UNLV’s William S. Boyd School of Law is continuing to rise in the rankings of the nation’s top law schools, earning its highest-ever spot in U.S. News & World Report’s annual list of best graduate and professional schools.

Boyd jumped three places to 59 out of 194 accredited law schools in the 2019 U.S. News & World Report best law school rankings, released today. The school’s Lawyering Process Program was named the best in the nation for legal writing, up from second in the specialty category the past two years.

“We are honored to earn this recognition, and we are proud of the top ranking of the Lawyering Process Program,” said Daniel W. Hamilton, dean of the UNLV Boyd School of Law. “We have built a first-rate public law school, and we couldn't be prouder of the achievements of our faculty, our students, and our alumni.”

The Lawyering Process Program helps students prepare for practice. It focuses on professionalism, legal analysis, persuasion theory, and lawyering skills such as legal writing, research, interviewing, counseling and negotiation. The program has ranked among the top five legal writing programs in the country for the last ten years.

The Saltman Center for Conflict Resolution ranked 10th nationally in dispute resolution. Established in 2003, the Saltman Center is dedicated to advancing education in the field of dispute resolution and provides a venue for the advanced study of the nature of conflict and the methods through which conflicts may be resolved.

Among part-time law programs, the UNLV Boyd School of Law ranked 17, up two places from last year. This program provides opportunities for students employed on a full-time basis in the community to study law and graduate in a four-year period. Many of the law school’s part-time students are already leaders in their respective fields and in the community.

Overall, UNLV had 10 programs rank in the top 100 in U.S. News & World Report’s 2019 Best Graduate Schools publication. Joining the four Law School programs are UNLV’s part-time MBA program (97) and graduate programs in environmental (76) and civil (89) engineering, social work (75), earth science (78) and public affairs (87).

Each year, U.S. News analyzes more than 2,000 graduate and specialty programs in a wide range of disciplines. Programs are ranked by discipline or specialty and evaluated based on criteria specific to each degree field, expert opinions about program excellence and statistical indicators that measure the quality of a school's faculty, research and students.