Melbourne Law School was ranked fifth in the world, with the University of Sydney in 10^th place in the rankings, which were released on Wednesday (8 May).

Melbourne Law School has jumped three spots, from eighth position in the 2012 rankings, and now sits just behind US and UK behemoths Harvard University, the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford and Yale University.

Dean of Melbourne Law School, Professor Carolyn Evans (pictured), said she was very pleased to see the Law School ranked fifth in the world.

“The ranking confirms that Melbourne is a leader on the world stage and reflects great credit on our talented graduates and world-class teachers,” said Professor Evans.

“The result is a direct reflection of the passion of our people and the quality of work that they produce.”

Three other Australian law schools made it into the top 15, with The University of New South Wales, Monash University and Australian National University ranked 12^th, 13^th and 14^th respectively. Two other Australian universities made it into the top 50 – Griffith University (joint 43^rd) and the University of Queensland (joint 48^th).

The Australian universities were the only ones outside of the UK or the US to make it into the top 15.

The QS World University Rankings is an annual league table of the top 700 universities in the world.

For the 2013 rankings by subject, QS evaluated 2858 universities and ranked 678 institutions; it analysed 68 million citations and verified the provision of 8391 programs.