People love to ridicule this profession, but they should well remember that many of America’s presidents were lawyers. Usually after nearly a decade of intense training, lawyers perform an important and difficult service: tending the rule of law.

The rule of law is perhaps the difference between order and chaos. While the U.S. legal system is by no means perfect — the institution may work in favor of those with the power to direct its authority, for example — any justice that is to take place rests on the bedrock of these rules. And it is always evolving. The law of the land must be constantly written and rewritten, interpreted and deployed, to keep up with societal shifts and resolve disputes.

Hundreds of law schools churn out an army of lawyers to courtrooms, offices, classrooms, and corporate boardrooms across the United States. Various academic institutions accept hundreds of thousands of applications every year, and not all have the same quality and prestige.

24/7 Wall St. reviewed data — including LSAT scores, average GPA of accepted applicants, and acceptance rates — for over 200 top law schools from the American Bar Association to determine the hardest law schools to get into.

Click here to see the hardest law schools to get into.
Click here to see our detailed findings and methodology.