Brian Leiter's Law School Reports

The "Regional" Law Schools With an Unusually Good Eye for Faculty Talent

MOVING TO FRONT FROM OCT. 20 IN LIGHT OF UPDATES AND CORRECTIONS (originally posted Oct. 16)

Which of the more "regional" law schools (those whose graduates mostly practice in the region where the school is located) have a particularly good eye for faculty talent?   As a measure of "faculty talent," we looked at faculty at the school over the last decade-and-a-half (roughly) who ended up being hired by top 20ish law schools.  The results conform reasonably well to the "common wisdom."   Here are the regional schools with really notable eyes for faculty talent; the school where the faculty member ended up being recruited is listed in parentheses after his or her name:

Cardozo Law School/Yeshiva University:  Barton Beebe (NYU); Daniel Crane (Michigan); Susan Crawford (Michigan); Lawrence Cunningham (George Washington); John Duffy (George Washington); David Golove (NYU); John McGinnis (Northwestern); Scott Shapiro (Yale), Kevin Stack (Vanderbilt).

Case Western Reserve University:  Olufunmilayo Arewa (Northwestern); Rebecca Dresser (Wash U/St. Louis); Michael Heise (Cornell); Andrew Morriss (Illinois); Ann Southworth (UC Irvine); Wendy Wagner (Texas).

Chicago-Kent College of Law:  Randy Barnett (Georgetown); Graeme Dinwoodie (Oxford); Daniel Hamilton (Illinois); Cheryl Harris (UCLA); Christopher Leslie (UC Irvine); James Lindgren (Northwestern); Richard McAdams (Chicago).

Florida State University:  Amitai Aviram (Illinois); Steven Bank (UCLA); Jonathan Klick (Penn); Gregory Mitchell (Virginia). 

University of Arizona:  David Adelman (Texas); Mark Ascher (Texas); Lynn Baker (Texas); Katherine Franke (Columbia); David Golove (NYU); Bernard Harcourt (Chicago); Dalia Tsuk (George Washington).

University of San Diego:  Stuart Benjamin (Duke); David Law (Wash U/St. Louis); Cynthia Lee (George Washington); Brian Leiter (Chicago); Arti Rai (Duke); Sai Prakash (Virginia); Emily Sherwin (Cornell); Steven Walt (Virginia).

Of course, one data point unavailable from the AALS directories is offers from top 20ish schools turned down; this would help Florida State and San Diego, I know, and might put schools like Wake Forest into the mix as well.

UPDATE:  A reader points out that St. Louis University, while not having as many as some of these other schools relative to its size, still has an impressive faculty alumni group for the time period in question, including two legal historians (Barry Cushman, now at Virginia; and Daniel Hulsebosch, now at NYU) and the international law scholar Derek Jinks, now at Texas.  St. Louis may have a special eye for legal historians, since, as it happens, Lawrence Friedman (Stanford) began his career there in the 1950s!

ANOTHER:  A couple of readers called my attention to the University of California at Davis, whose recent faculty alumni include Jennifer Chacon (UC Irvine), Holly Doremus (Berkeley), Rob Mikos (Vanderbilt), Angela Onwuachi-Willig (Iowa), Spencer Overton (George Washington), and Tobias Wolff (Penn) (and that does not include a number of current faculty who have declined offers from similar schools).  I had not listed Davis becuase I did not really think of it as a "regional" school (though I am told most graduates do stay in Northern California) and because it is, itself, fairly close in faculty quality to some of the top 20ish schools I've been using as benchmarks.

SIMILAR TO THE UC DAVIS situation is George Mason University whose faculty alumni since 1993 include Michael Abramowicz (George Washington), Barry Adler (NYU), Margaret Brinig (Iowa, now at Notre Dame), Claire Hill (Minnesota), Eugene Kontorovich (Northwestern), William Kovacic (George Washington), Erin O'Hara (Vanderbilt), Francesco Parisi (Minnesota), and Larry Ribstein (Illinois).

AND MAYBE ONE MORE?  Loyola Law School, Los Angeles is perhaps just a notch below those on the original list, buts its roster of faculty alumni include Catherine Fisk (USC, Duke, and now UC Irvine), Larry Helfer (Duke), Robin Kar (Illinois), Kurt Lash (Illinois), and Larry Solum (Illinois).

THIS ONE SHOULD HAVE BEEN ON THE LIST TOO:  American University has sent on Jamie Boyle (Duke), Adrienne Davis (Wash U/St. Louis), James Salzman (Duke), and Leti Volpp (Berkeley)--and that's just since 2000.

I should note that we did not look at moves to Emory (just an omission), which would have added a few more names to these lists.

The tail wags the dog, again

This time it's the General Accounting Office bearing the news:  competition for higher rankings in U.S. News is identified as one of the two major factors driving the rapid increase in law school tuition over the past dozen years or so.  Not surprising, since per capita expenditures is what drives the U.S. News results--not faculty quality, student success, bar passage, but how much cash-per-student is being spent, regardless on what or with what outcomes.

UPDATE:  My Dean, Saul Levmore, correctly observes that the GAO Report's attempt to exonerate ABA regulations as a cause of rising costs doesn't work:  "On the margin, ABA regulations might raise costs; evidence that something else, like rankings or competition, matters more, is a bit beside the point."

A Summary of the Results of our "Best Faculties" Polls

Here is a summary of the results from the "best faculties" polls we conducted over the last couple of weeks.  Bear in mind, of course, that schools differ in faculty size, which may affect the ability to effectively cover different areas.  So, at one extreme, we have Harvard and NYU will around 90 full-time academic faculty (depending on how precisely one counts them); at the other extreme is Chicago with under 35.  Stanford is in the 40s, while most of the top law schools are in the 50-60 range.  Recall that an * indicates a vote tally close to the school ranked ahead (so *#2 means the #2 school was quite close in overall vote tally to the #1 school).  A rank in brackets means a result outside the top ten, so less reliable in the sense that there may have been schools not included in the survey that might have done as well or better.  I continue to think that the rough results (top five, top ten, not top ten etc.) are more informative than the ordinal order, so bear that in mind as you review the summary:

Yale University

*#2 in Constitutional Law & Theory

#3 in Law & Economics

#2 in Law & Philosophy

[Not in Top 20] in Intellectual Property/Cyberlaw

Harvard University

# 1 in Constitutional Law & Theory

#1 in Law & Economics

[#14] in Law & Philosophy

#2 in Intellectual Property/CyberLaw

Stanford University

*#6 in Constitutional Law & Theory

*#7 in Law & Economics

[#15] in Law & Philosophy

#3 in Intellectual Property/CyberLaw

University of Chicago

#4 in Constitutional Law & Theory

#2 in Law & Economics

#3 in Law & Philosophy

[#14] in Intellectual Property/CyberLaw

Columbia University

*#5 in Constitutional Law & Theory

#6 in Law & Economics

#4 in Law & Philosophy

*#4 in Intellectual Property/CyberLaw

New York University

#3 in Constitutional Law & Theory

#4 in Law & Economics

#1 in Law & Philosophy

#5 in Intellectual Property/CyberLaw

University of California, Berkeley

#8 in Constitutional Law & Theory

#5 in Law & Economics

*#8 in Law & Philosophy

#1 in Intellectual Property/CyberLaw

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

#10 in Constitutional Law & Theory

[*#16] in Law & Economics

*#10 in Law & Philosophy

#6 in Intellectual Property/CyberLaw

University of Pennsylvania

[#15] in Constitutional Law & Theory

#7 in Law & Economics

*#6 in Law & Philosophy

[#12] in Intellectual Property/CyberLaw

University of Virginia

[#11] in Constitutional Law & Theory

#9 in Law & Economics

[*#11] in Law & Philosophy

[#11] in Intellectual Property/CyberLaw

University of California, Los Angeles

[#13] in Constitutional Law & Theory

[*#13] in Law & Economics

#5 in Law & Philosophy

#9 in Intellectual Property/CyberLaw

Georgetown University

*#7 in Constitutional Law & Theory

[#14] in Law & Economics

[*#16] in Law & Philosophy

#8 in Intellectual Property/CyberLaw

University of Texas, Austin

*#9 in Constitutional Law & Theory

[*#18] in Law & Economics

[*#13] in Law & Philosophy

[#21] in Intellectual Property/CyberLaw

Northwestern University

[#11] in Constitutional Law & Theory

[*#11] in Law & Economics

[Not in top 20] in Law & Philosophy

[#22] in Intellectual Property/CyberLaw

Duke University

[#14] in Constitutional Law & Theory

[not in top 20] in Law & Economics

[not in top 20] in Law & Philosophy

#10 in Intellectual Property/CyberLaw

Top 40 Student Bodies in Terms of *Numerical* Credentials

Here.  A slight change this year in the methodology for capturing significant differences in average GPAs, but otherwise the same as prior years.

Ten Best Faculties in Intellectual Property/Cyberlaw

So with almost 320 votes, here are the results (an * indicates a vote tally very close to the school ranked just ahead):

1.  University of California, Berkeley

2.  Harvard University

3.  Stanford University

*4.  Columbia University

5.  New York University

6.  University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

*7.  George Washington University

8.  Georgetown University

9.  University of California, Los Angeles

*10.  Duke University

University of Virginia was the runner-up for the top ten.

This differs a fair bit from the U.S. News list of the top ten programs in intellectual property, which admittedly was based on a survey before Lessig went from Stanford back to Harvard, or before Beebe and Crawford left Cardozo (for NYU and Michigan, respectively):   1.  Stanford; 2.  Berkeley; 3.  George Washington; 4.  Columbia; 5.  Chicago-Kent; 6.  Franklin Pierce; 7.  Houston; 8.  Santa Clara; 8.  Cardozo; 10.  Duke.  The differences are pretty easy to explain.  Our survey included Cyberlaw, while U.S. News did not.  More seriously, U.S. News doesn't ask about the scholarly distinction of the faculty, but about the best programs in an area, and that seems to have more to do with advertising and organization than with actual faculty who set the scholarly agenda.  In addition, U.S. News asks those surveyed to list up to 15 programs, and then ranked them based on which were mentioned most:  in other words, Stanford ranks ahead of Berkeley because some genius forgot to mention Berkeley among the top 15 intellectual property programs!

"Top Ten" Law Faculties in Intellectual Property/Cyberlaw

Let the voting begin.  I included many of the schools that asked to be included, though we'll see whether any of them end up in the "top ten."  I dropped Yale, since with only Jack Balkin in the general area, it clearly wasn't going to be competitive.  I also cut back on some of the embarrassing padding of the lists, after reviewing homepages and CVs.

Needless to say, you should only be voting if you actually know something about scholarship in these areas!

As before, if any blogger with an "interest" in the outcome links to the survey to generate votes, that school will be disqualified from the ballotting.   There isn't a lot of integrity to these Internet polls, but there has to be some!  (And, fortunately, Condorcet is very hard to strategically vote in, which is why the results in the polls so far haven't been foolish.)

UPDATE:   The faculty starting with Stuart Benjamin should also have included Laurence Helfer.

TSK, TSK!  I've detected some attempted strategic voting from the detailed ballott reporting, and if it continues, the affected schools will be dropped from the results (even though it's part of the beauty of Condorcet that even brazen strategic voting has a de minimus impact on the outcome).

This was predictable: Law Schools Start Cutting Back on Part-Time Programs Now that US News Factors Them In

In the first instance,that's what George Washington is doing, whose U.S. News travails we noted last Spring.  True to form, the WSJ journalist fails to note that part of the problem is that journalists report the U.S. News ranking as though it constitutes news.  If the journalists ignored U.S. News, or treated it as the misleading farce it has sadly become, then the law schools would find it much easier to pay it no mind either.

Faculty Lists in IP/Cyberlaw

Various readers (some students, some faculty) expressed interest in seeing more polls regarding faculties in intellectual property/Cyberlaw and in international law.  To avoid embarrassing omissions from the faculty lists (like leaving off Spier in L&E at HLS), I thought I'd invite feedback from readers before launching the poll.  So here are draft lists of faculties in Intellectul Property/Cyberlaw that might rank in the "top ten".  Post your corrections in the comments; signed comments only.

Intellectual Property/Cyberlaw

Harvard:   Yochai Benkler, William Fisher, Lawrence Lessig, Jonathan Zittrain

Yale:  Jack Balkin

Stanford:  Paul Goldstein, Mark Lemley

Chicago:  William Landes (part-time), Jonathan Masur, Randal Picker

Columbia:  Jane Ginsburg, Clarissa Long, Timothy Wu

NYU:  Barton Beebe, Rochelle Dreyfuss, Katherine Strandburg

Michigan:  Susanne Crawford, Rebecca Eisenberg, Jessica Litman, Margaret Jane Radin

Berkeley:  Peter Menell, Robert Merges, Pamela Samuelson

Virginia:  Edmund Kitch, Thomas Nachbar

Penn:  Shyamkrishna Balganesh, R. Polk Wagner, Christopher S. Yoo

Duke:  Jamie Boyle, David Lange, Arti Rai, Jerome Reichman

Georgetown:  Julie Cohen, John R. Thomas, Rebecca Tushnet

UCLA:  Douglas Lichtman, Neil Netanel

Texas:  Robert Bone, Oren Bracha, John M. Golden

UC Davis:  Keith Aoki, Anupam Chander, Leslie Kurtz, Peter Lee, Madhavi Sunder

UC Irvine:  Dan Burk, Anthony Reese

BU:  Wendy Gordon, Maureen O'Rourke

George Washington:  Michael Abramowicz, Martin J. Adelman, Robert Brauneis, John F. Duffy, Orin Kerr, Dawn C. Nunziato, Joan E. Schaffner, Roger Schechter, Jonathan R. Siegel, Daniel Solove, Sonia M. Suter

Best Faculties in Law & Philosophy?

A couple of readers asked, unsurprisingly, for a poll on this topic, but as it happens, we did this awhile back on the old legal philosophy blog, with about 70 (mostly specialist) votes and the following results (*indicates a very close vote tally to the school ranked ahead of it):

1.   New York University

2.   Yale University

3.   University of Chicago

4.   Columbia University

5.   University of California, Los Angeles

*6.  University of Pennsylvania

7.   University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

*8.  University of California, Berkeley

9.   University of Southern California

*10. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Virginia was a runner-up for the 'top ten.'   Putting the ordinal order to one side, the 'top ten' is probably the right 'top ten,' and the particular ordering isn't ridiculous though I'd quibble with some of the placements.

I do hope to run a few more polls in fields like intellectual property and international law--though to avoid omissions, I expect to run draft faculty lists here first and solicit feedback.  More next week...

Best Law School Faculties in Law & Economics

So with more than 300 votes cast, the 'top ten' faculties in law & economics are as follows (*indicates a vote tally quite close to the school ranked ahead of it):

1.  Harvard University

2.  University of Chicago

3.  Yale University

4.  New York University

5.  University of California, Berkeley

6.  Columbia University

*7.  Stanford University

7.  University of Pennsylvania (tied with Stanford, but farther behind Columbia)

9.  University of Virginia

10. George Mason University

Northwestern University was very close to George Mason in the final vote tally.  Detailed results are here.

Although, as readers know, these polls are scientific--on a par with the science of macroeconomics even--I would caution that the faculty lists used in this case were particularly controversial.  In general, schools included more faculty as part of their L&E group than the lists reflected, though correspondents sometimes used different criteria for inclusion and exclusion:  e.g., many treated anyone who had presented at ALEA (American Law & Economics Association) as part of the L&E group, while others laid more emphasis on formal training.  For purposes of a specialist survey in the coming months, I think we will just present evaluators with complete faculty lists, and let them judge which faculty contribute significantly to the L&E strength of a law school.

One observation about our polls so far:  in two extremely high prestige areas of legal scholarship--constitutional law and theory, and law and economics--Harvard has bested Yale (by a significant margin in L&E, only slightly in constitutional law).  (NYU has also beaten Columbia in both categories, though that was, to my mind, less surprising.)  We'll see whether that outcome remains stable in the poll of specialists.