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

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