
GLC Mumbai
HNLU Raipur
UPES Dehradun
NUALS Cochin
Amity Law School (IP-University affiliate)
Bharati Vidyapeeth University, Pune

Tier 4:
Faculty of Law, BHU
ULC Bangalore
Army Institute of Law, Mohali
Kerala Law Academy
KIIT Law school, Bhubaneshwar

The New 'Juris Academia' (Law Schools):
NUALS, Kochi
CNLU, Patna
RMLNLU, Lucknow
RGNUL, Patiala

Note:

Why we are competent to release this list?

a) Our interaction every year with several law schools, especially students and alumni.
b) Understanding / assessment of the admission procedures.
c) Knowledge of placement / recruitment statistics.
d) Familiarity with industry opinion of the colleges.