The UALR William H. Bowen School of Law has been named among the best legal writing programs in the country for the third consecutive year in the U.S. News and World Report rankings of accredited law schools. This year, the Bowen legal writing program ranked No. 9.

Rankings in 2011 showed the law school as No. 15 among legal writing programs, up from the 2010 ranking of 22. This rank is shared with law schools at Indiana University-Indianapolis, Suffolk University, and Temple University. This is the sixth year in the last eight that Bowen has been named to the list of top legal writing programs.

“We have always prized our legal writing program,” said Dean John DiPippa, “and we have made the decision that – along with our applied legal skills program – strengthening our legal writing program will be a priority for us at the law school.”

“Our focus has always been preparing students for entering the workplace, whether they practice law or not, to be excellent and logical communicators. These skills are but one thing that legal writing imparts to our students.”

Each year, U.S. News ranks professional-school programs in business, education, engineering, law, and medicine. These rankings are based on two types of data: expert opinions about program excellence and statistical indicators that measure the quality of a school’s faculty, research, and students.

The data come from surveys of administrators at more than 1,200 programs and some 13,000 academics and professionals, conducted during the fall of 2011 and early 2012.