Villanova University’s Widger School of Law stopped ascending in law school rankings for the first time in recent years, writes  Jeff Blumenthal for Philadelphia Business Journal. 

It placed at No. 56 this year on the annual law school rankings from U.S. News & World Report, down three slots from last year.

In comparison, Temple University Law School dropped 10 places while Drexel moved up by three.

In 2010 it was ranked 67^th and fell to 101^st in 2012.  Since then it has been moving up slowly.  In 2019, it moved up to 71^st and was 62^nd in 2020 and 53^rd in 2021.

Villanova ranked 39^th on Tax Law, 27^th on Legal Writing, and 46^th on Clinical Training.

The U.S. News annual review of 192 law schools looks at peer assessments, lawyers and judge assessments, undergraduate GPAs, LSAT scores, acceptance rates, student/faculty ratio, percentage of 2021 graduates employed at graduation and 10 months later, and the bar exam passage rate.

Highest ranking in the region went to The University of Pennsylvania which came in at No. 6, trailing only Yale, Stanford, University of Chicago, Columbia, and Harvard.

Read more at Philadelphia Business Journal about law school rankings in the region for this year.