TaxProf Blog

SSRN Tax Faculty Rankings

Theodore P. Seto (Loyola-L.A.) has updated his monthly rankings of the Top 25 U.S. Law School Tax Faculties, as measured by the number of SSRN downloads (through 12/6/07) [click on chart to enlarge]:

For purpose of Ted’s analysis, a tax professor is initially defined as any law professor at a U.S. law school (1) self-identifying with one of the tax categories in the AALS faculty listing, (2) who has posted at least one tax or tax-related article in abstract or full text on SSRN. Paul Caron’s listing of new hires and lateral transfers is also reflected. Further corrections are also made as requested. As is true of Paul Caron’s ranking of individual tax professors, downloads of all SSRN postings of any tax professor, so defined, are then tallied.

For more on the use of SSRN downloads in law school rankings, see Bernard S. Black & Paul L. Caron, Ranking Law Schools: Using SSRN to Measure Scholarly Performance, 81 Ind. L.J. 83 (2006).

SSRN Tax Faculty Rankings

Theodore P. Seto (Loyola-L.A.) has updated his monthly rankings of the Top 25 U.S. Law School Tax Faculties, as measured by the number of SSRN downloads (through 8/1/07):

   

For purpose of Ted’s analysis, a tax professor is initially defined as any law professor at a U.S. law school (1) self-identifying with one of the tax categories in the AALS faculty listing, (2) who has posted at least one tax or tax-related article in abstract or full text on SSRN. Paul Caron’s listing of new hires and lateral transfers is also reflected. Further corrections are also made as requested. As is true of Paul Caron’s ranking of individual tax professors, downloads of all SSRN postings of any tax professor, so defined, are then tallied.

For more on the use of SSRN downloads in law school rankings, see Bernard S. Black & Paul L. Caron, Ranking Law Schools: Using SSRN to Measure Scholarly Performance, 81 Ind. L.J. 83 (2006).

SSRN Tax Faculty Rankings

Theodore P. Seto (Loyola-L.A.) has updated his monthly rankings of the Top 25 U.S. Law School Tax Faculties, as measured by the number of SSRN downloads (through 6/1/07):

 

For purpose of Ted’s analysis, a tax professor is initially defined as any law professor at a U.S. law school (1) self-identifying with one of the tax categories in the AALS faculty listing, (2) who has posted at least one tax or tax-related article in abstract or full text on SSRN. Paul Caron’s listing of new hires and lateral transfers is also reflected. (Lateral transfers due to take effect July 2007 are not yet incorporated.) Further corrections are also made as requested. As is true of Paul Caron’s ranking of individual tax professors, downloads of all SSRN postings of any tax professor, so defined, are then tallied. This month’s tally for Michigan is boosted by the addition of Jim Hines.

For more on the use of SSRN downloads in law school rankings, see Bernard S. Black & Paul L. Caron, Ranking Law Schools: Using SSRN to Measure Scholarly Performance, 81 Ind. L.J. 83 (2006).

SSRN Tax Faculty Rankings

Theodore P. Seto (Loyola-L.A.) has updated his monthly rankings of the Top 25 U.S. Law School Tax Faculties, as measured by the number of SSRN downloads (through 5/1/07):

 

For purpose of Ted’s analysis, a tax professor is initially defined as any law professor at a U.S. law school (1) self-identifying with one of the tax categories in the AALS faculty listing, (2) who has posted at least one tax or tax-related article in abstract or full text on SSRN. Paul Caron’s listing of new hires and lateral transfers is also reflected. (Lateral transfers due to take effect July 2007 are not yet incorporated.) Further corrections are also made as requested. As is true of Paul Caron’s ranking of individual tax professors, downloads of all SSRN postings of any tax professor, so defined, are then tallied. This month’s tally for Michigan is boosted by the addition of Jim Hines.

For more on the use of SSRN downloads in law school rankings, see Bernard S. Black & Paul L. Caron, Ranking Law Schools: Using SSRN to Measure Scholarly Performance, 81 Ind. L.J. 83 (2006).

Overall Law Faculty Rankings v. Tax Faculty Rankings

Brian Leiter (Texas) has posted The Top 15 Most Downloaded Law Faculties, 2006 on our Leiter's Law School Rankings site.  The following chart compares how the overall faculty rankings compare to the tax faculty rankings compiled by Ted Seto (Loyola-L.A.):

[Click on chart to enlarge.]  Note that 7 of the schools comprising the Top 15 Faculties also are among the Top 15 Tax Faculties.

SSRN Tax Faculty Rankings

Theodore P. Seto (Loyola-L.A.) has updated his monthly rankings of the Top 25 U.S. Law School Tax Faculties, as measured by the number of SSRN downloads (through 3/1/07):   

For purpose of Ted’s analysis, a tax professor is initially defined as any law professor at a U.S. law school (1) self-identifying with one of the tax categories in the 2005-2006 AALS faculty listing, (2) who has posted at least one tax or tax-related article in abstract or full text on SSRN. Paul Caron’s listing of 2006-2007 new hires and lateral transfers is also reflected. Further corrections are also made as requested. As is true of Paul Caron’s ranking of individual tax professors, downloads of all SSRN postings of any tax professor, so defined, are then tallied. This month’s rankings include several requested additions to the NYU tally, among others.

For more on the use of SSRN downloads in law school rankings, see Bernard S. Black & Paul L. Caron, Ranking Law Schools: Using SSRN to Measure Scholarly Performance, 81 Ind. L.J. 83 (2006).

SSRN Tax Faculty Rankings

Theodore P. Seto (Loyola-L.A.) has updated his monthly rankings of the Top 25 U.S. Law School Tax Faculties, as measured by the number of SSRN downloads (through 2/1/07): 

   

For purpose of Ted’s analysis, a tax professor is initially defined as any law professor at a U.S. law school (1) self-identifying with one of the tax categories in the 2005-2006 AALS faculty listing, (2) who has posted at least one tax or tax-related article in abstract or full text on SSRN. Paul Caron’s listing of 2006-2007 new hires and lateral transfers is also reflected. Further corrections are also made as requested. As is true of Paul Caron’s ranking of individual tax professors, downloads of all SSRN postings of any tax professor, so defined, are then tallied. This month’s rankings include several requested additions to the NYU tally, among others.

For more on the use of SSRN downloads in law school rankings, see Bernard S. Black & Paul L. Caron, Ranking Law Schools: Using SSRN to Measure Scholarly Performance, 81 Ind. L.J. 83 (2006).

SSRN Tax Faculty Rankings

Theodore P. Seto (Loyola-L.A.) has updated his monthly rankings of the Top 25 U.S. Law School Tax Faculties, as measured by the number of SSRN downloads (through 1/1/07):      

For purpose of Ted’s analysis, a tax professor is initially defined as any law professor at a U.S. law school (1) self-identifying with one of the tax categories in the 2005-2006 AALS faculty listing, (2) who has posted at least one tax or tax-related article in abstract or full text on SSRN. Paul Caron’s listing of 2006-2007 new hires and lateral transfers is also reflected. Further corrections are also made as requested. As is true of Paul Caron’s ranking of individual tax professors, downloads of all SSRN postings of any tax professor, so defined, are then tallied. This month’s rankings include several requested additions to the NYU tally, among others.

For more on the use of SSRN downloads in law school rankings, see Bernard S. Black & Paul L. Caron, Ranking Law Schools: Using SSRN to Measure Scholarly Performance, 81 Ind. L.J. 83 (2006).

SSRN Tax Faculty Rankings

Theodore P. Seto (Loyola-L.A.) has updated his monthly rankings of the Top 25 U.S. Law School Tax Faculties, as measured by the number of SSRN downloads (through 12/1/06): 

For purpose of Ted’s analysis, a tax professor is initially defined as any law professor at a U.S. law school (1) self-identifying with one of the tax categories in the 2005-2006 AALS faculty listing, (2) who has posted at least one tax or tax-related article in abstract or full text on SSRN. Paul Caron’s listing of 2006-2007 new hires and lateral transfers is also reflected. Further corrections are also made as requested. As is true of Paul Caron’s ranking of individual tax professors, downloads of all SSRN postings of any tax professor, so defined, are then tallied. This month’s rankings include several requested additions to the NYU tally, among others.

For more on the use of SSRN downloads in law school rankings, see Bernard S. Black & Paul L. Caron, Ranking Law Schools: Using SSRN to Measure Scholarly Performance, 81 Ind. L.J. 83 (2006).

SSRN Tax Faculty Rankings

Theodore P. Seto (Loyola-L.A.) has updated his monthly rankings of the Top 25 U.S. Law School Tax Faculties, as measured by the number of SSRN downloads (through 11/1/06):

For purpose of Ted’s analysis, a tax professor is initially defined as any law professor at a U.S. law school (1) self-identifying with one of the tax categories in the 2005-2006 AALS faculty listing, (2) who has posted at least one tax or tax-related article in abstract or full text on SSRN. Paul Caron’s listing of 2006-2007 new hires and lateral transfers is also reflected. Further corrections are also made as requested. As is true of Paul Caron’s ranking of individual tax professors, downloads of all SSRN postings of any tax professor, so defined, are then tallied. This month’s rankings include several requested additions to the NYU tally, among others.

For more on the use of SSRN downloads in law school rankings, see Bernard S. Black & Paul L. Caron, Ranking Law Schools: Using SSRN to Measure Scholarly Performance, 81 Ind. L.J. 83 (2006).

Updated SSRN Tax Faculty Rankings

Theodore P. Seto (Loyola-L.A.) has updated his monthly rankings of the Top 25 U.S. Law School Tax Faculties, as measured by the number of SSRN downloads (through 10/1/06):   

For purpose of Ted’s analysis, a tax professor is initially defined as any law professor at a U.S. law school (1) self-identifying with one of the tax categories in the 2005-2006 AALS faculty listing, (2) who has posted at least one tax or tax-related article in abstract or full text on SSRN. Paul Caron’s listing of 2006-2007 new hires and lateral transfers is also reflected. Further corrections are also made as requested. As is true of Paul Caron’s ranking of individual tax professors, downloads of all SSRN postings of any tax professor, so defined, are then tallied.

For more on the use of SSRN downloads in law school rankings, see Bernard S. Black & Paul L. Caron, Ranking Law Schools: Using SSRN to Measure Scholarly Performance, 81 Ind. L.J. 83 (2006).

Updated SSRN Tax Faculty Rankings

Theodore P. Seto (Loyola-L.A.) has updated his monthly rankings of the Top 25 U.S. Law School Tax Faculties, as measured by the number of SSRN downloads (through 9/1/06):   

I’m still working the bugs out of the system. I now have Yariv Brauner back at Florida, not Arizona State. In addition, I’ve added Donald Weidner to Florida State’s tally. These faculty changes account for all of the changes in “all-time downloads.” Otherwise, the “all-time download” rankings are unchanged from last month. “Recent downloads,” of course, are much more of a “What have you done for me lately?” phenomenon.

For more details about Ted's study, see below the fold:

SSRN tax faculty ranking changes since August 2006:

For purpose of Ted Seto’s analysis, a tax professor is initially defined as any law professor at a U.S. law school (1) self-identifying with one of the tax categories in the 2005-2006 AALS faculty listing, (2) who has posted at least one tax or tax-related article in abstract or full text on SSRN. Paul Caron’s listing of 2006-2007 new hires and lateral transfers is also reflected. Further corrections are also made as requested. As is true of Paul Caron’s ranking of individual tax professors, downloads of all SSRN postings of any tax professor, so defined, are then tallied.

For more on the use of SSRN downloads in law school rankings, see Bernard S. Black & Paul L. Caron, Ranking Law Schools: Using SSRN to Measure Scholarly Performance, 81 Ind. L.J. 83 (2006).

More on Tax Faculty Rankings

Jim Maule responds to our publication of Ted Seto's second monthly tax faculty rankings (here and here), questioning the usefulness of SSRN downloads as a rankings measure and proposing an alternative ranking based on the number of BNA tax portfolios published by a school's tax faculty.  Here are the top schools under Jim's measure:

• 1.  Villanova
• 2.  Iowa State
• 3.  SMU
•      Suffolk
• 5.  Emory
•     Georgia
•     Houston
•     Michigan
•     Washington & Lee

Although Jim claims that this ranking is "no more or less meaningful than any other tax faculty ranking," I suspect most people would find SSRN's tax faculty ranking more persuasive:

• 1.  Harvard
• 2.  UCLA
• 3.  Penn
• 4.  USC
• 5.  Michigan
• 6.  Columbia

Indeed, SSRN's ranking of law faculties as a whole also seems to identify the right top schools:

• 1.  Chicago
• 2.  Harvard
• 3.  Columbia
• 4.  Stanford
• 5.  Texas
• 6.  UCLA
• 7.  Yale
• 8.  Georgetown

Jim is certainly right that SSRN is an incomplete measure, as it includes only a subset of faculty scholarship.  But as I argue in a forthcoming essay in a Yale Law Journal Pocket Part symposium on The Future of Legal Scholarship, the enormous data available on SSRN (3,500 law faculty have posted 11,500 papers on SSRN, which have been downloaded 2.4 million times) provide important insights into the market for legal scholarship.

The answer to SSRN's shortcomings is not to go in the other direction and focus on the offerings of a single publisher.  In our article, What Law Schools Can Learn from Billy Beane and the Oakland Athletics, 82 Tex. L. Rev. 1483, 1533-37 (2004), Rafael Gely and I propose comprehensive and qualitative measurements of faculty scholarly performance:

Given the increasing market demand for more detailed and refined measurements of performance, future studies should provide a comprehensive list of all faculty publications, with the weighting disclosed by the authors and thus capable of further refinement by others. Indeed, we envision a custom-ranking process that allows users to assign their own rankings to the comprehensive data, as is developing now with law school rankings....

The next step in the development of citation count methodologies should extend measurements to include citations to faculty work in books and other forms of scholarship, as well as in judicial opinions, executive branch determinations, and congressional sources....[M]easurements of scholarly impact by citation counts to date consistently have foreshorn any qualitative measures and instead have embraced a strictly numerical approach. But assuming a reliable measure of law review quality can be developed, it may be proper to “count” an article in the #1-ranked journal more than an article of equivalent length in the #180-ranked journal. It also may be appropriate for an extensive discussion of a faculty member’s work in the text of an article to “count” more than a single mention in a string cite in a footnote of an article.

In addition to productivity and citation counts, a more rigorous and systematic use of peer evaluation could provide an alternative measure of individual faculty productivity. The Internet provides a venue for faculty to evaluate each other’s work, not unlike the “book reviews” common on Internet bookstores such as Amazon.com.

I subscribe to Philip Postlewaite's view in Life After Tenure: Where Have All the Articles Gone?, 48 J. Legal Educ. 558, 567 (1998):

[T]he consummate legal academic publishes for the academy (academic articles and university press books), for the profession (professional articles and treatises), and for students (casebooks and student guides). Each constituency is worth addressing, and the vehicles appropriate to the different constituencies are equally legitimate. No constituency and no vehicle of expression should be preferable to the others. All have value.

Updated SSRN Tax Faculty Rankings

Theodore P. Seto (Loyola-L.A.) has updated his monthly rankings of the Top 25 U.S. Law School Tax Faculties, as measured by the number of SSRN downloads (through 8/15/06): 

 

Due to a misallocation of faculty members, Florida was overcounted last month and Illinois and Arizona State were undercounted. In this month’s rankings, these errors have been corrected. As a result, Florida has dropped and Illinois and Arizona State have risen in the rankings.

For more on the use of SSRN downloads in law school rankings, see Bernard S. Black & Paul L. Caron, Ranking Law Schools: Using SSRN to Measure Scholarly Performance, 81 Ind. L.J. 83 (2006). For more details about Ted's study, see below the fold:

SSRN tax faculty ranking changes since July 2006:

For purpose of Ted Seto’s analysis, a tax professor is defined as any law professor at a U.S. law school (1) self-identifying with one of the tax categories in the 2005-2006 AALS faculty listing, (2) who has posted at least one tax or tax-related article in abstract or full text on SSRN. Paul Caron’s listing of 2006-2007 new hires and lateral transfers is also reflected. As is true of Paul Caron’s ranking of individual tax professors, downloads of all SSRN postings of any tax professor, so defined, are then tallied.

Seto on The Top 25 Tax Faculties

As regular readers of this blog know, I prepare a weekly ranking of the Top 5 New Tax Papers, as well as a monthly ranking of the Top 25 Tax Professors, as measured by the number of SSRN downloads.  Theodore P. Seto (Loyola-L.A.) has gone a step further and prepared a study for publication here, SSRN Tax Faculty Downloads by Law School and City.  I will share the results of this study over the next three days.

In today's installment, Ted ranks the Top 25 U.S. Law School Tax Faculties, as measured by the number of SSRN downloads (through 7/1/06):

Note: Because of his recent move, Victor Fleischer's downloads are credited to Colorado rather than to UCLA.  Ted's conclusion:

SSRN downloads are, of course, only one measure of scholarly productivity and impact, and scholarship is certainly not the only relevant measure of the quality of a law faculty. With these qualifications, however, it’s pretty clear who comes out on top: UCLA’s tax faculty rocks. (If Louis Kaplow’s non-tax works are excluded, UCLA heads both lists.)

Ted Seto's 3-Part Study of Tax Faculties:

• Today:  The Top 25 Tax Faculties
• Thursday:  The Top Graduate Tax Faculties
• Friday:  The Top 10 Tax Faculties By Metropolitan Region

For more on the use of SSRN downloads in law school rankings, see Bernard S. Black & Paul L. Caron, Ranking Law Schools: Using SSRN to Measure Scholarly Performance, 81 Ind. L.J. 83 (2006). For more details about Ted's study, see below the fold:

For purpose of this analysis, a tax professor is defined as any law professor at a U.S. law school (1) self-identifying with one of the tax categories in the 2005-2006 AALS faculty listing, (2) who has posted at least one tax or tax-related article in abstract or full text on SSRN. Paul Caron’s listing of 2006-2007 new hires and lateral transfers is also reflected. As is true of Paul Caron’s ranking of individual tax professors, downloads of all SSRN postings of any tax professor, so defined, are then tallied.