Wednesday, August 17, 2022
Law professors ranked by h-index (Google Scholar) (CORRECTED)
MOVING TO FRONT, ORIGINALLY POSTED AUGUST 1--CORRECTED (three errors of omission from the first version: Bernard Black, Martha Fineman, and Nuno Garoupa)
I recently came across a ranking of 1,000 living chemists (link fixed) based on something like their h-index ("The h-index, or Hirsch index, measures the impact of a particular scientist rather than a journal. 'It is defined as the highest number of publications of a scientist that received h or more citations each while the other publications have not more than h citations each.' For example, a scholar with an h-index of 5 had published 5 papers, each of which has been cited by others at least 5 times" [source, footnote omitted].) Note that an author can have a lot of citations, but a relatively low h-index, if the author is not very prolific and the other work is not cited much.
Many of the most-cited faculty in the United States do not, alas, have Google Scholar pages (e.g., Erwin Chemerinsky, Richard Epstein, William Eskridge, Thomas Merrill, Catharine MacKinnon, and Martha Nussbaum, among others), and many of them would, I expect, have h-indices that would place them among the top 100 law professors based on the h-index. As a result, we list below only the "top 75" law professors, among those who who currently have Google Scholar pages, based on their h-index. (Only law faculty with their primary appointment in the law school were counted.) Perhaps this little exercise will encourage more law professors to create Google Scholar pages, so in a year or so we'll look at the top 100 (and hopefully most of the 75 below will remain in the top 100.) The data was collected on July 20, 2022.
Citations practices vary by discipline, and that is reflected in the h-indices of interdisciplinary scholarship in law as well. Economics, medicine (including medical ethics, or what is usually called "health law" in the legal academy) and psychology are high citation fields, for example, in the sense that every articles cites lots of other literature; history and philosophy are the opposite.
Here are the top 75, below the fold:
Rank |
Name |
Institution |
H-Index |
Area(s) |
Age in 2022 |
1 |
Cass Sunstein |
Harvard University |
171 |
Constitutional, Admin, Behavioral Law & Economics |
68 |
2 |
Tom Tyler |
Yale University |
138 |
Law & Psychology |
72 |
3 |
W. Kip Viscusi |
Vanderbilt University |
105 |
Law & Economics, Torts |
72 |
4 |
Lawrence Gostin |
Georgetown University |
97 |
Health |
73 |
Mark Lemley |
Stanford University |
97 |
Intellectual Property |
56 |
|
6 |
Lucian Bebchuk |
Harvard University |
93 |
Corporate, Law & Economics |
67 |
John Monahan |
University of Virginia |
93 |
Law & Psychology |
76 |
|
8 |
Alan Auerbach |
University of California, Berkeley |
90 |
Tax, Law & Economics |
71 |
9 |
Eric Posner |
University of Chicago |
87 |
Law & Economics, International, Commercial |
57 |
10 |
Richard Delgado |
Seattle University |
80 |
Critical Race Theory, Civil Rights |
82 |
11 |
Charles Sabel |
Columbia University |
77 |
Law & Social Science |
75 |
Frederick Schauer |
University of Virginia |
77 |
Constitutional, Law & Philosophy, Evidence |
76 |
|
13 |
Jonathan Macey |
Yale University |
74 |
Corporate, Law & Economics |
67 |
14 |
Bernard Black |
Northwestern University |
72 |
Corporate |
69 |
15 |
Jack M. Balkin |
Yale University |
70 |
Constitutional, Cyberlaw |
65 |
16 |
Daniel Farber |
University of California, Berkeley |
69 |
Constitutional, Environmental |
72 |
17 |
Michelle Mello |
Stanford University |
68 |
Health |
50 |
18 |
Ian Ayres |
Yale University |
67 |
Law & Economics |
63 |
19 |
Bruce Ackerman |
Yale University |
66 |
Constitutional |
79 |
Herbert Hovenkamp |
University of Pennsylvania |
66 |
Antitrust, Legal History |
74 |
|
21 |
Robert Cooter |
University of California, Berkeley |
65 |
Law & Economics |
77 |
Daniel Rubinfeld |
New York University |
65 |
Law & Economics, Antitrust |
77 |
|
23 |
Dan Kahan |
Yale University |
64 |
Law & Psychology, Criminal |
59 |
24 |
James Hines |
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor |
63 |
Tax |
64 |
25 |
John Ferejohn |
New York University |
62 |
Law & Social Science |
78 |
26 |
Lee Epstein |
University of Southern California |
60 |
Law & Social Science |
64 |
Tom Ginsburg |
University of Chicago |
60 |
Constitutional, International, Law & Social Science |
54 |
|
28 |
Philip Alston |
New York University |
59 |
International |
72 |
Jonathan Simon |
University of California, Berkeley |
59 |
Law & Social Science, Criminal |
63 |
|
30 |
Carrie Menkel-Meadow |
University of California, Irvine |
58 |
ADR, Legal profession, Critical Theories |
73 |
Franklin Zimring |
University of California, Berkeley |
58 |
Criminal |
80 |
|
32 |
Samuel Issacharoff |
New York University |
57 |
Voting rights/election law, civil procedure, behavioral law & econ |
68 |
33 |
Lawrence Lessig |
Harvard University |
56 |
Constitutional, Law & Technology |
61 |
Robert MacCoun |
Stanford University |
56 |
Law & Psychology |
63 |
|
35 |
Dorothy Roberts |
University of Pennsylvania |
55 |
Law & Race, Law & Social Science |
66 |
Pamela Samuelson |
University of California, Berkeley |
55 |
Intellectual Property |
74 |
|
37 |
Akhil Amar |
Yale University |
54 |
Constitutional |
64 |
J.B. Ruhl |
Vanderbilt University |
54 |
Environmental |
64 |
|
Alan Sykes |
Stanford University |
54 |
International |
68 |
|
40 |
Stephen Bainbridge |
University of California, Los Angeles |
53 |
Corporate |
64 |
41 |
Richard Bonnie |
University of Virginia |
52 |
Criminal, Law & Psychiatry, Health |
77 |
Donald Langevoort |
Georgetown University |
52 |
Corporate |
71 |
|
Joan Williams |
University of California, Hastings |
52 |
Feminist Legal Theory, … |
70 |
|
44 |
Ronald Gilson |
Columbia University |
51 |
Corporate |
76 |
Henry Greely |
Stanford University |
51 |
Health |
70 |
|
Beth Simmons |
University of Pennsylvania |
51 |
International, Law & Social Science |
64 |
|
John Yoo |
University of California, Berkeley |
51 |
Constitutional, National Security |
55 |
|
48 |
Scott Burris |
Temple University |
50 |
Health |
66 |
Steven Shavell |
Harvard University |
50 |
Law & Economics |
77 |
|
Eugene Volokh |
University of California, Los Angeles |
50 |
Constitutional |
54 |
|
51 |
Brian Leiter |
University of Chicago |
49 |
Law & Philosophy |
59 |
52 |
Grainne de Burca |
New York University |
48 |
International |
|
Steven Schwarcz |
Duke University |
48 |
Commercial |
73 |
|
Randall Thomas |
Vanderbilt University |
48 |
Corporate |
67 |
|
55 |
Steve Charnovitz |
George Washington University |
47 |
International |
68 |
Symeon Symeonides |
Wilamette University |
47 |
Conflicts, International, Comparative |
73 |
|
Robin West |
Georgetown University |
47 |
Feminist Legal Theory, Constitutional |
68 |
|
58 |
Shari Seidman Diamond |
Northwestern University |
46 |
Law & Psychology |
75 |
Valerie Hans |
Cornell University |
46 |
Law & Psychology |
71 |
|
Marcel Kahan |
New York University |
46 |
Corporate |
60 |
|
Lawrence Solum |
University of Virginia |
46 |
Constitutional, Civil Procedure, Law & Philosophy |
68 |
|
Peter Yu |
Texas A&M University |
46 |
Intellectual Property |
51 |
|
63 |
Curtis Bradley |
University of Chicago |
45 |
International, Foreign Affairs |
58 |
John Donohue III |
Stanford University |
45 |
Law & Economics |
69 |
|
Martha Fineman |
Emory University |
45 |
Family Law, Feminist Legal Theory |
79 |
|
Richard Hasen |
University of California, Los Angeles |
45 |
Election law |
58 |
|
67 |
Ronald J. Allen |
Northwestern University |
44 |
Evidence |
74 |
Naomi Cahn |
University of Virginia |
44 |
Family |
64 |
|
Cary Coglianese |
University of Pennsylvania |
44 |
Administrative |
58 |
|
Daniel Solove |
George Washington University |
44 |
Law & Technology |
50 |
|
71 |
Dan Burk |
University of California, Irvine |
43 |
Intellectual Property |
60 |
G. Mitu Gulati |
University of Virginia |
43 |
Contracts, Critical Theories, International Trade |
54 |
|
Laurence Helfer |
Duke Univiersity |
43 |
International |
57 |
|
Thomas Lyon |
University of Southern California |
43 |
Law & Psychology |
61 |
|
75 |
Jonathan Baker |
American University |
42 |
Antitrust, Law & Economics |
67 |
Orin Kerr |
University of California, Berkeley |
42 |
Criminal |
51 |
|
J. Mark Ramseyer |
Harvard University |
42 |
Corporate, Japanese law |
68 |
|
G. Edward White |
University of Virginia |
42 |
Legal History |
81 |
Just outside the “top 75” were Richard Revesz, James Jacobs, Nuno Garoupa, Ugo Mattei, I. Glenn Cohen, Franceso Parisi, Bruce Green, David Faigman, and Gregory Shaffer.
https://leiterlawschool.typepad.com/leiter/2022/08/law-professors-ranked-by-h-index-google-scholar.html