Brian Leiter's Law School Reports

Lawsky's (final) entry level hiring report for 2022

Here (earlier version).   118 tenure-track hires last year, at 75 schools!  That's the highest number in a decade, although still short of the 150+ figure most years prior to the Great Recession.

Florida lawyers take position in court that public university faculty curricula and classroom speech are "government speech," so regulable by state

Those thinking about taking jobs in the Florida public university system will want to watch this case.  If it makes it to SCOTUS, we may find out if Garcetti extends to faculty at public universities; if it does that will be the end of academic freedom at public universities.

Some very odd behavior by student editors at the Iowa Law Review

Lawprof Ramsi Woodcock (Kentucky) reports his experience.  Short version:  he was late turning in the final version of his article, so the Law Review insisted they would publish the earlier version, over his objections!   There are other twists and turns in this saga, but the student editors did not handle the situation properly. They can certainly reject an article that is not revised by the deadline, but they have no right to publish something the author does not want published.

UPDATE:  On Twitter, Professor Kerr (Berkeley) comes to the defense of the student editors.

USNews.com compared to other metrics of school quality

MOVING TO FRONT FROM MARCH 30, 2022

Here's the USNews.com "top ten", with other data on these schools.

US News overall rank	School	Overall scholarly impact rank	Scholarly impact rank for faculty under 60	SCOTUS “per capita” placement rank	Academic reputation rank in US News	Avg. rank across all metrics
1	Yale University	1	3	1	3	1.8
2	Stanford University	6	10	3	1	4.4
3	University of Chicago	2	1	2	3	2.2
4	Columbia University	5	9	9	3	6.0
4	Harvard University	3	2	3	1	2.6
6	University of Pennsylvania	8	14	15	8	10.2
7	New York University	4	5	5	3	4.8
8	University of Virginia	9	5	5	8	7.0
9	University of California, Berkeley	6	7	9	7	7.6
10	University of Michigan, Ann Arbor	13	13	5	8	9.8

71 applicants in the 2nd FAR distribution from the AALS...

...compared to 39 last year.  Probably the attention accorded to the astonishingly low number of applicants in the first distribution in August inspired a few latecomers to enter the market.

Top 95 law faculty ranked by D-Index

MOVING TO FRONT FROM SEPTEMBER 8--ONE CORRECTION (Prof. Helfer [Duke] was not listed with Duke in the database).

The earlier reference to a ranking of chemists in connection with my post about ranking of law faculty with Google Scholar pages by H-Index was a bit misleading:  the ranking of chemists alluted to was by their D-Index, that is their H-Index but only in discipline-specific journals.  Even in the cases of the chemists, though, it's not always clear how the discipline-specific journals are being defined (many important chemists show up in the "Biology and Biochemistry" category, including faculty whose work is pretty squarely in other fields, like analytical chemsitry.)

But this same resource offers a ranking of law faculty by their D-Index, except the field is defined as "Law and Political Science."  Since law is lumped with political science, unsurprisingly, faculty whose work is interdisciplinary with the social sciences do quite well here.  Once again, the health law fields (including bioethics) are also well-represented.   By contrast, constitutional law scholars that are highly cited in the law reviews do not fare nearly as well here, suggesting there weren’t that many student-edited law reviews in the database.  Consider, too, that according to this database, Ronald Dworkin has a D-index of only 34, Hans Kelsen of 31, and H.L.A. Hart of 23--so there is a strong "presentism" bias in the results.  (The database also includes a lot of retired or deceased faculty:  see, e.g., the ranking of University of Chicago in “Law and Political Science.”)

Some law professors also appear in other categories, such as “Humanities & Social Science” (e.g., Martha Nussbaum [Chicago], D-Index of 89) and “Economics” (e.g., W. Kip Viscusi [Vanderbilt], D-Index of 84; Alan Auebach [Berkeley], D-index of 79; James Hines [Michigan], D-Index of 64).  It’s clear the databases differ in the journals covered.  So, e.g., Lucian Bebchuk (Harvard) appears in both Law & Political Science (D-index of 59) and Economics (D-index of 79), as does Steven Shavell (Harvard) (62 in Law & Political Science, 64 in Economics).   For purposes of comparison, I list below only the results for the “Law and Political Science” database, since it also looks like the databases are of very different sizes.

What follows are the 95 non-emeritus law faculty with a D-index of at least 20 in the "Law and Political Science" database.

Rank	Name	Institution	D-Index	Area(s)
1	Cass Sunstein	Harvard University	114	Constitutional, Admin, Behavioral Law & Economics
2	Lawrence Gostin	Georgetown University	72	Health
	Eric Posner	University of Chicago	72	Law & Economics, Commercial, International
4	John Monahan	University of Virginia	69	Law & Psychology
5	Steven Shavell	Harvard University	62	Law & Economics
6	Lucian Bebchuk	Harvard University	59	Corporate
	Richard Epstein	New York University	59	Constitutional, Law & Economics, Torts
8	Michelle Mello	Stanford University	58	Health
9	Jeffrey Fagan	Columbia University	56	Criminal
10	George Annas	Boston University	52	Health
11	Bernard Black	Northwestern University	51	Corporate
	Mark Lemley	Stanford University	51	Intellectual Property
13	Tom Ginsburg	University of Chicago	47	Comparative Constitutional, Law & Social Science, Empirical Legal Studies
14	Charles Sabel	Columbia University	45	Law & Social Science
	Jeremy Waldron	New York University	45	Law & Philosophy
16	Lee Epstein	University of Southern California	41	Law & Social Science, Empirical Legal Studies
17	Scott Burris	Temple University	39	Health
18	Robert Maccoun	Stanford University	38	Law & Psychology
19	Robert Cooter	University of California, Berkeley	36	Law & Economics
20	A. Mitchell Polinsky	Stanford University	34	Law & Economics
21	Beth Simmons	University of Pennsylvania	33	International, Law & Social Science
	Alan Sykes	Stanford University	33	International, Law & Economics
23	Bernard Harcourt	Columbia University	32	Criminal, Law & Social Science
	Louis Kaplow	Harvard University	32	Law & Economics
	Joseph Weiler	New York University	32	International, Comparative
26	John Ferejohn	New York University	30	Law & Social Science
	Nino Garoupa	George Mason University	30	Comparative, Law & Economics, Law & Social Science
	Michael Saks	Arizona State University	30	Law & Psychology, Evidence
29	Mark Roe	Harvard University	29	Corporate
30	Douglas Baird	University of Chicago	27	Bankruptcy, Commercial, Law & Economics
	Laurence Helfer	Duke University	27	International
	Jonathan Macey	Yale University	27	Corporate, Law & Economics
33	Philip Alston	New York University	26	International
	Cary Coglianese	University of Pennsylvania	26	Admin
	Richard Delgado	Seattle University	26	Critical Race Theory
	Daniel Farber	University of California, Berkeley	26	Constitutional, Environmental
	Ronald Gilson	Columbia University	26	Corporate
	Benedict Kingsburgy	New York University	26	International
	Richard Leo	University of San Francisco	26	Criminal, Law & Social Science
	Petros Mavroidis	Columbia University	26	International, Comparative
	J. Mark Ramseyer	Harvard University	26	Corporate, Japanese Law
	Roberta Romano	Yale University	26	Corporate
	Gregory Shaffer	University of California, Irvine	26	International
44	Katharina Pistor	Columbia University	25	Corporate, Comparative
	J.B. Ruhl	Vanderbilt University	25	Environmental
46	Bruce Ackerman	Yale University	24	Constitutional
	Ian Ayres	Yale University	24	Law & Economics
	Daniel Bodansky	Arizona State University	24	International
	Grainne de Burca	New York University	24	International
	Valeria Hans	Cornell University	24	Law & Psychology
	Robert Howse	New York University	24	International
	James Jacobs	New York University	24	Criminal
	Robert Merges	University of California, Berkeley	24	Intellectual Property
	Jerome H. Reichman	Duke University	24	Intellectual Property
	W. Michael Reisman	Yale University	24	International
	Paul H. Robinson	University of Pennsylvania	24	Criminal
	Pamela Samuelson	University of California, Berkeley	24	Intellectual Property
	Adrian Vermeule	Harvard University	24	Admin, Constitutional
59	Jack M. Balkin	Yale University	23	Constitutional, Law & Technology
	John Donohue	Stanford University	23	Law & Economics
	Lauren Edelman	University of California, Berkeley	23	Law & Social Science
	Lawrence Lessig	Harvard University	23	Constitutional, Law & Technology
	Francesco Parisi	University of Minnesota	23	Law & Economics
	Jeffrey Rachlinski	Cornell University	23	Law & Psychology
	Alan Schwartz	Yale University	23	Commercial, Law & Economics
66	John Coffee	Columbia University	22	Corporate
	I. Glenn Cohen	Harvard University	22	Health
	George Fletcher	Columbia University	22	Criminal, Torts, Law & Philosophy
	Jack Goldsmith	Harvard University	22	International
	G. Mitu Gulati	University of Virginia	22	Contracts, Critical Theories, International Trade
	David Kennedy	Harvard University	22	International
	Reinier Kraakmann	Harvard University	22	Corporate
	Brian Leiter	University of Chicago	22	Law & Philosophy
	Randall Thomas	Vanderbilt University	22	Corporate
	Peter Yu	Texas A&M University	22	Intellectual Property
76	Omri Ben-Shahar	University of Chicago	21	Commercial, Law & Economics
	Shari Seidman Diamond	Northwestern University	21	Law & Psychology
	Michael Doyle	Columbia University	21	International
	Martha Fineman	Emory University	21	Feminist Legal Theory
	Randal Picker	University of Chicago	21	Antitrust, Intellectual Property, Law & Economics
	Robert Post	Yale University	21	Constitutional
82	Stephen Bainbridge	University of California, Los Angeles	20	Corporate
	William Wilson Bratton	University of Miami	20	Corporate
	Stephen Choi	New York University	20	Corporate
	Herbert Hovenkamp	University of Pennsylvania	20	Antitrust, Legal History
	Aziz Huq	University of Chicago	20	Constitutional
	Harold Koh	Yale University	20	International
	Richard McAdams	University of Chicago	20	Criminal, Behavioral Law & Economics
	Curtis Milhaupt	Stanford University	20	Japanese law, Corporate, Comparative
	Steven Ratner	University of Michigan, Ann Arbor	20	International
	Kal Raustiala	University of California, Los Angeles	20	International
	James Ryan	University of Virginia	20	Constitutional, Education
	William Sage	Texas A&M University	20	Health
	Frederick Schauer	University of Virginia	20	Constitutional, Law & Philosophy, Evidence
	Reva Siegel	Yale University	20	Constitutional, Legal History
	Daniel Solove	George Washington University	20	Law & Technology

Visiting Professors at the top six law schools, 2022-23

I haven't run one of these in awhile; here are the "visiting professors" in doctrinal subjects (some are "look-see" visitors, others "podium," i.e., filling a teaching need) at the top six law schools, who also invite the most visitors.  All are visiting from the law school of their home institutions, unless otherwise noted.  Only those visiting from another academic institution (as opposed, e.g., to practice) are listed:

Columbia University

Katherine Barnes (University of Arizona)

Eyal Benvenisti (Cambridge University)

Martin Flaherty (Fordham University)

Anjum Gupta (Rutgers University)

Clare Huntington (Fordham University)

Brian Langille (University of Toronto)

Thomas Lee (Fordham University)

Eliav Lieblich (Tel-Aviv University)

Moran Ofir (Radner Law School [Israel])

Ashira Ostrow (Hofstra University)

Alessio Pacces (University of Amsterdam)

Fred Smith (Emory University)

Harvard University

Margo Bagley (Emory University)

Bethany Berger (University of Connecticut)

Jud Campbell (University of Richmond)

Sergio Campos (University of Miami)

Emiliano Catan (New York University)

Edward Cheng (Vanderbilt University)

Jessica Clarke (Vanderbilt University)

Daniel Coquillette (Boston College)

David Fontana (George Washington University)

Rebecca Goldstein (University of California, Berkeley)

Michele Goodwin (University of California, Irvine)

Jonathan Gould (University of California, Berkeley)

Deborah Hellman (University of Virginia)

Eisha Jain (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)

Erin Kelly (Philosophy, Tufts University)

James Kraska (U.S. Naval War College)

David Leebron (Legal Studies, Rice University)

Sanford Levinson (University of Texas, Austin)

Jed Lewinsohn (Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh)

P.D. Lopez (Rutgers University)

Catharine MacKinnon (University of Michigan)

Peter Onuf (History [emeritus], University of Virginia)

Anne Orford (University of Melbourne)

Mariana Pargendler (FGV Law School, Sao Paulo)

Carlos Portugal Gouvea (University of Sao Paulo)

Jonathan Rapping (John Marshall Law School, Atlanta)

Michael Rebell (Teachers College, Columbia University)

Anthea Roberts (Regulation & Global Governance, Australian National University)

James Salzman (University of California, Los Angeles)

Sarath Sanga (Northwestern University)

Naomi Schoenbaum (George Washington University)

Miryam Segal (History & Middle Eastern Studies, Queens College and the City University of New York Graduate Center)

Alexander Stremitzer (ETH Zurich)

Alain-Laurent Verbeke (KU Leuven, Belgium)

Penny White (University of Tennessee)

 

New York University

Wei Cui (University of British Columbia)

David Elkins (Netanya College [Israel])

Michal Gal (University of Haifa)

John Goldberg (Harvard University)

Benjamin Liebman (Columbia University)

Sophia Moreau (University of Toronto)

Leigh Osofsky (University of North Carolina)

Gregg Polsky (University of Georgia)

Eric Zolt (University of California, Los Angeles)

 

Stanford University

E. Tendayi Achiume (University of California, Los Angeles)

Siegfried Fina (University of Vienna)

Joanna Grossman (Southern Methodist University)

Sonia Katyal (University of California, Berkeley)

Rogerlio Perez-Perdomo (University Metropolitana, Caracas)

Darien Shanske (University of Califonia, Davis)

Brian Slocum (McGeorge University)

 

University of Chicago

Netta Barak-Corren (Hebrew University, Jerusalem)

Jud Campbell (University of Richmond)

Christopher Fennell (Anthropology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)

Thomas P. Gallanis (University of Iowa)

Jed Lewinsohn (Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh)

John Zhuang Liu (University of Hong Kong)

Anna-Maria Marshall (Sociology, University of Illinois, Urban-Champaign)

William J. Novak (University of Michigan)

Mary Ellen O'Connell (University of Notre Dame)

Shaun Ossei-Owusu (University of Pennsylvania)

Diana Strassman (Economics, Rice University)

Kevin Toh (University College London)

Taisu Zhang (Yale University)

 

Yale University

Kevin Barry (Quinnipiac University)

Philip Bobbitt (Columbia University)

Richard Brooks (New York University)

Steven Calabresi (Northwestern University)

Jenny Carroll (University of Alabama)

Noel Cunningham (New York University)

Anne Dailey (University of Connecticut)

Michael Helfand (Pepperdine University)

Anil Kalhan (Drexel University)

Aaron Kesselheim (Medicine, Harvard University)

Jonathan Knee (Business, Columbia University)

Nina Kohn (Syracuse University)

Minor Myers (University of Connecticut)

Sai Prakash (University of Virginia)

Kermit Roosevelt (University of Pennsylvania)

Wojchiech Sadurski (University of Sydney)

Adam Steinman (University of Alabama)

Zephyr Teachout (Fordham University)

Robin Walker Sterling (Northwestern University)

Kevin Werbach (Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania)

 

"Feedburner" is defunct

For those who enjoy receiving blog posts delivered to your email account each day, I'm sorry to report that the service known as Feedburner has been discontinued by Google.  As an alternative, you can use an RSS reader, and still subscribe to this blog via Feedly, NewsBlur, or Inoreader.

In Memoriam: David Lieberman (1953-2022)

MOVING TO FRONT FROM SEPTEMBER 13--UPDATED

A longtime member of the Jurisprudence & Social Policy faculty at Berkeley's law school, Professor Lieberman had only retired earlier this year.  He was well-known for his contributions to legal history, especially the intellectual history of legal theory.  There is more at the Legal History Blog from legal historian Dan Ernst (Georgetown).  I will add links to memorial notices when they appear.

UPDATE:   A memorial page from the JSP program, along with remembrances from friends, colleagues and former students.  (Thanks to Chris Kutz for the pointer.)

Changes in federal clerkship placement at 8 leading law schools, 2013-2020

I only recently came across this interesting data via Derek Muller (Iowa).