- Jindal: #1 in India for 7 years in a row, but a big jump from #78 in the world to #35 in the world.

- NLSIU: Again ranked. Also a big jump in global ranking, from #201-250 band to #101-150 band

- NLUD: Debuts at 201-250 (where NLSIU was previously).

- NALSAR: Debuts at 351-400

- IITKGP, DU and Symbiosis also feature

Here's a detailed analysis of parameters:

- JGLS scores well in H-Index in citations and a good rating in academic reputation. Jindal pushes profs to publish in Scopus journals and they get good feedback from QS surveys sent to foreign universities, because of their tie-ups. This is their hack.

- NLSIU is ranking solely on the strength on employer reputation. Possibly good feedback from foreign law firms and MNCs, who were sent the QS survey.

- Ditto for NLUD and NALSAR.

Thus, faculty research at Jindal and alumni accomplishments at the top 3 NLUs are doing the trick.

Coming to DU, Symbiosis and IITKGP: once again, it is employer feedback that is pulling them through. What's less clear is if the people who filled up the survey were referring to the universities as a whole, or just the law school.

https://www.livelaw.in/lawschool/news/jgu-ranked-35-globally-law-qs-world-university-rankings-527826

https://www.topuniversities.com/university-subject-rankings/law-legal-studies

My guess is that the survey is sent to HR managers. For IIT KGP or Symbiosis, an HR manager at Microsoft or HSBC may upvote all departments and take a holistic view, but for NLSIU or NLUD, he or she will only upvote law.

That said, Symbiosis has a large alumni base with many Senior Advocates, lawyers at foreign law firms etc. So good reputation on its own.

This means:

- NIRF heirarchy of NLSIU>NLUD>NALSAR is reinforced.

- Tier 2 status of NUJS, NLUJ, GNLU and NLIU confirmed.

The tier 2 colleges can either throw a tantrum about this, or critically introspect why they are behind. In the case of GNLU, financial help from the Modi government has not translated into faculty quality. In case of NUJS, successive corrupt admins and apathy by the TMC government have downgraded the college from tier 1 to tier 2. In the case of NLIU, one corrupt VC is all it took to sink the college, along with a stupid government decision to open a second NLU in Jabalpur and spending funds there instead of helping the present one.

Finally, the problem of TLC-educated VCs not hiring good NLU alumni faculty remains a problem across the board. Sudhir Krishnaswamy and C Raj Kumar are the only contrary examples. In SK’s case, he has in fact systematically weeded out the TLC deadwood.

You do realise that QS doesn't automatically select universities to be ranked and one has to formally participate in such ranking, right? So any university that does not so participate can't automatically be considered better or worse for that matter. As for the accuracy of these rankings, the entire academic world is aware of the lack thereof. These can be hacked and do get so hacked, without having any qualitative bearing on the university or its students.

But if we get into it deeper, NLS, NLUD, NALSAR are the only ones that can be considered an out and out law University. No one looks at the others and says oh yes they are law Universities. IITkgp is an IIT first, DU is more commerce, arts and humanities than law first, symbiotic is more MBA than law first, Jindal definitely is know for its law school but that's not the only school that carries it's reputation. So in the end, we should focus more on the "actual" law Universities and not universities that have a law department.

I'm basing it purely based on their meteoric rise in rankings. Perhaps there woll a time when foreigners will come study at Jiggles like the climax scene in Mudhalvan (remade as Nayak in Hindi).

See, Jiggles has already left universities like Humboldt and KU Leuven behind. Purely going by QS, second place after NUS isn't far behind.

Yes, you are right. Jindal does push their faculty to ask their former profs abroad to upvote Jindal. NLSIU also does it, although to limited extent and not so aggressively. But then, by your logic, NALSAR can also do it and rise up the ranking. NUJS can also do it and enter the rankings. Why don’t they do so? It’s because they do not have enough profs educated abroad, mostly pure desi faculty. Further, those tho have studied abroad are not always bright enough to get their professors to remember them fondly and upvote their colleges.

And tell me why the hell would that foreign-returned faculty's overseas contacts do that? I live abroad in one of the countries whose many law schools score highly in the rankings (NB: no plans to come back, as my future overseas is pretty secured) and I can definitely tell you that anyone trying to get a contact in this country to do that would have to move heaven, hell, fire, water and earth to even hope to do that. Therefore, doing it at an "industrial scale" is totally impossible.

But let’s be serious - even if NUJS did participate, how many people really believe it will rank ahead of the top 3. Can it even be ranked ahead of NALSAR? It looks highly unlikely. It certainly won’t rank above NLUD or NLS and nowadays, barely any student would choose NUJS as a higher preference over the NIRF top 3. One thing about the top 3 is there are no backdoor entry options like NRI quota and whatnot. All the other tier 1.5 NLUs have this option.

There are serious structural flaws in how institutions and scores are compared. NLUs follow a single-discipline model that has no real parallel globally. Most universities worldwide are multi-disciplinary.

Because of this, NLUs face a built-in disadvantage in global rankings. Multidisciplinary universities such as JGU, DU, and others benefit from aggregated data across fields. This includes publications, research output, resources, and reputation. These factors significantly inflate their scores. In contrast, NLUs operate within a narrow academic scope. Their output is concentrated in one discipline, which limits their comparative metrics. Against this backdrop, the performance of three NLUs in global rankings is commendable. They have managed to stand out despite clear structural disadvantages, demonstrating strong academic quality and institutional capability. Some experiments in NLS, particularly NLUD, within their academic ecosystem are unique.

Debatable. Personally, it’s a place that shines in corporate placements and that’s about it. Rarely hear of NLUJ folks in spaces like civil services, top tier scholarships like Rhodes, or academia generally, or even places like litigation and judiciary. It’s a tier-1 college no doubt, but doesn’t seem to have the same level of diversity in graduate outcomes as the top 3-4 NLUs.