Monday, September 13, 2010
Top 70 Law Faculties in Scholarly Impact--a New Study
Greg Sisk and colleagues at the University of St. Thomas (Minneapolis) have produced an expanded scholarly impact study, using the methodology of the study I released earlier this year, which ranked only the top 25. I have not reviewed the underlying data, but I have consulted with them at various intervals, and my impression is they have been extremely methodical and careful. Professor Sisk and his colleagues certainly welcome feedback and questions.
Their results confirm, happily, that I correctly identified the top 25 in scholarly impact. I just reprint here for ease of reference the schools ranked 26th through 40th (the weighted score is in the far right column):
Cardozo |
26 |
422 |
Ohio State |
27 |
413 |
Boston University |
28 |
405 |
Washington University |
28 |
398 |
George Mason |
28 |
394 |
Hofstra |
31 |
379 |
Colorado |
32 |
374 |
Washington & Lee |
32 |
372 |
USC |
32 |
368 |
Indiana-Bloomington |
35 |
355 |
North Carolina |
35 |
350 |
Hastings |
37 |
341 |
U. of St. Thomas (MN) |
38 |
324 |
Pittsburgh |
38 |
317 |
Hawaii |
40 |
313 |
Iowa |
40 |
310 |
Alabama |
40 |
309 |
Brooklyn |
40 |
309 |
Nevada |
40 |
309 |
San Diego |
40 |
309 |
Case Western |
40 |
306 |
Chicago-Kent |
40 |
306 |
Fordham |
40 |
301 |
Arizona State |
40 |
300 |
William & Mary |
40 |
300 |
As I have written, scholarly impact measures have limitations, but they are one useful measure of the scholarly output and distinction of a law faculty. One virtue of a scholarly impact measure is that it is a way for relatively new schools that have done good hiring--like St. Thomas, Chapman, and Nevada--to measure what they have accomplished. It is also useful for flagging more 'regional' law schools with unusually strong scholarly profiles.
Kudos to Professor Sisk and his colleagues for undertaking this exercise.
https://leiterlawschool.typepad.com/leiter/2010/09/top-70-law-faculties-in-scholarly-impact-a-new-study.html