The William H. Bowen School of Law has been named among the best legal writing programs for the second straight year in the U.S. News and World Report rankings of accredited law schools.

This year’s rankings show the law school as No. 15 among legal writing programs, up from last year’s ranking of 22. This rank is shared with law schools at Boston College, Lewis and Clark College and University of Detroit–Mercy. It is the fifth year in the last seven that the Bowen Law School has been named to the list.

In addition to the legal writing rank, Bowen ranked 43rd among part-time law school programs in the United States.

“We have always prized our legal writing program, as well as our part-time program,” said Dean John DiPippa.

“Our part-time program is an important part of who we are, and we have worked to make our outstanding legal writing program even better in the past few years. Our efforts are clearly paying off.”

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 2010 and early 2011.