Thursday, March 2, 2023
U.S. News, Department Of Education, And Law Schools Take The Gloves Off In Rankings Battle
Wall Street Journal Op-Ed: Why Elite Law and Medical Schools Can’t Stand U.S. News, by Eric J. Gertler (Chairman & CEO, U.S. News):
The decision by some elite law and medical schools to opt out of the U.S. News & World Report ranking surveys has ignited a national debate on meritocracy and equity. But lost in this discussion is the reason U.S. News ranks academic institutions and why our rankings are so important to aspiring students. ...
Our rankings don’t capture every nuance. Academic institutions aren’t monolithic or static; comparing them across a common data set can be challenging. But we reject our critics’ paternalistic view that students are somehow incapable of discerning for themselves from this information which school is the best fit.
Moreover, the perspective of elite schools doesn’t fit with that of the broader law- and medical-school community. Our editors held meetings with 110 law deans following the outcry over our rankings. Excepting the top 14 law schools, almost 75% of the schools that submitted surveys in 2022 did so in 2023. For medical schools, the engagement level was higher.
While we know that our rankings are important to students, we’re incredulous that our critics blame our rankings for just about every issue academia confronts. ... [E]lite schools object to our use of a common data set for all schools because our rankings are something they can’t control and they don’t want to be held accountable by an independent third party. ...
By refusing to participate, elite schools are opting out of an important discussion about what constitutes the best education for students, while implying that excellence and important goals like diversity are mutually exclusive.
Is it tolerable to leave schools unaccountable for the education they deliver to students? We think not.
Reuters, U.S. News Rankings Come Under Fire at Yale, Harvard Conference:
The U.S. Secretary of Education on Wednesday criticized annual higher education rankings published by U.S. News and World Report, saying they have "created an unhealthy obsession with selectivity."
Secretary Miguel Cardona was speaking at a conference organized by the law schools at Harvard and Yale universities, amid a backlash over the magazine's influential law school rankings.
“We need a culture change," Cardona said, asserting that U.S. News' emphasis on selectivity and exclusivity has helped steer underserved students to lower-tier institutions. "It’s time to stop worshipping at the false altar of U.S. News & World Report.”
March 2, 2023 in Law Review Rankings, Law School Rankings, Legal Ed News, Legal Ed Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink
Tuesday, January 17, 2023
Resources For Authors Submitting Law Review Articles In The Spring 2023 Cycle
1. Bryce Clayton Newell (Oregon), 2022 Meta-Ranking Of Flagship U.S. Law Reviews:
This is an updated ranking of the top flagship law reviews at US law schools. ...
The MetaRank was computed by averaging ranks (using a 25% weighting from each) of the following rankings:
prRank = US News Peer Reputation score ranking (averaged over 10 years);
usnRank = overall US News school ranking (averaged over 10 years);
wluRank = Washington & Lee Law Journal Ranking;
gRank = Google Scholar Metrics ranking (note: “1000” means journal was not indexed).
2. Nancy Levit (UMKC) & Allen Rostron (UMKC), Information for Submitting Articles to Law Reviews & Journals (Revised Jan. 13, 2022):
This document contains information about submitting articles to law reviews and journals, including the methods for submitting an article, any special formatting requirements, how to contact them to request an expedited review, and how to contact them to withdraw an article from consideration. It covers 195 law reviews.
January 17, 2023 in Law Review Rankings, Law School Rankings, Legal Ed News, Legal Ed Rankings, Legal Ed Scholarship, Legal Education | Permalink
Monday, September 19, 2022
2022 Meta-Ranking Of Flagship U.S. Law Reviews
Bryce Clayton Newell (Oregon), 2022 Meta-Ranking of Flagship US Law Reviews:
This is an updated ranking of the top flagship law reviews at US law schools (updated as of September 16, 2022). For a summary and more details about method, see below the table. You can also compare MetaRanking since 2018, including changes in ranking over time here: MetaRank Comparison 2018-2022.
The MetaRank was computed by averaging ranks (using a 25% weighting from each) of the following rankings:
prRank = US News Peer Reputation score ranking (averaged over 10 years);
usnRank = overall US News school ranking (averaged over 10 years);
wluRank = Washington & Lee Law Journal Ranking;
gRank = Google Scholar Metrics ranking (note: “1000” means journal was not indexed).
Journal | MetaRank | prRank | usnRank | wluRank | gRank |
Harvard Law Review | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 |
Yale Law Journal | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
Stanford Law Review | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 5 |
Columbia Law Review | 4 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 3 |
California Law Review | 5 | 7 | 9 | 4 | 4 |
University of Chicago Law Review | 6 | 5 | 4 | 12 | 6 |
University of Pennsylvania Law Review | 7 | 9 | 7 | 6 | 8 |
New York University Law Review | 8 | 6 | 6 | 13 | 9 |
Michigan Law Review | 8 | 8 | 9 | 8 | 9 |
Georgetown Law Journal | 10 | 14 | 14 | 7 | 9 |
Duke Law Journal | 11 | 11 | 11 | 11 | 12 |
Northwestern University Law Review | 12 | 13 | 12 | 14 | 16 |
Virginia Law Review | 13 | 10 | 8 | 22 | 17 |
Texas Law Review | 13 | 15 | 15 | 15 | 12 |
Vanderbilt Law Review | 15 | 17 | 17 | 18 | 7 |
UCLA Law Review | 16 | 16 | 16 | 10 | 18 |
Notre Dame Law Review | 17 | 22 | 21 | 9 | 12 |
Minnesota Law Review | 18 | 20 | 20 | 16 | 20 |
Cornell Law Review | 19 | 12 | 13 | 23 | 29 |
Boston University Law Review | 20 | 24 | 21 | 20 | 15 |
Southern California Law Review | 21 | 19 | 19 | 26 | 27 |
Iowa Law Review | 22 | 29 | 25 | 21 | 18 |
Washington University Law Review | 23 | 18 | 18 | 29 | 34 |
Emory Law Journal | 24 | 21 | 23 | 33 | 24 |
George Washington Law Review | 25 | 25 | 24 | 31 | 23 |
Boston College Law Review | 26 | 29 | 30 | 25 | 21 |
UC Davis Law Review | 27 | 26 | 37 | 19 | 25 |
Fordham Law Review | 28 | 34 | 39 | 17 | 22 |
William & Mary Law Review | 29 | 33 | 33 | 24 | 31 |
Indiana Law Journal | 30 | 32 | 34 | 27 | 29 |
North Carolina Law Review | 31 | 23 | 31 | 35 | 34 |
Washington Law Review | 32 | 36 | 38 | 30 | 28 |
University of Illinois Law Review | 33 | 39 | 43 | 28 | 26 |
Wisconsin Law Review | 34 | 27 | 32 | 39 | 39 |
Alabama Law Review | 35 | 38 | 25 | 36 | 41 |
Ohio State Law Journal | 36 | 31 | 35 | 37 | 43 |
Florida Law Review | 37 | 37 | 41 | 32 | 38 |
Washington and Lee Law Review | 38 | 41 | 36 | 44 | 42 |
Arizona State Law Journal | 39 | 40 | 27 | 47 | 51 |
UC Irvine Law Review | 40 | 28 | 28 | 56 | 55 |
Arizona Law Review | 41 | 44 | 45 | 41 | 39 |
Hastings Law Journal | 42 | 43 | 55 | 40 | 32 |
Georgia Law Review | 43 | 35 | 29 | 43 | 64 |
Maryland Law Review | 44 | 48 | 48 | 45 | 37 |
University of Colorado Law Review | 45 | 42 | 46 | 46 | 45 |
Cardozo Law Review | 46 | 53 | 59 | 34 | 36 |
Wake Forest Law Review | 47 | 45 | 42 | 50 | 48 |
Brigham Young University Law Review | 48 | 50 | 40 | 55 | 48 |
Utah Law Review | 49 | 49 | 47 | 49 | 50 |
American University Law Review | 50 | 51 | 77 | 38 | 32 |
University of Richmond Law Review | 51 | 69 | 52 | 53 | 53 |
Houston Law Review | 52 | 60 | 56 | 58 | 55 |
Tulane Law Review | 53 | 46 | 51 | 73 | 64 |
Temple Law Review | 54 | 57 | 54 | 64 | 64 |
Connecticut Law Review | 55 | 52 | 57 | 52 | 83 |
SMU Law Review | 55 | 65 | 50 | 74 | 55 |
George Mason Law Review | 57 | 58 | 44 | 59 | 85 |
Denver Law Review | 58 | 56 | 74 | 75 | 52 |
Lewis & Clark Law Review | 59 | 86 | 90 | 42 | 43 |
Chicago-Kent Law Review | 59 | 75 | 87 | 54 | 45 |
Georgia State University Law Review | 61 | 64 | 65 | 80 | 53 |
University of Miami Law Review | 62 | 54 | 69 | 81 | 60 |
Brooklyn Law Review | 62 | 70 | 88 | 51 | 55 |
Tennessee Law Review | 64 | 66 | 60 | 72 | 1000 |
Pepperdine Law Review | 65 | 62 | 58 | 83 | 70 |
Nevada Law Journal | 66 | 76 | 66 | 62 | 71 |
Case Western Reserve Law Review | 67 | 68 | 67 | 81 | 61 |
Florida State University Law Review | 68 | 47 | 49 | 98 | 85 |
Oklahoma Law Review | 68 | 78 | 72 | 68 | 61 |
University of Kansas Law Review | 70 | 67 | 73 | 85 | 61 |
Missouri Law Review | 71 | 71 | 64 | 79 | 75 |
Seton Hall Law Review | 72 | 88 | 61 | 69 | 73 |
Nebraska Law Review | 73 | 84 | 70 | 78 | 64 |
Villanova Law Review | 74 | 82 | 75 | 77 | 64 |
Penn State Law Review | 75 | 92 | 68 | 61 | 80 |
Michigan State Law Review | 76 | 91 | 92 | 48 | 75 |
Kentucky Law Journal | 76 | 72 | 63 | 86 | 85 |
Buffalo Law Review | 78 | 99 | 101 | 60 | 55 |
South Carolina Law Review | 79 | 85 | 94 | 66 | 72 |
Seattle University Law Review | 80 | 93 | 115 | 67 | 45 |
Loyola University Chicago Law Journal | 81 | 73 | 76 | 89 | 83 |
Oregon Law Review | 82 | 54 | 86 | 96 | 1000 |
San Diego Law Review | 83 | 59 | 81 | 115 | 85 |
Saint Louis University Law Journal | 83 | 98 | 91 | 87 | 64 |
University of Cincinnati Law Review | 85 | 89 | 79 | 98 | 79 |
Texas A&M Law Review | 86 | 105 | 100 | 71 | 1000 |
CUNY Law Review | 87 | 112 | 122 | 57 | 1000 |
Hofstra Law Review | 88 | 101 | 114 | 63 | 73 |
Marquette Law Review | 89 | 95 | 103 | 75 | 80 |
Rutgers University Law Review | 90 | 74 | 82 | 126 | 75 |
Santa Clara Law Review | 91 | 80 | 113 | 70 | 102 |
Baylor Law Review | 92 | 87 | 53 | 113 | 1000 |
Indiana Law Review | 93 | 81 | 104 | 101 | 85 |
University of Pittsburgh Law Review | 93 | 63 | 80 | 121 | 107 |
Arkansas Law Review | 95 | 94 | 84 | 103 | 91 |
Loyola of L.A. Law Review | 96 | 61 | 71 | 132 | 110 |
UMKC Law Review | 97 | 108 | 117 | 65 | 91 |
New Mexico Law Review | 97 | 90 | 83 | 104 | 1000 |
Louisiana Law Review | 99 | 104 | 93 | 95 | 91 |
Syracuse Law Review | 100 | 96 | 99 | 97 | 101 |
September 19, 2022 in Law Review Rankings, Legal Ed Rankings, Legal Ed Scholarship, Legal Education | Permalink
Friday, October 1, 2021
2021 Meta-Ranking Of Flagship U.S. Law Reviews
Update: 2022 Meta-Ranking Of Flagship U.S. Law Reviews
Bryce Clayton Newell (Oregon), 2021 Meta-Ranking of Flagship US Law Reviews:
This is an updated ranking of the top flagship law reviews at US law schools (updated as of September 29, 2021). ... The ranking table below includes 193 flagship law reviews from ABA accredited law schools. Even if you ignore the “MetaRank,” the table provides access to the updated rankings from US News (peer reputation and overall rankings, averaged over the 10-year period from 2013 edition through the 2022 edition of US News’ rankings) and the current Washington & Lee Rankings (2016-2020; released on June 30, 2021) and Google Scholar (July 2021) rankings.
prRank = Average 10-year US News Peer Reputation score ranking;
usnRank = Average 10-year overall US News school ranking;
wluRank = Washington & Lee Law Journal Ranking;
gRank = Google Scholar Metrics ranking;
wlu(IF)Rank = Washington & Lee Law Journal Impact Factor Ranking (NOT included in meta-rank).
Journal | MetaRank | prRank | usnRank | wluRank | gRank | wlu(IF)Rank |
Harvard Law Review | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 13 |
Yale Law Journal | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
Stanford Law Review | 3 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 1 |
Columbia Law Review | 4 | 4 | 5 | 8 | 3 | 29 |
California Law Review | 5 | 7 | 9 | 3 | 7 | 3 |
Univ. of Penn. Law Review | 6 | 9 | 7 | 6 | 6 | 5 |
Univ. of Chicago Law Review | 7 | 5 | 4 | 14 | 8 | 15 |
Georgetown Law Journal | 8 | 14 | 14 | 5 | 4 | 6 |
Michigan Law Review | 9 | 8 | 10 | 9 | 11 | 8 |
Virginia Law Review | 10 | 9 | 8 | 18 | 10 | 12 |
Duke Law Journal | 11 | 11 | 11 | 12 | 14 | 7 |
NYU Law Review | 12 | 6 | 6 | 22 | 19 | 21 |
Texas Law Review | 13 | 15 | 15 | 16 | 9 | 16 |
UCLA Law Review | 14 | 16 | 16 | 13 | 13 | 4 |
Cornell Law Review | 15 | 12 | 13 | 15 | 22 | 8 |
Northwestern Univ. Law Rev. | 15 | 13 | 12 | 23 | 14 | 18 |
Vanderbilt Law Review | 17 | 17 | 17 | 20 | 11 | 24 |
Minnesota Law Review | 18 | 20 | 20 | 10 | 16 | 14 |
Notre Dame Law Review | 19 | 23 | 21 | 7 | 16 | 10 |
Iowa Law Review | 20 | 29 | 25 | 11 | 16 | 20 |
Boston University Law Review | 21 | 25 | 24 | 21 | 20 | 23 |
Washington Univ. Law Review | 22 | 18 | 18 | 30 | 29 | 17 |
George Washington Law Rev. | 23 | 24 | 23 | 29 | 21 | 36 |
Emory Law Journal | 24 | 21 | 22 | 32 | 24 | 21 |
Southern California Law Rev. | 25 | 19 | 19 | 31 | 32 | 18 |
Boston College Law Review | 26 | 29 | 29 | 24 | 22 | 33 |
William & Mary Law Review | 27 | 33 | 35 | 19 | 27 | 11 |
Fordham Law Review | 28 | 34 | 39 | 17 | 25 | 43 |
U.C. Davis Law Review | 29 | 26 | 37 | 26 | 30 | 27 |
Washington Law Review | 30 | 35 | 33 | 28 | 28 | 25 |
North Carolina Law Review | 31 | 22 | 36 | 34 | 36 | 31 |
Indiana Law Journal | 32 | 32 | 31 | 35 | 34 | 33 |
Wisconsin Law Review | 32 | 27 | 32 | 33 | 40 | 26 |
Univ. of Illinois Law Review | 32 | 39 | 41 | 27 | 25 | 31 |
Ohio State Law Journal | 35 | 31 | 37 | 37 | 36 | 28 |
Washington & Lee Law Rev. | 36 | 40 | 34 | 41 | 41 | 49 |
Alabama Law Review | 36 | 37 | 26 | 43 | 50 | 39 |
Florida Law Review | 38 | 37 | 43 | 36 | 41 | 29 |
Arizona State Law Journal | 39 | 41 | 27 | 51 | 44 | 58 |
Hastings Law Journal | 40 | 42 | 55 | 38 | 30 | 46 |
Arizona Law Review | 41 | 44 | 44 | 42 | 36 | 33 |
Maryland Law Review | 42 | 48 | 48 | 39 | 33 | 39 |
Cardozo Law Review | 43 | 53 | 59 | 25 | 34 | 41 |
Wake Forest Law Review | 44 | 45 | 40 | 45 | 45 | 57 |
Georgia Law Review | 45 | 35 | 30 | 46 | 70 | 36 |
Univ. of Colorado Law Rev. | 46 | 43 | 45 | 47 | 50 | 51 |
BYU Law Review | 47 | 49 | 41 | 48 | 48 | 48 |
American Univ. Law Review | 48 | 50 | 75 | 40 | 36 | 43 |
U.C. Irvine Law Review | 49 | 28 | 28 | 84 | 62 | 99 |
Utah Law Review | 50 | 51 | 47 | 60 | 56 | 62 |
Connecticut Law Review | 51 | 52 | 57 | 49 | 62 | 36 |
Houston Law Review | 52 | 63 | 56 | 53 | 54 | 54 |
George Mason Law Review | 53 | 57 | 46 | 50 | 78 | 51 |
Univ. of Richmond Law Rev. | 54 | 70 | 54 | 56 | 54 | 49 |
Tulane Law Review | 55 | 46 | 51 | 72 | 67 | 76 |
Case Western Reserve L. Rev. | 56 | 67 | 64 | 58 | 48 | 79 |
SMU Law Review | 57 | 65 | 50 | 73 | 62 | 84 |
Temple Law Review | 58 | 58 | 53 | 64 | 78 | 58 |
Tennessee Law Review | 59 | 61 | 60 | 69 | 1000 | 54 |
Missouri Law Review | 60 | 69 | 64 | 70 | 52 | 77 |
Florida State Univ. Law Rev. | 61 | 47 | 49 | 82 | 78 | 70 |
Lewis & Clark Law Review | 62 | 83 | 89 | 44 | 43 | 45 |
Pepperdine Law Review | 63 | 66 | 58 | 68 | 70 | 65 |
Denver Law Review | 64 | 56 | 73 | 80 | 56 | 79 |
Chicago-Kent Law Review | 64 | 73 | 83 | 57 | 52 | 69 |
Brooklyn Law Review | 66 | 71 | 85 | 54 | 56 | 65 |
Univ. of Miami Law Review | 67 | 54 | 69 | 81 | 67 | 71 |
Nevada Law Journal | 68 | 80 | 68 | 62 | 67 | 53 |
Univ. of Kansas Law Review | 69 | 62 | 74 | 83 | 59 | 95 |
Michigan State Law Review | 70 | 92 | 91 | 52 | 45 | 46 |
Loyola Univ. Chicago L.J. | 71 | 75 | 76 | 75 | 62 | 81 |
Georgia State Univ. Law Rev. | 72 | 68 | 62 | 102 | 59 | 112 |
Oklahoma Law Review | 73 | 77 | 70 | 71 | 75 | 68 |
Seton Hall Law Review | 74 | 87 | 61 | 65 | 87 | 75 |
Nebraska Law Review | 74 | 81 | 72 | 77 | 70 | 84 |
Seattle Univ. Law Review | 76 | 91 | 112 | 54 | 47 | 62 |
San Diego Law Review | 77 | 59 | 81 | 88 | 78 | 84 |
Penn State Law Review | 78 | 93 | 71 | 61 | 85 | 42 |
Villanova Law Review | 79 | 88 | 80 | 76 | 70 | 73 |
Kentucky Law Journal | 80 | 72 | 63 | 93 | 93 | 90 |
DePaul Law Review | 81 | 97 | 116 | 58 | 62 | 61 |
Buffalo Law Review | 82 | 99 | 99 | 74 | 70 | 71 |
Saint Louis Univ. L.J. | 83 | 98 | 92 | 94 | 59 | 106 |
South Carolina Law Review | 84 | 89 | 95 | 67 | 93 | 62 |
Univ. of Cincinnati Law Rev. | 85 | 86 | 77 | 98 | 87 | 115 |
Hofstra Law Review | 86 | 100 | 111 | 63 | 76 | 67 |
Rutgers Univ. Law Review | 87 | 74 | 84 | 115 | 78 | 129 |
Indiana Law Review | 88 | 79 | 104 | 87 | 87 | 99 |
Marquette Law Review | 89 | 94 | 103 | 78 | 87 | 77 |
Santa Clara Law Review | 90 | 76 | 110 | 79 | 102 | 54 |
Arkansas Law Review | 91 | 95 | 87 | 100 | 93 | 109 |
UMKC Law Review | 92 | 107 | 120 | 66 | 85 | 81 |
Oregon Law Review | 93 | 55 | 88 | 120 | 1000 | 123 |
Univ. of Pittsburgh Law Rev. | 93 | 60 | 79 | 122 | 116 | 123 |
New Mexico Law Review | 95 | 90 | 82 | 106 | 1000 | 88 |
Louisiana Law Review | 96 | 103 | 90 | 97 | 100 | 97 |
St. John's Law Review | 97 | 104 | 86 | 109 | 93 | 112 |
Baylor Law Review | 98 | 85 | 52 | 129 | 1000 | 119 |
Loyola of L.A. Law Review | 99 | 63 | 67 | 142 | 128 | 137 |
West Virginia Law Review | 99 | 110 | 101 | 96 | 93 | 97 |
Howard Law Journal | 99 | 84 | 115 | 103 | 98 | 95 |
CUNY Law Review | 99 | 111 | 119 | 85 | 1000 | 60 |
October 1, 2021 in Law Review Rankings, Legal Ed Rankings, Legal Ed Scholarship, Legal Education | Permalink
Tuesday, July 20, 2021
The Roaring Fall 2021 Admissions Season: Will A Law School Have A 175 LSAT Or 4.0 UGPA Median?
Following up on yesterday's post, 98% Of The Way Through The Fall 2021 Law School Admissions Cycle: Applicants Are Up 14%, With Biggest Increase (66%) Among The 170+ LSAT Band: Spivey Consulting, Recapping the 2020-2021 Law School Admissions Cycle & Predicting the Upcoming Cycle:
In this podcast, Mike Spivey is joined by PowerScore founder and CEO Dave Killoran and Spivey Consulting Business Intelligence Director Justin Kane ... to discuss takeaways from this previous 2020-2021 admissions cycle and to make predictions for the upcoming 2021-2022 cycle.
The fall 2021 admissions discussion addressed a number of interesting points, including:
- Potential causes of the dramatic increase in LSAT scores
- The pandemic gave test-takers more time to study
- The online test was shorter and taken in the more convenient and comfortable home environment
- Predicted LSAT and UGPA medians: +2, +.05
- Predicted 1L enrollment: +10%
- Which will occur first: a school with a 175 LSAT median or a 4.0 UGPA median? (The current highs are a 173 LSAT median (Harvard, Yale) and a 3.94 UGPA Median (Alabama, Yale)
July 20, 2021 in Law Review Rankings, Legal Ed News, Legal Ed Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink
Thursday, July 8, 2021
2003-2020 Tax Journal Rankings: Tax Law Review Is #1, Virginia Tax Review Is #2
Following up on yesterday's post, 2020 Tax Journal Rankings: Florida Tax Review Is #1, Virginia Tax Review Is #2: here are the Washington & Lee 2003-2020 tax law review combined rankings of eight major tax journals:
Columbia Journal of Tax Law ("Columbia")
- Florida Tax Review ("Florida")
- Houston Business & Tax Review ("Houston")
- Pittsburgh Tax Review ("Pittsburgh")
- Tax Law Review ("NYU")
- Tax Lawyer ("ABA")
- Tax Notes Federal ("Tax Notes")
- Virginia Tax Review ("Virginia")
The rankings are based on the annual combined rankings in 2003-2020 among these eight journals by:
- Impact Factor (citations/number of articles published)
- Citations in Law Reviews
- Citations in Cases (federal and state courts)
- Currency (how rapidly articles are cited)
Ave |
Journal |
20 |
19 |
18 |
17 |
16 |
15 |
14 |
13 |
12 |
11 |
10 |
09 |
08 |
07 |
06 |
05 |
04 |
03 |
1.7 | 1. NYU | 3 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
2.5 | 2. Virginia | 2 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
2.7 | 3. Florida | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 2 |
3.1 | 4. Tax Notes | 4 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 |
5.4 | 5. ABA | NR | 6 | NR | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
7.9 | 6. Houston | NR | NR | NR | 10 | 9 | 7 | 6 | 6 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 8 | 8 | 9 | 8 | 8 | 9 | 9 |
7.9 | 7. Pittsburgh | NR | NR | NR | 8 | 8 | 8 | 7 | 8 | 5 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 22 | NR | NR | NR | NR |
11.3 | 8. Columbia | 5 | 5 | NR | 6 | 6 | 10 | 10 | 13 | 14 | 33 | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR | NR |
Tax Notes Federal fares poorly in the Impact Factor category (citations/number of articles published) because W&L apparently counts as "articles" all of the advance sheet material in Tax Notes Federal.
Tax Notes Federal is #1 by a wide margin in the number of citations in law reviews:
July 8, 2021 in Law Review Rankings, Legal Education, Scholarship, Tax, Tax Analysts, Tax Rankings, Tax Scholarship, W&L Tax Journal Rankings | Permalink
Wednesday, July 7, 2021
2020 Tax Journal Rankings: Florida Tax Review Is #1, Virginia Tax Review Is #2
Washington & Lee has just released the 2020 tax law review rankings of six major tax journals:
Columbia Journal of Tax Law ("Columbia")
- Florida Tax Review ("Florida")
- Tax Law Review ("NYU")
- Tax Lawyer ("ABA")
- Tax Notes Federal ("Tax Notes")
- Virginia Tax Review ("Virginia")
The rankings are based on citations to articles published in 2016-2020 (methodology):
- Impact Factor (citations/number of articles published)
- Citations in Law Reviews
- Citations in Cases (federal and state courts)
- Combined (weighted combination of the above rankings)
- Currency (how rapidly articles are cited)
Combined |
Impact |
Journals |
Cases |
Currency |
|
1. Florida |
11.12 |
0.69 |
161 |
1 |
1.43 |
2. Virginia |
10.90 |
0.75 |
135 |
1 |
1.19 |
3. NYU |
10.64 |
0.62 |
166 |
0 |
1.11 |
4. Tax Notes |
8.92 |
0.01 |
290 |
1 |
0.02 |
5. Columbia |
8.10 |
0.58 |
93 |
0 |
1.18 |
ABA |
NR |
NR |
NR |
NR |
NR |
July 7, 2021 in Law Review Rankings, Law School Rankings, Legal Ed Rankings, Legal Education, Tax, Tax Analysts, Tax Rankings, Tax Scholarship, W&L Tax Journal Rankings | Permalink
Monday, January 11, 2021
October 2020 California Bar Exam Results
The California State Bar has released school-by-school data on the October 2020 California Bar Exam. Here are the results for first time test takers for the 21 California ABA-accredited law schools, along with each school's U.S. News ranking (California and overall):
Bar Pass Rank (Rate) |
School |
US News Rank CA (Overall) |
1 (97.7%) |
Stanford |
1 (2) |
2 (96.7%) |
UCLA |
3 (15) |
3 (96.0%) |
UC-Berkeley |
2 (9) |
4 (91.8%) |
Loyola-L.A. |
9 (62) |
5 (91.3%) |
USC |
4 (19) |
6 (88.8%) |
San Diego |
10 (83) |
7 (87.6%) |
UC-Irvine |
5 (27) |
8 (86.7%) |
UC-Davis |
6 (38) |
9 (86.1%) |
UC-Hastings |
8 (59) |
10 (85.9%) |
McGeorge |
Rank Not Published |
11 (84.6%) |
Southwestern |
Rank Not Published |
84.1% |
Statewide Ave. (CA ABA-accredited) |
|
12 (80.7%) |
San Francisco |
Rank Not Published |
13 (80.6%) |
Chapman |
12 (111) |
14 (79.6%) |
Pepperdine |
7 (47) |
15 (75.6%) |
Santa Clara |
11 (107) |
16 (72.9%) |
La Verne |
Rank Not Published |
17 (71.8%) |
Cal-Western |
Rank Not Published |
18 (55.9%) |
Western State |
Rank Not Published |
19 (46.7%) |
Thomas Jefferson |
Rank Not Published |
20 (44.4%) |
Golden Gate |
Rank Not Published |
January 11, 2021 in Law Review Rankings, Law School Rankings, Legal Ed News, Legal Education | Permalink
Tuesday, December 1, 2020
2019 Tax Journal Rankings: Tax Notes #1, Florida Tax Review #2
Here are the Washington & Lee tax law review rankings of the six major tax journals:
- Columbia Journal of Tax Law ("Columbia")
- Florida Tax Review ("Florida")
- Tax Law Review ("NYU")
- Tax Lawyer ("ABA")
- Tax Notes
- Virginia Tax Review ("Virginia")
The rankings are based on citations to articles published in 2015-2019 (methodology):
- Impact Factor (citations/number of articles published)
- Citations in Law Reviews
- Citations in Cases (federal and state courts)
- Combined (weighted combination of the above rankings)
- Currency (how rapidly articles are cited)
Combined |
Impact |
Journals |
Cases |
Currency |
|
1. Tax Notes |
15.16 |
0.02 |
406 |
5 |
0.03 |
2. Florida |
14.30 |
0.75 |
188 |
1 |
1.45 |
3. NYU |
12.29 |
0.65 |
161 |
0 |
1.16 |
4. Virginia |
8.52 |
0.46 |
108 |
2 |
0.61 |
5. Columbia |
6.98 |
0.45 |
69 |
0 |
0.53 |
6. ABA |
5.82 |
0.16 |
115 |
4 |
0.23 |
As I have previously noted, Tax Notes fares poorly in the Impact Factor category (citations/number of articles published) because W&L apparently counts as "articles" all of the advance sheet material in Tax Notes. Tax Notes is #1 by a wide margin in the number of citations in law reviews, with more than double the citations of its nearest competitor.
December 1, 2020 in Law Review Rankings, Law School Rankings, Legal Ed Rankings, Legal Education, Tax, Tax Analysts, Tax Rankings, Tax Scholarship, W&L Tax Journal Rankings | Permalink | Comments (0)
Monday, July 20, 2020
2020 Meta-Ranking Of Flagship U.S. Law Reviews
Update: 2022 Meta-Ranking Of Flagship U.S. Law Reviews
Bryce Clayton Newell (Oregon), 2020 Meta-Ranking of Flagship US Law Reviews:
This is an updated ranking of the top flagship law reviews at US law schools (updated as of July 15, 2020). ... The ranking table below includes 191 flagship law reviews from ABA accredited law schools. Even if you ignore the “MetaRank,” the table provides access to the updated rankings from US News (peer reputation and overall rankings, averaged over the 10-year period from 2012 through the 2021 edition) and the current W&L (2015-2019; released on June 1, 2020) and Google Scholar (July 2020) rankings.. ...
prRank = Average 10-year US News Peer Reputation score ranking;
usnRank = Average 10-year overall US News school ranking;
wluRank = Washington & Lee Law Journal Ranking;
gRank = Google Scholar Metrics ranking;
wlu(IF)Rank = Washington & Lee Law Journal Impact Factor Ranking (NOT included in meta-rank).
Journal | MetaRank | prRank | usnRank | wluRank | gRank | wlu(IF)Rank |
Yale Law Journal | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
Harvard Law Review | 2 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 20 |
Stanford Law Review | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 1 |
Columbia Law Review | 4 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 19 |
University of Chicago Law Review | 5 | 5 | 4 | 9 | 6 | 15 |
Univ. of Pennsylvania Law Rev. | 6 | 9 | 7 | 5 | 7 | 4 |
California Law Review | 7 | 7 | 9 | 7 | 10 | 6 |
New York University Law Review | 8 | 6 | 6 | 10 | 12 | 14 |
Georgetown Law Journal | 9 | 14 | 14 | 6 | 5 | 10 |
Virginia Law Review | 10 | 9 | 8 | 16 | 12 | 17 |
Michigan Law Review | 11 | 8 | 9 | 15 | 16 | 8 |
Texas Law Review | 12 | 15 | 15 | 14 | 8 | 20 |
UCLA Law Review | 13 | 16 | 16 | 12 | 9 | 3 |
Duke Law Journal | 13 | 11 | 11 | 17 | 14 | 5 |
Vanderbilt Law Review | 15 | 17 | 17 | 19 | 15 | 13 |
Notre Dame Law Review | 16 | 24 | 21 | 8 | 16 | 6 |
Cornell Law Review | 17 | 12 | 13 | 23 | 22 | 12 |
Minnesota Law Review | 18 | 20 | 20 | 13 | 18 | 15 |
Iowa Law Review | 19 | 28 | 25 | 11 | 10 | 23 |
Northwestern Univ. Law Review | 20 | 13 | 12 | 24 | 26 | 27 |
Washington Univ. Law Review | 21 | 18 | 18 | 26 | 28 | 18 |
Boston University Law Review | 22 | 25 | 24 | 22 | 20 | 22 |
Southern California Law Review | 23 | 19 | 19 | 27 | 30 | 11 |
George Washington Law Review | 24 | 23 | 22 | 29 | 22 | 42 |
Emory Law Journal | 24 | 21 | 23 | 30 | 22 | 29 |
Boston College Law Review | 26 | 29 | 30 | 21 | 19 | 27 |
William & Mary Law Review | 27 | 33 | 35 | 18 | 21 | 8 |
UC Davis Law Review | 28 | 26 | 36 | 28 | 22 | 26 |
Fordham Law Review | 29 | 34 | 38 | 20 | 27 | 46 |
Indiana Law Journal | 30 | 32 | 29 | 35 | 34 | 33 |
Washington Law Review | 30 | 35 | 31 | 34 | 30 | 32 |
Wisconsin Law Review | 32 | 26 | 34 | 39 | 37 | 38 |
Ohio State Law Journal | 33 | 31 | 37 | 33 | 36 | 25 |
Univ. of Illinois Law Review | 34 | 36 | 41 | 32 | 29 | 39 |
North Carolina Law Review | 35 | 22 | 39 | 36 | 45 | 37 |
Florida Law Review | 36 | 38 | 44 | 31 | 30 | 34 |
Washington & Lee Law Review | 37 | 39 | 33 | 43 | 40 | 43 |
Alabama Law Review | 38 | 40 | 27 | 40 | 52 | 35 |
Arizona Law Review | 39 | 43 | 43 | 42 | 34 | 36 |
Hastings Law Journal | 40 | 41 | 53 | 37 | 37 | 40 |
Arizona State Law Journal | 41 | 44 | 28 | 55 | 42 | 61 |
UC Irvine Law Review | 42 | 30 | 26 | 66 | 51 | 58 |
Cardozo Law Review | 43 | 53 | 59 | 25 | 37 | 24 |
Wake Forest Law Review | 44 | 45 | 40 | 47 | 47 | 49 |
Maryland Law Review | 45 | 47 | 48 | 44 | 42 | 43 |
American Univ. Law Review | 46 | 49 | 71 | 38 | 30 | 40 |
Colorado Law Review | 47 | 42 | 45 | 50 | 55 | 52 |
Georgia Law Review | 48 | 37 | 32 | 58 | 66 | 52 |
BYU Law Review | 49 | 50 | 42 | 60 | 49 | 66 |
Utah Law Review | 50 | 51 | 47 | 53 | 52 | 54 |
Houston Law Review | 51 | 64 | 56 | 46 | 48 | 43 |
Connecticut Law Review | 52 | 52 | 57 | 41 | 66 | 29 |
George Mason Law Review | 53 | 56 | 46 | 49 | 66 | 51 |
Case Western Reserve Law Rev. | 54 | 63 | 64 | 52 | 42 | 66 |
Univ. of Richmond Law Review | 55 | 73 | 55 | 54 | 52 | 49 |
Tulane Law Review | 56 | 46 | 51 | 69 | 85 | 83 |
Univ. of Miami Law Review | 57 | 54 | 67 | 68 | 63 | 62 |
Temple Law Review | 57 | 58 | 54 | 61 | 79 | 47 |
Brooklyn Law Review | 59 | 70 | 82 | 48 | 58 | 66 |
SMU Law Review | 59 | 66 | 49 | 64 | 79 | 77 |
Pepperdine Law Review | 61 | 67 | 58 | 71 | 63 | 66 |
Lewis & Clark Law Review | 61 | 81 | 87 | 51 | 40 | 56 |
Florida State Univ. Law Review | 63 | 48 | 50 | 89 | 75 | 74 |
Seton Hall Law Review | 64 | 85 | 62 | 62 | 55 | 58 |
Missouri Law Review | 64 | 68 | 73 | 65 | 58 | 65 |
Nevada Law Journal | 66 | 84 | 68 | 45 | 75 | 48 |
Chicago-Kent Law Review | 67 | 72 | 80 | 63 | 58 | 74 |
San Diego Law Review | 68 | 58 | 77 | 80 | 61 | 72 |
Michigan State Law Review | 69 | 95 | 90 | 59 | 45 | 63 |
Univ. of Kansas Law Review | 70 | 62 | 74 | 85 | 70 | 88 |
Nebraska Law Review | 71 | 80 | 70 | 83 | 61 | 80 |
Loyola Univ. Chicago Law Journal | 72 | 75 | 76 | 72 | 72 | 66 |
Oklahoma Law Review | 73 | 78 | 69 | 76 | 75 | 87 |
Denver University Law Review | 74 | 57 | 72 | 88 | 85 | 88 |
Penn State Law Review | 75 | 93 | 66 | 57 | 90 | 31 |
Tennessee Law Review | 76 | 61 | 61 | 96 | 94 | 110 |
Seattle University Law Review | 77 | 91 | 108 | 56 | 63 | 71 |
Indiana Law Review | 78 | 76 | 98 | 77 | 79 | 83 |
Georgia State Univ. Law Review | 78 | 69 | 60 | 109 | 92 | 147 |
Univ. of Cincinnati Law Review | 80 | 83 | 75 | 82 | 96 | 81 |
Villanova Law Review | 80 | 86 | 85 | 86 | 79 | 88 |
South Carolina Law Review | 82 | 89 | 95 | 87 | 70 | 83 |
DePaul Law Review | 83 | 98 | 112 | 67 | 66 | 56 |
Kentucky Law Journal | 84 | 71 | 63 | 108 | 107 | 125 |
Hofstra Law Review | 85 | 99 | 109 | 74 | 72 | 81 |
West Virginia Law Review | 86 | 109 | 99 | 70 | 79 | 58 |
Buffalo Law Review | 87 | 100 | 96 | 84 | 79 | 74 |
Saint Louis Univ. Law Journal | 88 | 97 | 92 | 102 | 72 | 114 |
Marquette Law Review | 89 | 92 | 100 | 78 | 94 | 79 |
Rutgers Univ. Law Review | 90 | 74 | 83 | 123 | 85 | 142 |
Baylor Law Review | 90 | 87 | 52 | 113 | 1000 | 103 |
Albany Law Review | 92 | 127 | 119 | 73 | 49 | 83 |
Arkansas Law Review | 93 | 96 | 84 | 105 | 85 | 129 |
Santa Clara Law Review | 94 | 77 | 106 | 99 | 96 | 77 |
UMKC Law Review | 95 | 106 | 118 | 81 | 75 | 108 |
Louisiana Law Review | 96 | 102 | 89 | 98 | 96 | 125 |
St. John’s Law Review | 97 | 104 | 86 | 112 | 99 | 136 |
Howard Law Journal | 98 | 90 | 116 | 100 | 99 | 103 |
Catholic Univ. Law Review | 99 | 101 | 100 | 107 | 102 | 114 |
Loyola of L.A. Law Review | 100 | 64 | 65 | 150 | 133 | 150 |
Oregon Law Review | 101 | 55 | 88 | 136 | 1000 | 142 |
Texas A&M Law Review | 101 | 123 | 115 | 75 | 102 | 63 |
Syracuse Law Review | 103 | 94 | 96 | 101 | 126 | 99 |
Drake Law Review | 103 | 132 | 110 | 90 | 85 | 91 |
Idaho Law Review | 105 | 117 | 129 | 119 | 55 | 106 |
Univ. of Pittsburgh Law Review | 106 | 60 | 81 | 141 | 112 | 136 |
New Mexico Law Review | 107 | 88 | 79 | 131 | 1000 | 119 |
Chapman Law Review | 108 | 141 | 131 | 79 | 1000 | 54 |
Texas Tech Law Review | 109 | 135 | 113 | 91 | 92 | 99 |
Mississippi Law Journal | 110 | 103 | 107 | 110 | 119 | 114 |
Cleveland State Law Review | 111 | 140 | 117 | 94 | 90 | 91 |
Vermont Law Review | 112 | 112 | 133 | 95 | 102 | 103 |
Univ. of Louisville Law Review | 113 | 108 | 93 | 122 | 1000 | 97 |
Univ. of San Francisco Law Rev. | 114 | 119 | 142 | 93 | 1000 | 73 |
Washburn Law Journal | 115 | 136 | 128 | 97 | 1000 | 96 |
Northeastern Univ. Law Journal | 116 | 82 | 77 | 150 | 1000 | 150 |
Maine Law Review | 117 | 105 | 124 | 130 | 102 | 110 |
Mercer Law Review | 118 | 121 | 121 | 111 | 115 | 136 |
Akron Law Review | 119 | 144 | 135 | 92 | 102 | 91 |
Univ. of Hawai'i Law Review | 119 | 79 | 94 | 150 | 1000 | 150 |
CUNY Law Review | 121 | 114 | 120 | 121 | 1000 | 112 |
Tulsa Law Review | 122 | 125 | 91 | 150 | 112 | 150 |
Montana Law Review | 122 | 120 | 126 | 116 | 1000 | 95 |
Creighton Law Review | 124 | 134 | 122 | 106 | 119 | 119 |
Stetson Law Review | 125 | 110 | 104 | 134 | 1000 | 149 |
Quinnipiac Law Review | 126 | 131 | 130 | 114 | 1000 | 99 |
Wayne Law Review | 127 | 116 | 100 | 150 | 131 | 150 |
Univ. of Memphis Law Review | 128 | 143 | 147 | 103 | 107 | 133 |
Univ. of St. Thomas Law Journal | 129 | 139 | 125 | 139 | 99 | 125 |
Pace Law Review | 130 | 132 | 136 | 128 | 109 | 136 |
Wyoming Law Review | 131 | 118 | 126 | 132 | 1000 | 122 |
Duquesne Law Review | 132 | 148 | 134 | 115 | 1000 | 99 |
Drexel Law Review | 132 | 115 | 111 | 143 | 1000 | 130 |
Univ. of Baltimore Law Review | 134 | 122 | 123 | 134 | 1000 | 112 |
Loyola Law Review | 135 | 113 | 140 | 137 | 126 | 128 |
Suffolk Univ. Law Review | 135 | 130 | 151 | 120 | 115 | 136 |
FIU Law Review | 137 | 147 | 105 | 146 | 119 | 136 |
Gonzaga Law Review | 138 | 111 | 114 | 147 | 1000 | 148 |
New York Law School Law Rev. | 139 | 129 | 132 | 142 | 119 | 130 |
Southwestern Law Review | 140 | 138 | 150 | 129 | 109 | 114 |
Univ. of Toledo Law Review | 141 | 142 | 141 | 125 | 119 | 142 |
Univ. of Arkansas LR Law Rev. | 142 | 107 | 137 | 150 | 134 | 150 |
Univ. of the Pacific Law Review | 143 | 128 | 139 | 150 | 112 | 150 |
Univ. of New Hampshire Law Rev. | 143 | 126 | 103 | 150 | 1000 | 150 |
Ohio Northern Univ. Law Review | 145 | 169 | 153 | 104 | 1000 | 122 |
St. Mary's Law Journal | 146 | 157 | 158 | 117 | 119 | 119 |
Mitchell Hamline Law Review | 147 | 145 | 144 | 150 | 115 | 150 |
South Dakota Law Review | 147 | 146 | 147 | 133 | 128 | 133 |
Capital University Law Review | 149 | 170 | 161 | 117 | 109 | 107 |
Willamette Law Review | 150 | 124 | 138 | 150 | 1000 | 150 |
Touro Law Review | 151 | 167 | 161 | 127 | 115 | 130 |
Northern Kentucky Law Review | 152 | 162 | 161 | 124 | 1000 | 91 |
Campbell Law Review | 153 | 170 | 146 | 140 | 119 | 122 |
John Marshall Law Review | 154 | 149 | 152 | 149 | 131 | 145 |
North Dakota Law Review | 155 | 137 | 149 | 150 | 1000 | 150 |
Univ. of Detroit Mercy Law Rev. | 155 | 173 | 161 | 126 | 1000 | 97 |
South Texas Law Review | 157 | 157 | 156 | 148 | 128 | 145 |
Roger Williams Univ. Law Rev. | 158 | 155 | 161 | 150 | 128 | 150 |
Southern Illinois Univ. L.J. | 159 | 154 | 156 | 150 | 135 | 150 |
Cumberland Law Review | 160 | 153 | 145 | 150 | 1000 | 150 |
Widener Law Review | 161 | 150 | 161 | 144 | 1000 | 114 |
Univ. of Dayton Law Review | 162 | 151 | 154 | 150 | 1000 | 150 |
Northern Illinois Univ. Law Rev. | 163 | 156 | 155 | 150 | 1000 | 150 |
Widener Commonwealth Law Rev. | 163 | 152 | 159 | 150 | 1000 | 150 |
New England Law Review | 165 | 168 | 161 | 145 | 1000 | 133 |
Nova Law Review | 166 | 159 | 161 | 150 | 1000 | 150 |
Regent Univ. Law Review | 167 | 184 | 161 | 138 | 1000 | 108 |
Elon Law Review | 167 | 160 | 161 | 150 | 1000 | 150 |
Golden Gate Univ. Law Review | 169 | 161 | 161 | 150 | 1000 | 150 |
California Western Law Review | 170 | 163 | 161 | 150 | 1000 | 150 |
Belmont Law Review | 170 | 181 | 143 | 150 | 1000 | 150 |
Oklahoma City Univ. Law Review | 170 | 165 | 159 | 150 | 1000 | 150 |
Mississippi College Law Review | 173 | 164 | 161 | 150 | 1000 | 150 |
University of Mass. Law Review | 174 | 166 | 161 | 150 | 1000 | 150 |
N. Carolina Central Law Review | 175 | 172 | 161 | 150 | 1000 | 150 |
Univ. of the D.C. Law Review | 176 | 174 | 161 | 150 | 1000 | 150 |
Florida A&M Univ. Law Review | 177 | 175 | 161 | 150 | 1000 | 150 |
W. New England Law Review | 178 | 176 | 161 | 150 | 1000 | 150 |
St. Thomas Law Review | 179 | 177 | 161 | 150 | 1000 | 150 |
Thurgood Marshall Law Review | 179 | 177 | 161 | 150 | 1000 | 150 |
John Marshall Law Journal | 181 | 179 | 161 | 150 | 1000 | 150 |
Southern Univ. Law Review | 182 | 180 | 161 | 150 | 1000 | 150 |
Charleston Law Review | 183 | 182 | 161 | 150 | 1000 | 150 |
Faulkner Law Review | 184 | 183 | 161 | 150 | 1000 | 150 |
Florida Coastal Law Review | 185 | 184 | 161 | 150 | 1000 | 150 |
Appalachian Journal of Law | 186 | 186 | 161 | 150 | 1000 | 150 |
Liberty University Law Review | 187 | 187 | 161 | 150 | 1000 | 150 |
Barry Law Review | 188 | 188 | 161 | 150 | 1000 | 150 |
Western State Univ. Law Review | 189 | 189 | 161 | 150 | 1000 | 150 |
Thomas M. Cooley Law Review | 189 | 189 | 161 | 150 | 1000 | 150 |
Ave Maria Law Review | 191 | 191 | 161 | 150 | 1000 | 150 |
- 2019 Meta-Ranking Of Flagship U.S. Law Reviews
- 2018 Meta-Ranking Of Flagship U.S. Law Reviews
- 2016 Meta-Ranking Of Flagship U.S. Law Reviews
July 20, 2020 in Law Review Rankings, Legal Ed Rankings, Legal Ed Scholarship, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (0)
Thursday, July 25, 2019
2019 Meta-Ranking Of Flagship U.S. Law Reviews
Update: 2022 Meta-Ranking Of Flagship U.S. Law Reviews
Bryce Clayton Newell (Oregon), 2019 Meta-Ranking of Flagship US Law Reviews:
This is an updated ranking of flagship law reviews at US law schools (updated as of July 23, 2019, including the 2020 US News numbers). ... The ranking table below includes all of the law reviews that ranked in the top 150 in in the MetaRanking, including all journals that ranked in the top 100 at least one of the following rankings: US News Peer Reputation Score Ranking (avg., 2011-2020), US News Overall Ranking (avg., 2011-2020), the Washington & Lee University ranking (current version, 2010-2017; default weighting), the Google Scholar ranking (index as of July 2019), and the W&L Impact Factor Ranking (not included in the MetaRank). ...
prRank = US News Peer Reputation score ranking;
usnRank = Overall US News school ranking;
wluRank = Washington & Lee Law Journal Ranking;
gRank = Google Scholar Metrics ranking;
wlu(IF)Rank = Washington & Lee Law Journal Impact Factor Ranking.
Journal | MetaRank | prRank | usnRank | wluRank | gRank | wlu(IF)Rank |
Yale Law Journal | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
Harvard Law Review | 2 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 26 |
Stanford Law Review | 3 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 1 |
Columbia Law Review | 4 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 7 |
Univ. of Pennsylvania Law Review | 5 | 9 | 7 | 3 | 4 | 3 |
NYU Law Review | 6 | 6 | 6 | 11 | 13 | 12 |
Virginia Law Review | 6 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 12 | 5 |
California Law Review | 8 | 7 | 9 | 15 | 7 | 17 |
Georgetown Law Journal | 9 | 13 | 14 | 6 | 6 | 8 |
Michigan Law Review | 9 | 8 | 10 | 7 | 14 | 5 |
Univ. of Chicago Law Review | 9 | 5 | 4 | 21 | 9 | 29 |
Texas Law Review | 12 | 15 | 15 | 10 | 7 | 19 |
UCLA Law Review | 13 | 16 | 16 | 9 | 10 | 4 |
Duke Law Journal | 14 | 11 | 11 | 16 | 16 | 9 |
Cornell Law Review | 15 | 12 | 13 | 16 | 21 | 9 |
Minnesota Law Review | 16 | 20 | 20 | 12 | 14 | 14 |
Vanderbilt Law Review | 17 | 17 | 17 | 18 | 16 | 11 |
Iowa Law Review | 18 | 28 | 25 | 14 | 10 | 15 |
Northwestern Univ. Law Review | 19 | 14 | 12 | 26 | 30 | 22 |
Boston Univ. Law Review | 20 | 26 | 24 | 20 | 19 | 36 |
Notre Dame Law Review | 21 | 24 | 22 | 19 | 26 | 20 |
G. Washington Law Review | 22 | 23 | 21 | 31 | 24 | 34 |
Southern Calif. Law Review | 22 | 19 | 18 | 38 | 24 | 30 |
Emory Law Journal | 24 | 21 | 23 | 35 | 21 | 26 |
Washington Univ. Law Review | 25 | 18 | 19 | 32 | 32 | 23 |
Boston College Law Review | 26 | 29 | 30 | 23 | 21 | 24 |
Fordham Law Review | 27 | 34 | 39 | 13 | 18 | 39 |
Indiana Law Journal | 28 | 31 | 28 | 27 | 26 | 21 |
William & Mary Law Review | 29 | 33 | 35 | 22 | 29 | 18 |
U.C. Davis Law Review | 30 | 27 | 34 | 34 | 26 | 32 |
North Carolina Law Review | 31 | 22 | 38 | 29 | 43 | 25 |
Wisconsin Law Review | 32 | 25 | 33 | 36 | 39 | 28 |
Univ. of Illinois Law Review | 33 | 35 | 41 | 30 | 31 | 33 |
Washington Law Review | 33 | 37 | 31 | 49 | 20 | 49 |
Washington & Lee Law Review | 35 | 36 | 36 | 37 | 33 | 41 |
Florida Law Review | 36 | 39 | 46 | 24 | 34 | 16 |
Ohio State Law Journal | 37 | 30 | 37 | 39 | 40 | 31 |
Wake Forest Law Review | 38 | 44 | 40 | 40 | 35 | 46 |
Hastings Law Journal | 39 | 40 | 52 | 33 | 35 | 43 |
Arizona Law Review | 40 | 42 | 43 | 42 | 35 | 43 |
Alabama Law Review | 41 | 41 | 27 | 45 | 53 | 43 |
UC Irvine Law Review | 42 | 32 | 26 | 66 | 51 | 57 |
Cardozo Law Review | 43 | 53 | 59 | 25 | 40 | 38 |
Connecticut Law Review | 44 | 52 | 56 | 28 | 47 | 13 |
Maryland Law Review | 45 | 47 | 48 | 46 | 46 | 47 |
Colorado Law Review | 46 | 42 | 44 | 60 | 43 | 69 |
American Univ. Law Review | 47 | 49 | 66 | 41 | 35 | 40 |
Arizona State Law Journal | 48 | 45 | 29 | 67 | 51 | 82 |
BYU Law Review | 49 | 50 | 42 | 48 | 53 | 60 |
Georgia Law Review | 50 | 38 | 32 | 51 | 85 | 37 |
George Mason Law Review | 51 | 55 | 45 | 44 | 65 | 35 |
Utah Law Review | 52 | 51 | 47 | 47 | 68 | 50 |
Houston Law Review | 53 | 66 | 54 | 52 | 47 | 56 |
Case Western Reserve Law Review | 54 | 63 | 63 | 57 | 40 | 71 |
Tulane Law Review | 55 | 46 | 51 | 61 | 74 | 83 |
Florida State Univ. Law Review | 56 | 48 | 50 | 68 | 72 | 55 |
Univ. of Miami Law Review | 56 | 54 | 67 | 70 | 47 | 62 |
Pepperdine Law Review | 58 | 68 | 58 | 54 | 59 | 60 |
Lewis & Clark Law Review | 59 | 82 | 86 | 42 | 47 | 41 |
Seton Hall Law Review | 60 | 83 | 64 | 54 | 59 | 54 |
San Diego Law Review | 61 | 57 | 76 | 72 | 56 | 69 |
Univ. of Richmond Law Review | 62 | 75 | 57 | 69 | 65 | 65 |
Brooklyn Law Review | 63 | 69 | 81 | 56 | 68 | 72 |
Temple Law Review | 63 | 59 | 55 | 83 | 77 | 59 |
SMU Law Review | 65 | 64 | 49 | 98 | 68 | 115 |
Denver Univ. Law Review | 66 | 60 | 71 | 71 | 85 | 85 |
Univ. of Cincinnati Law Review | 67 | 80 | 72 | 61 | 77 | 74 |
Michigan State Law Review | 67 | 97 | 92 | 58 | 43 | 81 |
Nevada Law Journal | 67 | 87 | 70 | 74 | 59 | 58 |
Missouri Law Review | 70 | 67 | 75 | 83 | 68 | 96 |
Chicago-Kent Law Review | 71 | 70 | 80 | 85 | 65 | 96 |
Univ. of Kansas Law Review | 71 | 61 | 74 | 88 | 77 | 96 |
Oregon Law Review | 73 | 56 | 89 | 63 | 93 | 67 |
Loyola Univ. Chicago Law Journal | 74 | 74 | 78 | 63 | 93 | 62 |
Tennessee Law Review | 75 | 62 | 61 | 93 | 93 | 78 |
Nebraska Law Review | 75 | 79 | 73 | 98 | 59 | 78 |
Seattle Univ. Law Review | 77 | 89 | 103 | 50 | 72 | 62 |
Penn State Law Review | 78 | 92 | 69 | 53 | 101 | 47 |
DePaul Law Review | 79 | 100 | 109 | 58 | 58 | 53 |
Oklahoma Law Review | 80 | 78 | 68 | 122 | 59 | 125 |
Indiana Law Review | 81 | 76 | 94 | 82 | 85 | 104 |
Rutgers Univ. Law Review | 82 | 73 | 83 | 92 | 93 | 85 |
Kentucky Law Journal | 83 | 70 | 62 | 95 | 116 | 78 |
Loyola of L.A. Law Review | 84 | 65 | 65 | 80 | 135 | 91 |
Santa Clara Law Review | 84 | 77 | 104 | 63 | 101 | 52 |
Buffalo Law Review | 86 | 101 | 98 | 72 | 77 | 51 |
Villanova Law Review | 87 | 86 | 85 | 102 | 77 | 96 |
Marquette Law Review | 88 | 90 | 101 | 75 | 85 | 74 |
Georgia State Univ. Law Review | 89 | 72 | 60 | 96 | 124 | 115 |
Univ. of Pittsburgh Law Review | 90 | 58 | 79 | 115 | 108 | 96 |
South Carolina Law Review | 91 | 91 | 99 | 86 | 93 | 85 |
Louisiana Law Review | 92 | 102 | 88 | 76 | 106 | 66 |
Mitchell Hamline Law Review | 93 | 143 | 141 | 90 | 1000 | 123 |
Albany Law Review | 94 | 126 | 116 | 78 | 56 | 115 |
Catholic Univ. Law Review | 95 | 96 | 100 | 91 | 90 | 74 |
Saint Louis Univ. Law Journal | 95 | 98 | 95 | 94 | 90 | 105 |
West Virginia Law Review | 97 | 110 | 96 | 107 | 74 | 105 |
Arkansas Law Review | 97 | 95 | 83 | 132 | 77 | 161 |
Hofstra Law Review | 99 | 99 | 107 | 97 | 85 | 118 |
Syracuse Law Review | 100 | 94 | 93 | 128 | 74 | 141 |
Mississippi Law Journal | 101 | 104 | 108 | 89 | 93 | 85 |
Howard Law Journal | 102 | 93 | 116 | 102 | 101 | 93 |
UMKC Law Review | 103 | 106 | 115 | 100 | 93 | 123 |
Baylor Law Review | 104 | 88 | 53 | 138 | 1000 | 126 |
Idaho Law Review | 105 | 114 | 125 | 133 | 53 | 132 |
Akron Law Review | 106 | 145 | 134 | 76 | 77 | 67 |
St. John’s Law Review | 107 | 103 | 87 | 135 | 108 | 141 |
Vermont Law Review | 108 | 109 | 132 | 79 | 116 | 73 |
Gonzaga Law Review | 109 | 111 | 113 | 108 | 1000 | 94 |
Texas Tech Law Review | 110 | 135 | 112 | 87 | 108 | 85 |
New York Law School Law Review | 111 | 125 | 131 | 81 | 108 | 94 |
Maine Law Review | 112 | 105 | 123 | 121 | 108 | 130 |
Duquesne Law Review | 112 | 149 | 138 | 111 | 59 | 122 |
Univ. of Louisville Law Review | 114 | 107 | 97 | 128 | 1000 | 113 |
Univ. of Hawaii Law Review | 115 | 80 | 90 | 170 | 124 | 166 |
Cleveland State Law Review | 116 | 140 | 120 | 105 | 101 | 74 |
Drake Law Review | 117 | 131 | 111 | 104 | 124 | 96 |
New Mexico Law Review | 118 | 85 | 76 | 156 | 1000 | 152 |
Pace Law Review | 119 | 133 | 136 | 100 | 106 | 110 |
Univ. of San Francisco Law Review | 120 | 119 | 140 | 109 | 1000 | 105 |
Wyoming Law Review | 121 | 115 | 122 | 141 | 101 | 137 |
Texas A&M Law Review | 122 | 134 | 133 | 1000 | 108 | 83 |
Quinnipiac Law Review | 123 | 132 | 127 | 136 | 93 | 132 |
Maryland Law Review | 124 | 120 | 118 | 116 | 135 | 150 |
Univ. of Baltimore Law Review | 124 | 122 | 121 | 123 | 1000 | 91 |
Tulsa Law Review | 126 | 124 | 91 | 151 | 124 | 170 |
The Wayne Law Review | 127 | 116 | 102 | 142 | 135 | 135 |
Creighton Law Review | 128 | 128 | 119 | 111 | 142 | 126 |
Washburn Law Journal | 129 | 136 | 130 | 106 | 131 | 105 |
Chapman Law Review | 130 | 141 | 129 | 116 | 120 | 103 |
Univ. of the Pacific Law Review | 131 | 127 | 137 | 119 | 124 | 155 |
CUNY Law Review | 132 | 118 | 127 | 136 | 1000 | 105 |
Drexel Law Review | 133 | 117 | 114 | 145 | 1000 | 138 |
Stetson Law Review | 134 | 112 | 105 | 155 | 1000 | 182 |
Southwestern Law Review | 134 | 137 | 147 | 123 | 120 | 118 |
Univ. of Memphis Law Review | 136 | 144 | 145 | 109 | 131 | 90 |
Northeastern Univ. Law Journal | 137 | 84 | 82 | 182 | 1000 | 179 |
Loyola Law Review | 138 | 113 | 143 | 127 | 148 | 126 |
Suffolk Univ. Law Review | 139 | 130 | 150 | 119 | 135 | 146 |
Univ. of St. Thomas Law Journal | 140 | 139 | 126 | 138 | 1000 | 118 |
South Dakota Law Review | 141 | 146 | 145 | 118 | 135 | 110 |
Univ. of Arkansas Law Review | 142 | 108 | 135 | 152 | 1000 | 161 |
Capital Univ. Law Review | 143 | 169 | 161 | 111 | 108 | 96 |
Montana Law Review | 143 | 121 | 124 | 162 | 142 | 152 |
Willamette Law Review | 145 | 123 | 139 | 146 | 1000 | 146 |
New England Law Review | 146 | 166 | 161 | 114 | 1000 | 130 |
Univ. of Toledo Law Review | 146 | 142 | 142 | 125 | 146 | 146 |
Touro Law Review | 148 | 167 | 161 | 134 | 108 | 158 |
FIU Law Review | 149 | 153 | 110 | 160 | 150 | 170 |
John Marshall Law Review | 150 | 150 | 153 | 126 | 150 | 141 |
July 25, 2019 in Law Review Rankings, Legal Ed Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (2)
Thursday, March 28, 2019
Law Reviews And The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
LawProfBlawg (Anonymous Professor, Top 100 Law School), Law Reviews And The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy:
It’s time once again to take a look at things in the top 10 law review front. ... Out of the top 10 law journals, 80 percent of the publications in top 10 law reviews for 2018 are written by authors whose alma mater is one of those schools. ... In 2018, Yale Law School J.D. alums account for 25 percent of all T10 articles published. Harvard accounts for 19 percent. ...
What this does suggest is that, unsurprisingly, the hierarchy perpetuates itself. As the data suggests, there is some modicum of privilege that arises from being an alum of a highly ranked law school. One might call it classism in academia. Even if you decide not to call it that, it’s a combination of unsavory things that give rise to hierarchy.
March 28, 2019 in Law Review Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (2)
Wednesday, August 15, 2018
The Most-Cited Tax Faculty At The 68 Most-Cited Law Schools
Following up on this morning's post, The 68 Most-Cited Law Faculties: here are the 19 Tax Profs among the 10-most cited faculty at the Top 68 law schools:
2. Harvard: Louis Kaplow
12. UC-Irvine: Vic Fleischer
14. Michigan: Reuven Avi-Yonah
21. Minnesota: Kristin Hickman
23. USC: Ed Kleinbard, Ed McCaffery, Mike Simkovic
29. Florida State: Jeff Kahn, Steve Johnson
29. Cardozo: Ed Zelinsky
36. Indiana: David Gamage, Leandra Lederman
49. BYU: Cliff Fleming
54. Pittsburgh: Tony Infanti
58. Santa Clara: Pat Cain; Boston College: Diane Ring; Georgia: Gregg Polsky
August 15, 2018 in Law Review Rankings, Legal Education, Tax | Permalink | Comments (1)
Tuesday, May 8, 2018
SSRN e-Journal Rankings By Average Downloads Per Paper
Ryan Whalen (University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law), SSRN e-Journals and Downloads:
I did a bit of SSRN/LSN hacking, and determined that ... there are some pretty major differences in the average number of downloads different LSN journals get. The below relies on data from just under a quarter million papers that are classified to LSN e-journals, and only extends to LSN classifications (i.e. working paper series or other SSRN e-journal classifications are not included).
The Tax Law & Policy Journals rank 54th out 94 SSRN e-journals, with 185 downloads per paper:
May 8, 2018 in Law Review Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (0)
Wednesday, March 21, 2018
2018 Meta-Ranking Of Flagship U.S. Law Reviews
Update: 2022 Meta-Ranking Of Flagship U.S. Law Reviews
Bryce Clayton Newell (Kentucky), 2018 Meta-Ranking of Flagship US Law Reviews:
This is an updated ranking of flagship law reviews at US law schools (updated as of March 20, 2018, including the 2019 US News numbers). ... The ranking table below includes all of the law reviews that ranked in the top 150 in in the MetaRanking, including all journals that ranked in the top 100 at least one of the following rankings: US News Peer Reputation Score Ranking (avg., 2010-2019), US News Overall Ranking (avg., 2010-2019), the Washington & Lee University ranking (current version, 2009-2016; default weighting), the Google Scholar ranking (index as of June 2017), and the W&L Impact Factor Ranking (not included in the MetaRank). ...
prRank = US News Peer Reputation score ranking;
usnRank = Overall US News school ranking;
wluRank = Washington & Lee Law Journal Ranking;
gRank = Google Scholar Metrics ranking;
wlu(IF)Rank = Washington & Lee Law Journal Impact Factor Ranking.
March 21, 2018 in Law Review Rankings, Law School Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (0)
Wednesday, July 27, 2016
Are The Google Law Review Rankings 'Worthless'?
Following up on yesterday's post, 2016 Google Law Review Rankings:
Brian Leiter (Chicago), Annals of "Bullshit" Rankings:
The problem (we've encountered it in philosophy in the past, but now everyone there knows Google Scholar is worthless for measuring journal impact) is that there is no control for the volume of publishing by each journal, so any journal that publishes more pages and articles per year will do better than a peer journal with the same actual impact that publishes fewer articles and pages.
Rob Anderson (Pepperdine), Google Scholar Releases 2016 Journal Rankings, Controversy Ensues:
Leiter's arguments are (mostly) incorrect. And as my previous posts about Google Scholar were used as part of the ranking, I felt the need to respond. ...
July 27, 2016 in Law Review Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (9)
Tuesday, July 26, 2016
2016 Google Law Review Rankings
PrawfsBlawg: Google Scholar Law Review Rankings — 2016, by Bryce C. Newell (Tilburg University):
Includes only flagship/general law reviews at ABA accredited schools (I think I've captured (almost) all of these, but let me know if I've missed any). Rankings are calculated based on the average of Google's two scores (h5-index and h5-median), as proposed here by Robert Anderson. The final column shows how much a journal's rank has changed in 2016 versus last year's ranking (0 indicates no change, a positive number indicates the ranking has gone up in 2016, while a negative number indicates a drop in ranking in 2016).
Bryce lists 194 flagship law reviews. Here are the Top 25:
July 26, 2016 in Law Review Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (3)
Monday, May 9, 2016
Law Review Rankings By Supreme Court Citations: 2013-2016
Empirical SCOTUS, Gold Standard Cites:
Publications and citations are essential to the research academic. They help separate experts from novices in a given field. They provide metrics for universities to gauge the quality of their professors’ scholarship. In legal scholarship there is a particularly meaningful measure that distinguishes law from other disciplines: citations in published opinions. Supreme Court citations to law reviews convey the importance of an article to a particular area of law.
Articles by Sirico [The Citing of Law Reviews by the Supreme Court:1971-1999, 75 Ind. L.J. 1009 (2000)] and Newton [Law Review Scholarship in the Eyes of the Twenty-First Century Supreme Court Justices: An Empirical Analysis 2001-2011, 4 Drexel L. Rev. 399 (2012)] previously tracked these citations over different periods of time in the 20th and 21st centuries.
1. Harvard (27 citations in 23 cases)
2. Yale (26,18)
3. Columbia (16,12)
4. Chicago (11,9)
5. NYU (9,8)
6. Stanford (8,6)
7. Michigan (7,5)
7. Penn (7,7)
9. Georgetown (6,4)
9. Texas (6,5)
9. Texas (6,5)
May 9, 2016 in Law Review Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tuesday, April 5, 2016
2016 Meta-Ranking Of Flagship U.S. Law Reviews
Bryce Clayton Newell (Tilburg University), 2016 Meta-Ranking of Flagship US Law Reviews:
I decided to create a meta-ranking of the possible contenders for gauging the relative importance of journals and offers: US News Overall Ranking (averaged from 2010-2017), US News Peer Reputation Ranking (also averaged from 2010-2017), W&L Combined Ranking (at default weighting; 2007-2014), and Google Scholar Metrics law journal rankings (averaging the h-index and h-median of each journal, as proposed here by Robert Anderson). I've ranked each journal within each ranking system, averaged these four ranks using a 25% weighting for each, and computed and ranked the final scores. I think this approach benefits from incorporating a couple different forms of impact evaluation (W&L + Google) while not disregarding the general sentiment that law school “prestige” (USN combined rank + peer reputation rank, each averaged over an 8-year period) is an important factor in law review placement decisions.
Here are the Top 25:
MetaRank |
Journal |
Change from USN Rank |
MetaScore |
Avg. USN Peer Rank |
Avg. USN Overall Rank |
W&L Rank |
Google Rank |
1 |
Harvard Law Review |
1 |
1.5 |
1 |
2 |
2 |
1 |
2 |
The Yale Law Journal |
-1 |
1.75 |
1 |
1 |
3 |
2 |
3 |
Stanford Law Review |
0 |
2.75 |
3 |
3 |
1 |
4 |
4 |
Columbia Law Review |
0 |
3.75 |
4 |
4 |
4 |
3 |
5 |
University of Pennsylvania Law Review |
2 |
6.5 |
9 |
7 |
5 |
5 |
6 |
Michigan Law Review |
4 |
8 |
8 |
10 |
8 |
6 |
7 |
California Law Review |
1 |
9 |
7 |
8 |
12 |
9 |
8 |
New York University Law Review |
-2 |
9.25 |
6 |
6 |
14 |
11 |
8 |
Virginia Law Review |
1 |
9.25 |
9 |
9 |
9 |
10 |
10 |
The Georgetown Law Journal |
4 |
9.75 |
13 |
14 |
6 |
6 |
11 |
Texas Law Review |
4 |
12 |
15 |
15 |
10 |
8 |
12 |
University of Chicago L. Rev. |
-7 |
12.75 |
5 |
5 |
25 |
16 |
12 |
Duke Law Journal |
-1 |
12.75 |
11 |
11 |
16 |
13 |
14 |
Cornell Law Review |
-1 |
13.25 |
12 |
13 |
15 |
13 |
15 |
UCLA Law Review |
1 |
13.5 |
16 |
16 |
7 |
15 |
16 |
Northwestern University Law Review |
-4 |
15.25 |
14 |
12 |
13 |
22 |
17 |
Minnesota Law Review |
3 |
15.75 |
20 |
20 |
11 |
12 |
18 |
Vanderbilt Law Review |
-1 |
17.5 |
17 |
17 |
20 |
16 |
19 |
Notre Dame Law Review |
4 |
21.75 |
27 |
23 |
19 |
18 |
20 |
Iowa Law Review |
5 |
22.5 |
27 |
25 |
18 |
20 |
21 |
Boston University Law Review |
3 |
24.25 |
25 |
24 |
22 |
26 |
22 |
William and Mary Law Review |
8 |
25.5 |
32 |
30 |
21 |
19 |
23 |
The George Washington L. Rev. |
-2 |
26 |
23 |
21 |
29 |
31 |
23 |
North Carolina Law Review |
11 |
26 |
21 |
34 |
28 |
21 |
25 |
Southern California Law Review |
-7 |
26.5 |
19 |
18 |
32 |
37 |
26 |
Boston College Law Review |
5 |
27.25 |
29 |
31 |
23 |
26 |
The big movers here (in this ranking versus the average US News Overall Rank from 2010-2017) seem to be (but there are quite a few others who moved around):
- New York Law School moved up a whopping 38 places (to #99);
- Vermont moved up 31 places (to #91);
- UC Irvine dropped 30 places (to #59);
- Akron moved up 28 places (to #99);
- Albany moved up 27 places (to #96).
Journals like Fordham (#26, up 10 places), Hastings (#36, up 12 places), Cardozo (#42, up 18 places), American (#46, up 11 places), and Lewis and Clark (#53, up 23 places) that have been frequently referred to in Angsting Thread comments as “hitting above their weight” all also improved at least 10 places (as did Missouri, Connecticut, Denver, Brooklyn, Chicago-Kent, Seattle, Oregon, Buffalo, Santa Clara, Indy, DePaul, South Carolina, St. Louis, Hofstra, Marquette, and Howard). Other journals dropping 10 or more places include: Arkansas-Fay., Kentucky, Georgia State, Temple, SMU, Arizona State, Georgia, and Alabama.
Other sizable moves in the top 20:
April 5, 2016 in Law Review Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (9)
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
2015 Google Law Review Rankings, Including Specialty Journals: The 10 Most-Cited Articles In The Tax Law Review
Following up on last week's post on the 2015 Google Law Review Rankings: my Pepperdine colleague Rob Anderson has expanded his annual Google Law Review Rankings to include specialty, secondary, and law-related peer-reviewed journals. The Tax Law Review is the only tax journal to make the list of the Top 299 law review, at #121. Here are the ten most cited articles in the Tax Law Review over the past five years:
February 24, 2016 in Law Review Rankings, Legal Education, Scholarship, Tax | Permalink | Comments (1)
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Google Law Review Rankings
My friend and colleague Rob Anderson (Pepperdine) has updated his annual Google Law Review Rankings, which cover 152 law reviews. Here are the Top 25:
Rank |
Law Journal Name |
Average |
h5-index |
h5-median |
1 |
Harvard Law Review |
62 |
82 |
|
2 |
Yale Law Journal |
52.5 |
67 |
|
3 |
Columbia Law Review |
50 |
61 |
|
4 |
Stanford Law Review |
49.5 |
62 |
|
5 |
University of Pennsylvania Law Review |
47 |
58 |
|
6 |
Georgetown Law Journal |
43 |
50 |
|
7 |
Michigan Law Review |
43 |
56 |
|
8 |
Texas Law Review |
41 |
50 |
|
9 |
California Law Review |
40.5 |
47 |
|
10 |
Virginia Law Review |
39 |
47 |
|
11 |
New York University Law Review |
38.5 |
49 |
|
12 |
Minnesota Law Review |
38 |
47 |
|
13 |
Cornell Law Review |
35.5 |
41 |
|
14 |
Duke Law Journal |
35.5 |
42 |
|
15 |
UCLA Law Review |
35 |
41 |
|
16 |
Vanderbilt Law Review |
34 |
41 |
|
17 |
University of Chicago Law Review |
34 |
42 |
|
18 |
Notre Dame Law Review |
32.5 |
38 |
|
19 |
William and Mary Law Review |
32 |
38 |
|
20 |
Iowa Law Review |
31.5 |
36 |
|
21 |
North Carolina Law Review |
30.5 |
35 |
|
22 |
Florida Law Review |
30 |
35 |
|
23 |
Northwestern University Law Review |
30 |
35 |
|
24 |
Fordham Law Review |
30 |
36 |
|
25 |
Wisconsin Law Review |
30 |
39 |
February 16, 2016 in Law Review Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tuesday, October 6, 2015
Academic Journal Rockets To #1 Scholarly Impact Ranking Through Self-Citation
Chronicle of Higher Education, What Happens When a Scholarly Journal Constantly Cites Itself?:
The Journal of Criminal Justice has been on a roll. Once considered a somewhat middling publication — not in the same league as top journals like Criminology and Justice Quarterly — it is now ranked No. 1 in the field according to its impact factor, which measures the average number of citations a journal receives and is meant to indicate which titles are generating the most buzz.
Rocketing to No. 1 is even more impressive when you find out that in 2012 the Journal of Criminal Justice was way back in 22nd place. That’s quite a leap!
Predictably, that sharp uptick made some researchers in a field devoted to misdeeds a tad suspicious. Among them was Thomas Baker, an assistant professor of criminal justice at the University of Central Florida. So Mr. Baker did what good researchers in all fields do: He took a hard look at the data. Then, after emailing it to a few friends, he decided to publish what he had found in the field’s widely read newsletter, The Criminologist.
What he found was this: Much of the rise in the journal’s impact factor was due to citations in articles published in the Journal of Criminal Justice itself.
October 6, 2015 in Law Review Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (0)
Monday, August 25, 2014
Google Law Review Rankings
My friend and colleague Rob Anderson (Pepperdine) has updated his Google Law Review Rankings to cover 229 law reviews. Here are the Top 25:
Rank |
Law Review Name |
H5 Index |
H5 Median |
Avg |
1 |
Harvard Law Review |
71 |
55 |
|
2 |
Stanford Law Review |
63 |
48.5 |
|
3 |
Yale Law Journal |
56 |
46.5 |
|
4 |
Columbia Law Review |
56 |
46.5 |
|
5 |
University of Pennsylvania Law Review |
49 |
43.5 |
|
6 |
Michigan Law Review |
56 |
43.5 |
|
7 |
UCLA Law Review |
51 |
41.5 |
|
8 |
Duke Law Journal |
52 |
41.5 |
|
9 |
Georgetown Law Journal |
52 |
41 |
|
10 |
Cornell Law Review |
48 |
39.5 |
|
11 |
Virginia Law Review |
46 |
39 |
|
12 |
Texas Law Review |
47 |
39 |
|
13 |
New York University Law Review |
46 |
37.5 |
|
14 |
California Law Review |
43 |
37 |
|
15 |
Minnesota Law Review |
44 |
36.5 |
|
16 |
Journal of Law & Economics |
46 |
36.5 |
|
17 |
Northwestern University Law Review |
43 |
35.5 |
|
18 |
Iowa Law Review |
43 |
35 |
|
19 |
University of Chicago Law Review |
41 |
34 |
|
20 |
William and Mary Law Review |
37 |
32 |
|
21 |
Vanderbilt Law Review |
37 |
31 |
|
22 |
University of Illinois Law Review |
38 |
31 |
|
23 |
Notre Dame Law Review |
35 |
30.5 |
|
24 |
Boston College Law Review |
37 |
30.5 |
|
25 |
Emory Law Journal |
39 |
30.5 |
August 25, 2014 in Law Review Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
What Makes Lawyers Happy?
Lawrence S. Krieger (Florida State University, College of Law) & Kennon M. Sheldon (University of Missouri (Columbia), Department of Psychological Sciences), What Makes Lawyers Happy? Transcending the Anecdotes with Data from 6200 Lawyers:
Attorney well-being and depression are topics of great concern, but there has been no theory-driven empirical research to guide lawyers and law students seeking well-being. This article reports a unique study establishing a hierarchy of five tiers of factors for lawyer well-being, including choices in law school, legal career, and personal life, and psychological needs and motivations established by Self-Determination Theory. Data from several thousand lawyers in four states show striking patterns, repeatedly indicating that common priorities on law school campuses and among lawyers are confused or misplaced. Factors typically afforded most attention and concern, those relating to prestige and money (income, law school debt, class rank, law review, and USNWR law school ranking) showed zero to small correlations with lawyer well-being. Conversely, factors marginalized in law school and seen in previous research to erode in law students (psychological needs and motivation) were the very strongest predictors of lawyer happiness and satisfaction. Lawyers were grouped by practice type and setting to further test these findings. The group with the lowest incomes and grades in law school, public service lawyers, had stronger autonomy and purpose and were happier than those in the most prestigious positions and with the highest grades and incomes. Additional measures raised concerns: subjects did not broadly agree that judge and lawyer behavior is professional, nor that the legal process reaches fair outcomes. Specific explanations and recommendations for lawyers, law teachers, and legal employers are drawn from the data, and direct implications for attorney productivity and professionalism are explained.
- ABA Journal, Lawyers in Prestige Positions Aren’t as Happy as Those in Public Service-Jobs, Study Finds
- National Law Journal, Lawyer Depression Begins in School
March 18, 2014 in Law Review Rankings, Law School | Permalink | Comments (1)
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Alford: The Strunk & White Law Review Rankings
Opinio Juris: Omit Needless Words, by Roger Alford (Notre Dame):
Watching my youngest son draft and redraft his high school essays under the watchful eye of his English teacher, who is smitten by the inerrant wisdom of Strunk and White’s Elements of Style, I was curious how the best legal scholarship in the country fares by classic rules of writing. To simplify my task, I have chosen one rule that is easily quantifiable. ... "[T]he expression 'the fact that' should be revised out of every sentence in which it occurs." ...
A ten-year search of the number of occurrences “the fact that” appeared in the flagship journals of the top law schools reveals the following:
- Harvard Law Review: 869
- Michigan Law Review: 496
- Yale Law Journal: 459
- Columbia Law Review: 436
- Chicago Law Review: 431
- NYU Law Review: 428
- Penn Law Review: 408
- California Law Review: 406
- Stanford Law Review: 388
- Virginia Law Review: 364
October 10, 2013 in Law Review Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Law Review Circulation and Efficiency Continue to Plummet (2012)
Ross E. Davies (George Mason), The Increasingly Lengthy Long Run of the Law Reviews: Law Review Business 2012 – Circulation and Production, 3 J. of Law 245 (2013):
This article is the latest in a series of simple annual studies of the sales of some leading law reviews, undertaken with an eye to getting an admittedly rough and partial sense of the state of publishing in the legal academy. Over the years, the data itself has turned out to be a little bit interesting in spots. More interesting (perhaps), and more amusing and worrisome (certainly), have been the continuing small discoveries that some law reviews report relatively low paid circulation numbers to the U.S. Postal Service (which appear only in tiny-type government forms buried in the rarely read front- or back-matter of the reporting law review), but then tout higher sales numbers in promotional sections of their websites. It is reminiscent of the way some law schools have number-fudged their presentation of other kinds of data to, for example, U.S. News & World Report. The law review-school comparison might prompt the reader to wonder light-heartedly how many law school deans were once law review editors. But answering that question would be too easy, and too far afield from the focus here on publishing in the legal academy. There is, however, another question whose answer might be more interesting, and more likely to lead to intriguing comparisons. The question: How have the size and composition of law review editorial staffs changed over time, in absolute terms and in terms of their relationship to the product they put out? Possible comparisons will probably suggest themselves. This year’s report covers the usual ground relating to paid circulation and associated editorial behavior. It also offers a limited and tentative first take on the production question.
Prior TaxProf Blog coverage:
- Law Review Circulation Continues to Plummet (2008)
- Law Review Circulation Continues to Plummet (2009)
- Law Review Circulation Continues to Plummet (2010)
- Law Review Circulation Continues to Plummet (2011)
August 27, 2013 in Law Review Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
2003-2012 Tax Journal Rankings: NYU #1, Tax Notes #2
Here are the Washington & Lee tax law review combined rankings of the five major tax journals:
- Florida Tax Review ("Florida")
- Tax Law Review ("NYU")
- Tax Lawyer ("ABA")
- Tax Notes
- Virginia Tax Review ("Virginia")
The rankings are based on the annual combined rankings in 2003-2012 among these five journals by:
- Impact Factor (citations/number of articles published)
- Citations in Law Reviews
- Citations in Cases (federal and state courts)
- Currency (how rapidly articles are cited)
Rank |
Journal |
2012 |
2011 |
2010 |
2009 |
2008 |
2007 |
2006 |
2005 |
2004 |
2003 |
1.1 |
NYU |
2 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
2.9 |
Tax Notes |
4 |
3 |
3 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
5 |
3 |
2 |
3 |
3.0 |
Florida |
3 |
4 |
4 |
4 |
3 |
3 |
2 |
2 |
3 |
2 |
3.1 |
Virginia |
1 |
2 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
4 |
3 |
4 |
4 |
4 |
4.9 |
ABA |
5 |
5 |
5 |
5 |
5 |
5 |
4 |
5 |
5 |
5 |
As I have previously noted, Tax Notes fares poorly in the Impact Factor category (citations/number of articles published) because W&L apparently counts as "articles" all of the advance sheet material in Tax Notes.
Tax Notes is #1 by a wide margin in the number of citations in law reviews, with more than double the citations of its nearest competitor:
Rank |
Journal |
2012 |
2011 |
2010 |
2009 |
2008 |
2007 |
2006 |
2005 |
2004 |
2003 |
1.0 |
Tax Notes |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
2.9 |
ABA |
4 |
3 |
4 |
4 |
3 |
3 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
3.0 |
NYU |
3 |
4 |
3 |
3 |
2 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
3 |
3 |
3.1 |
Virginia |
2 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
4 |
4 |
4 |
3 |
4 |
4 |
5.0 |
Florida |
5 |
5 |
5 |
5 |
5 |
5 |
5 |
5 |
5 |
5 |
March 6, 2013 in Law Review Rankings, Legal Education, Scholarship, Tax, Tax Analysts, Tax Rankings, Tax Scholarship, W&L Tax Journal Rankings | Permalink | Comments (0)
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
2012 Tax Journal Rankings: Virginia #1, NYU #2
Here are the Washington & Lee tax law review rankings, based on citations to articles published in 2005-2012:
- Impact Factor (citations/number of articles published)
- Citations in Law Reviews
- Citations in Cases (federal and state courts)
- Currency (how rapidly articles are cited)
- Combined (weighted combination of the above rankings)
Here are the Top 25 tax journals (out of 48 ranked tax journals):
Rank |
Tax Journal |
Combined |
Impact |
Law Reviews |
Cases |
Currency |
1 |
Virginia Tax Review |
100.0 |
0.72 |
595 |
5 |
1.20 |
2 |
Tax Law Review |
80.2 |
0.66 |
382 |
1 |
0.92 |
3 |
Elder Law Journal |
66.1 |
0.58 |
279 |
8 |
0.55 |
4 |
Florida Tax Review |
62.0 |
0.58 |
217 |
0 |
0.96 |
5 |
Tax Notes |
54.5 |
0.01 |
762 |
15 |
0.02 |
6 |
Pittsburgh Tax Review |
40.5 |
0.43 |
81 |
2 |
0.25 |
6 |
Tax Lawyer |
40.5 |
0.21 |
335 |
14 |
0.14 |
8 |
Houston Bus. & Tax J. |
39.7 |
0.34 |
170 |
5 |
0.14 |
9 |
Akron Tax Journal |
28.9 |
0.30 |
71 |
3 |
0.38 |
10 |
Heckerling Inst. Est. Plan. |
26.4 |
0.21 |
132 |
0 |
0.48 |
11 |
Marquette Elder's Advisor |
24.8 |
0.20 |
124 |
1 |
0.14 |
12 |
National Tax Journal |
23.1 |
0.11 |
206 |
2 |
0.19 |
13 |
Journal of Taxation |
17.4 |
0.03 |
215 |
6 |
0.05 |
14 |
New Zealand J. Tax' Law |
14.0 |
0.11 |
73 |
0 |
0.10 |
15 |
Estate Planning |
13.2 |
0.04 |
148 |
1 |
0.19 |
16 |
Tax Notes International |
10.7 |
0.00 |
151 |
0 |
0.00 |
17 |
Exempt Org. Tax Review |
5.0 |
0.00 |
75 |
0 |
0.01 |
17 |
Taxes Magazine |
5.0 |
0.01 |
55 |
0 |
0.04 |
19 |
British Tax Review |
4.1 |
0.01 |
42 |
0 |
0.02 |
19 |
Tax Management Mem. |
4.1 |
0.01 |
48 |
1 |
0.05 |
19 |
Taxation of Exempts |
4.1 |
0.02 |
40 |
0 |
0.10 |
22 |
Canadian Tax Journal |
3.3 |
0.02 |
30 |
0 |
0.02 |
23 |
eJournal of Tax Research |
2.5 |
0.02 |
11 |
0 |
0.06 |
23 |
J. Australasian Tax Ass'n |
2.5 |
0.02 |
13 |
0 |
0.02 |
23 |
Tax Management Int'l J. |
2.5 |
0.01 |
27 |
0 |
0.03 |
Tax Notes is #1 by a wide margin in citations in law reviews (762 v. #2's Virginia Tax Review's 595), but fairs relatively poorly (.001, ranked #20) in the Impact Factor category (citations/number of articles published). My guess is that W&L counted as "articles" all of the advance sheet material in Tax Notes. (Note: I omitted the NYU Journal of Law and Business from the above chart because it is not a tax journal.)
Prior W&L Tax Journal Rankings:
(Hat Tip: Omri Marian,)
February 27, 2013 in Law Review Rankings, Legal Education, Scholarship, Tax, Tax Rankings, Tax Scholarship, W&L Tax Journal Rankings | Permalink | Comments (1)
Monday, February 25, 2013
Google Law Review Rankings
My friend and colleague Rob Anderson (Pepperdine) has expanded his Google Law Review Rankings to cover 216 law reviews based on articles published in 2007-2011 (with links to the most-cited articles for each journal). Here are the Top 25, along with each journal's ranking in the Washington & Lee law review rankings:
Rank |
Law Review |
Google h5-Index |
Google h5-Median |
W&L Rank |
1 |
Harvard |
44 |
71 |
1 |
2 |
Stanford |
44 |
67 |
4 |
3 |
Columbia |
43 |
70 |
2 |
4 |
Pennsylvania |
41 |
70 |
8 |
5 |
Michigan |
38 |
65 |
6 |
6 |
UCLA |
38 |
59 |
7 |
7 |
Texas |
38 |
55 |
9 |
8 |
Yale |
38 |
53 |
3 |
9 |
Georgetown |
36 |
63 |
5 |
10 |
Virginia |
36 |
55 |
10 |
11 |
California |
35 |
45 |
12 |
12 |
Minnesota |
33 |
53 |
18 |
13 |
Duke |
33 |
52 |
21 |
14 |
Chicago |
33 |
44 |
24 |
15 |
Northwestern |
32 |
49 |
16 |
16 |
Illinois |
32 |
45 |
27 |
17 |
Iowa |
31 |
54 |
17 |
18 |
Cornell |
31 |
50 |
15 |
19 |
J. Law & Econ. |
30 |
51 |
382 |
20 |
Notre Dame |
30 |
45 |
13 |
21 |
UC-Davis |
30 |
39 |
29 |
22 |
NYU |
29 |
54 |
14 |
23 |
Am. J. Int'l Law |
29 |
51 |
56 |
24 |
Vanderbilt |
28 |
49 |
20 |
25 |
Boston University |
28 |
42 |
22 |
February 25, 2013 in Law Review Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
2011 Tax Journal Rankings: NYU #1, Virginia #2, Tax Notes #3
Here are the Washington & Lee tax law review rankings, based on citations to articles published in 2004-2011:
- Impact Factor (citations/number of articles published)
- Citations in Law Reviews
- Citations in Cases (federal and state courts)
- Currency (how rapidly articles are cited)
- Combined (weighted combination of the above rankings)
Here are the Top 25 tax journals (out of 44 ranked tax journals):
Rank |
Tax Journal |
Combined |
Impact |
Law Reviews |
Cases |
Currency |
1 |
Tax Law Review |
100.0 |
0.98 |
412 |
1 |
1.74 |
2 |
Virginia Tax Review |
89.6 |
0.71 |
554 |
9 |
1.00 |
3 |
Tax Notes |
76.0 |
0.01 |
1165 |
14 |
0.02 |
4 |
Florida Tax Review |
60.8 |
0.63 |
210 |
0 |
0.75 |
5 |
Elder Law Journal |
57.6 |
0.54 |
257 |
8 |
0.36 |
6 |
Tax Lawyer |
44.0 |
0.21 |
435 |
10 |
0.40 |
7 |
Pittsburgh Tax Review |
41.6 |
0.48 |
85 |
3 |
0.42 |
8 |
Houston Bus. & Tax J. |
35.2 |
0.31 |
184 |
4 |
0.30 |
9 |
Journal of Taxation |
28.8 |
0.06 |
370 |
5 |
0.11 |
10 |
Heckerling Inst. Est. Plan. |
26.4 |
0.22 |
150 |
0 |
0.41 |
11 |
Akron Tax Journal |
22.4 |
0.25 |
56 |
3 |
1.17 |
12 |
National Tax Journal |
22.4 |
0.11 |
217 |
0 |
0.16 |
13 |
Marquette Elder's Advisor |
17.6 |
0.14 |
107 |
1 |
0.14 |
14 |
Estate Planning |
14.4 |
0.04 |
172 |
1 |
0.17 |
15 |
Taxes |
14.4 |
0.05 |
162 |
0 |
0.08 |
15 |
Tax Notes International |
12.8 |
0.00 |
193 |
0 |
0.00 |
17 |
New Zealand J. Tax'n Law |
9.6 |
0.08 |
58 |
0 |
0.00 |
18 |
Tax Management Mem. |
9.6 |
0.03 |
111 |
1 |
0.05 |
18 |
Tax Management Int’l J. |
5.6 |
0.02 |
66 |
0 |
0.05 |
20 |
Taxation of Exempts |
4.0 |
0.02 |
33 |
0 |
0.08 |
21 |
British Tax Review |
3.2 |
0.01 |
36 |
0 |
0.01 |
22 |
Corporate Taxation |
3.2 |
0.02 |
31 |
0 |
0.04 |
23 |
eJournal of Tax Research |
3.2 |
0.03 |
16 |
0 |
0.03 |
24 |
Real Estate Taxation |
3.2 |
0.02 |
24 |
1 |
0.01 |
25 |
Tax Mgmt Real Estate J. |
3.2 |
0.02 |
23 |
0 |
0.01 |
Tax Notes is #1 by a wide margin in citations in law reviews (1165 v. #2's Virginia Tax Review's 554), but fairs relatively poorly (.001, ranked #24) in the Impact Factor category (citations/number of articles published). My guess is that W&L counted as "articles" all of the advance sheet material in Tax Notes. (Note: I omitted the NYU Journal of Law and Business from the above chart because it is not a tax journal.)
Prior W&L Tax Journal Rankings:
Update: Thanks to Omri Marian for letting me know that Washington & Lee has released an updated ranking based on citations to articles published in 2005-2012. I will blog those rankings in a forthcoming post.
February 19, 2013 in Law Review Rankings, Legal Education, Scholarship, Tax, Tax Rankings, Tax Scholarship, W&L Tax Journal Rankings | Permalink | Comments (0)
Sunday, February 10, 2013
The Need for a New Law Review Ranking System
The Legal Watchdog: Law Review Publishing: In Search of a Useful Ranking System:
My initial decision on where to publish has typically been guided by the US News rankings of law schools, which, in legal publication circles, is used as a proxy for the quality of a law school’s journal. ... To be sure, there are other means by which to choose among publication offers. Washington & Lee University, for example, ranks journal impact, i.e., how often the journal is cited. ...
Given the major flaws in the two primary journal ranking systems, I would like to see a law professor develop a ranking methodology based on authors’ experiences with the publishing journals. Law professors are already ranking nearly every imaginable thing under the sun—see, for example, here, here, here, here, and here. And a “law review author ranking” would actually be meaningful. I would love for a semi-mathematically inclined professor to run with this idea, and conduct an annual survey of authors (nearly all of whom will be his/her fellow law professors) in order to rank their law journal editing and publishing experiences.
I’ll get the ball rolling. The categories to be ranked could include: timeliness of the publication (on time = 10 points); time allowed for the author to review edits (two weeks = 10 points); deference to the author’s style (high deference = 10 points); creation of errors during editing process (no editor-created errors = 10 points); responsiveness to the author’s edits (short response time = 10 points); and quality of the journal’s website (an up-to-date website posting the article = 10 points). Of course, there are probably a dozen other categories that could be included, but the total number of categories ranked should be few, and the respondents should be guaranteed anonymity, in order to induce participation by authors.
It is true that law review editors turn-over every year, and a new batch takes their place. This means that a great experience with “Journal A” could easily have been a bad experience had the article been published a year earlier or later. It is further true that some law professors—especially those seeking tenure—will, by necessity, continue to be slaves to the US News rankings when selecting among publication offers. However, ranking the journals on the quality of their editing process would still do two important things.
First, by ranking certain categories, such as whether the editors were deferential to the author’s writing style, authors would be clearly communicating to journal editors what they value in the publication process. And most of the editors will likely respond by improving performance in these areas. ...
And second, if a particular journal ranks high, it will likely be a source of pride, which will transfer to the next year’s editorial board. Similarly, if a particular journal ranks low, that too will be passed on, and will give the next year’s board the incentive to do better than its predecessor board. Remember, rankings are powerful. Law review editors are students, and some students do drastic, life-ruining things based on rankings, e.g., going into debt $150,000 or more to go to a law school ranked in the 20s instead of taking a full scholarship at a school ranked in the 50s.
February 10, 2013 in Law Review Rankings, Legal Education, Scholarship | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Monday, November 19, 2012
Google Law Review Rankings
From my friend and colleague Rob Anderson (Pepperdine), Google Ranks Law Reviews:
Google has announced an enhancement to its Scholar Metrics that allows users to view citation rankings of journals in various categories. Among the rankings is Google's ranking of law reviews, as well as a number of specialty law reviews such as technology law and international law. The rankings are based on Jorge Hirsch's "h-index," which is an alternative to impact factor as a measure of a journal's importance.
Law Review h1-index h5-median 1. Harvard 44 71 2. Stanford 44 67 3. Columbia 43 70 4. Pennsylvania 41 70 5. Michigan 38 65 6. UCLA 38 59 7. Texas 38 55 8. Yale 38 53 9. Georgetown 36 63 10. Virginia 36 55 11. California 35 45 12. Minnesota 33 53 13. Duke 33 52 14. Chicago 33 44 15. Northwestern 32 49 16. Illinois 32 45 17. Iowa 31 54 18. Cornell 31 50 19. J. Law & Econ. 30 51 20. Notre Dame 30 45
November 19, 2012 in Law Review Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Law Review Circulation Continues to Plummet (2011)
Ross E. Davies (George Mason), Law Review Circulation 2011: More Change, More Same, 2 J. Legal Metrics 179 (2012):
In 2011, for the first time since the U.S. Postal Service began requiring law reviews to track and report their circulation numbers, no major law review had more than 2,000 paying subscribers. The Harvard Law Review remains the top journal, but its paid circulation has declined from more than 10,000 during much of the 1960s and ’70s to about 5,000 in the 1990s to 1,896 last year.
- Law Review Circulation Continues to Plummet (2008)
- Law Review Circulation Continues to Plummet (2009)
- Law Review Circulation Continues to Plummet (2010)
February 29, 2012 in Law Review Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Fall 2011 Law Review Article Submission Guide
The first chart (pp. 1-64) contains information gathered from the journals’ websites on:
- Methods for submitting an article (such as by e-mail, ExpressO, or regular mail)
- Any special formatting requirements
- How to request an expedited review
- How to withdraw an article after it has been accepted for publication elsewhere
The second chart (pp. 65-71) contains the ranking of the law reviews and their schools under six measures:
- U.S. News: Overall Rank
- U.S. News: Peer Reputation Rating
- U.S. News: Judge/Lawyer Reputation Rating
- Washington & Lee Citation Ranking
- Washington & Lee Impact Factor
- Washington & Lee Combined Rating
They also have posted a list of links to the submissions information on each law journal’s website.
July 27, 2011 in Law Review Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Galle: Scholarly Influence in Law Review Rankings
Maybe it’s the hundred-degree heat talking, but I think law review rankings are a little bit useful. As a reader and researcher, I do make some use of an article’s placement as a screen for how close of an initial read to devote to it. When I look at the c.v.’s of two scholars whose work I’ve never read, I’m probably inclined to look more attentively at the work of the one with the fancy cites. Yeah, I said it. Put away the pitchforks, dear readers: I don’t think I’m alone. Satisficing is not going away. ...
It would be nice, then, if there were reliable guides to the signaling value of a given journal placement. U.S. News gives us a decent if limited signal; since most authors agree that at the pinnacle its rankings are roughly meaningful, we get scarcity. So we can assume that journals at the top are more selective than others. Whether they make good decisions when picking the few from the many we don't know. ... Is there a better way to rank journals? ...
An approximation of a value-neutral approach might be to simply rank publications based on the use others scholars make of them. (For a thoughtful review of why that method works and what its problems are, see Russell Korobkin, 26 FSU L. Rev. 851, and Ronen Perry.) Korobkin argues that, basically, citation counts create the least bad set of incentives; usefulness to others seems like a decent result even if it's somewhat distorting of the real scholarly mission. ...
Well, the Washington & Lee Law Library, as many readers will know, offers a ranking of law journals based on total citations and "impact factor," or IF. ... As weak as IF is in general, W&L’s implementation is particularly problematic. ...Finally, to be parochial, W&L only uses Westlaw to generate its citation counts, and Westlaw doesn’t include Tax Notes, a major publication for us tax types. (This is also our gripe with Leiter). So tax articles are (sniff) even more under-appreciated. ...
[W]hat I'd particularly like to see is some kind of quality-weighted influence measure, along the lines of google pageview, as described here.
July 21, 2011 in Law Review Rankings, Legal Education, Tax | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Monday, February 14, 2011
Spring 2011 Law Review Article Submission Guide
The first chart (pp. 1-72) contains information gathered from the journals’ websites on:
- Methods for submitting an article (such as by e-mail, ExpressO, or regular mail)
- Any special formatting requirements
- How to request an expedited review
- How to withdraw an article after it has been accepted for publication elsewhere
The second chart (pp. 73-79) contains the ranking of the law reviews and their schools under six measures:
- U.S. News: Overall Rank
- U.S. News: Peer Reputation Rating
- U.S. News: Judge/Lawyer Reputation Rating
- Washington & Lee Citation Ranking
- Washington & Lee Impact Factor
- Washington & Lee Combined Rating
They also have posted a list of links to the submissions information on each law journal’s website.
February 14, 2011 in Law Review Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Law Review Circulation Continues to Plummet
For the past couple of years we have needled the Harvard Law Review (HLR) about its tendency to err on the side of inflation when describing the size of its subscriber base. So, it seems only fair now to salute the HLR’s recent correction, and to note that the extravagant circulation claims made these days by the Virginia Law Review make the HLR’s old claims seem downright modest. This year we are offering two new perspectives on the law review business. The first is really just a bigger version of an old one. We have added several law schools’ flagship law reviews to our little tables of journal circulation rates. The newcomers are: Boston University Law Review, Emory Law Journal, Minnesota Law Review, Indiana Law Journal, Illinois Law Review, Notre Dame Law Review, Boston College Law Review, Iowa Law Review, William and Mary Law Review, George Washington Law Review, Fordham Law Review, Alabama Law Review, North Carolina Law Review, Washington Law Review, Washington and Lee Law Review, Ohio State Law Journal, UC Davis Law Review, Georgia Law Review, Wisconsin Law Review. We also corrected a few errors in earlier versions of the tables and filled in a few blanks, an exercise that will doubtless be repeated in the future. The second new perspective is a look at the distant past, when only a few law reviews published any circulation numbers. A casual review of some of those early numbers, in tandem with an equally casual glance at the advertising pages of those early law reviews, provides an ironic reminder of a plausible piece of conventional wisdom about the decline in sales of print editions of law reviews: that the decline has been and is being caused by the rise of searchable electronic databases and of an Internet via which to conveniently tap into those databases.
[T]ake a look at the graph on page 550. It shows the trends in paid subscriptions at three leading law reviews — the HLR, the Yale Law Journal, and the Columbia Law Review — for which we have at least some data from the 1960s to the present. (The graph is prettier than it ought to be because we have filled in the blanks and smoothed the curves for each journal by assuming that its circulation rates in years for which we lack data are the same as the rates in the immediately preceding years.) The gray bar cutting across all three circulation trend lines marks the period during which Westlaw advertisements began appearing in the law reviews. Correlation does not indicate causation, of course, but it is hard to resist the thought that the appearance of that ink-on-paper Westlaw advertisement in the November 1979 ink-on-paper HLR marked what might eventually turn out to be the beginning of the end for the ink-on-paper HLR, and for ink-on-paper law reviews more generally.
January 27, 2011 in Law Review Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
Monday, May 3, 2010
Law Review Rankings by Social Science Impact
Mikhail Koulikov (Reference/Research Librarian, New York Law Institute) has published Indexing and Full-Text Coverage of Law Review Articles in Nonlegal Databases: An Initial Study, 102 Law Lib. J. 39 (2010). Here is the abstract:
(Hat Tip: Blackbook Legal Blog.)Mr. Koulikov examines the level of coverage that articles originally published in law reviews receive in eight major general academic databases. His findings are very similar to those of other discipline-specific database coverage studies, and reveal that coverage varies widely by database, regardless of the database’s claim to cover legal periodicals. This has particular implications for the level of engagement that nonlegal scholars have with the literature of the legal academia, and for the potential for meaningful interaction between legal scholars and their peers in other academic fields.
May 3, 2010 in Law Review Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Law Review Circulation Continues to Plummet
Ross E. Davies (George Mason) has posted Law Review Circulation 2009: The Combover, Green Bag Almanac & Reader 419 (2010). Here is the abstract:
For our second annual study of the law review business [see the first study here], we added circulation data for four flagship law reviews (UCLA, Texas, USC, and Washington University) and two specialty journals (NYU’s Tax Law Review and Duke’s Law and Contemporary Problems). We also corrected a few errors in the tables in our first study and filled-in a few blanks. And, finally, we noticed something that might be worth thinking about: the possibility that the law school combover culture has infected law reviews.
Davies documents an enromous decline in law review circulation over the 1979-2009 period. The Tax Law Review's circulation, for example, has declined 89.1% from a peak of 5,685 in 1980-81 to 620 in 2006-07.
Update: National Law Journal, Study Finds Sharp Decline in Law Review Circulation.
February 17, 2010 in Law Review Rankings, Legal Education, Tax | Permalink | Comments (12) | TrackBack (0)
Friday, August 28, 2009
Brophy: The Signaling Value of Law Reviews -- An Exploration of Citations and Prestige
Alfred L. Brophy (North Carolina) has published The Signaling Value of Law Reviews: An Exploration of Citations and Prestige, 36 Fla. St. U. L. Rev. 229 (2009). Here is the abstract:
This brief Essay reports a study of citations to every article published in 1992 in thirteen leading law journals. It uses citations as a proxy (an admittedly poor one) of article quality and then compares the citations across journals. There are, not surprisingly, vast differences in the number of citations per article. While articles in the most elite journals receive more citations on average than the other less elite (but still highly regarded) journals studied, some articles in the less elite journals are more heavily cited than many articles in even the most elite journals. In keeping with studies in other disciplines and other citation studies of legal journals, the results here suggest that we should be wary of judgments about quality based on place of publication. We should also be wary of judgments about quality of scholarship based on the number of citations, and we should, therefore, continue to evaluate scholarship through close reads of it.
August 28, 2009 in Law Review Rankings, Legal Education, Scholarship | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Law School Rankings iPhone App
Following up on yesterday's post: the Law School 100 rankings are now available as an app for your iPhone (at a cost of 99 cents). From the iTunes description:
Since the year 2000, LawTV has compiled the list of the best law schools in the United States, based on qualitative (rather than quantitative) criteria. More than half a million pre-law students, law students, law professors, and lawyers use the Law School 100 rankings each year.
The Law School 100 includes every ABA-accredited law school. The top 100 law schools are listed in their ranking order. The second 100 law schools (Tier 2 law schools) are listed in alphabetical order.
(Hat Tip: Legal Blog Watch.)
August 11, 2009 in Law Review Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Rankings Boost For UC-Hastings?
UC-Hastings opens a new parking garage. (Hat Tip: Law School Headlines.)
May 21, 2009 in Law Review Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Thursday, May 14, 2009
This Won't Help Arizona State in the U.S. News Rankings
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | M - Th 11p / 10c | |||
Arizona State Snubs Obama | ||||
|
May 14, 2009 in Law Review Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Monday, February 2, 2009
Law Review Circulation Down 62%
From our article, What Law Schools Can Learn from Billy Beane and the Oakland Athletics, 82 Tex. L. Rev. 1483, 1534-35 & n.296 (2004):
[L]aw reviews could be ranked, as are newspapers and other periodicals, based on circulation. Surprisingly, although the U.S. Post Office collects circulation figures for periodicals desiring reduced postage rates, we found no attempt in the literature to rank law reviews based on circulation. Our own preliminary ranking of law reviews by circulation yielded surprising results. Only five of the top twenty law reviews, but eight of those ranked lower than one-hundred (as measured by U.S. News & World Report), are included in the top twenty law reviews based on circulation figures.
[Here were the Top 10 law reviews by circulation, along with the schools' U.S. News peer reputation ranking:
1. Harvard 7500 (1) 2. Arkansas (Fayetteville) 5000 (97) 3. Yale 4500 (1) 4. Arkansas (Little Rock) 3800 (119) 5. Cornell 3500 (11) 6. McGeorge 3200 (108) 7. Boston University 3000 (25) Brooklyn 3000 (64) Seattle 3000 (108) South Carolina 3000 (87)]
Ross E. Davies (George Mason) has compiled the circulation figures of the general law reviews at the Top 15 law schools as ranked by U.S. News in Law Review Circulation, Green Bag Almanac & Reader 164 (2009). Here is the abstract:
Many law reviews are required by law to publish accurate reports of basic information about their subscribers and circulation. But many do not -- do not report accurate information or do not report information at all. Perhaps this is in response to steep declines in subscriptions, which the available reports illustrate.
Davies documents a 62.4% decline in law review circulation over this 29-year period, from 47,543 in 1979-80 (3,170 per law review) to 17,878 in 2007-08 (1,192 per law review) (using data from the closest year if data was missing for either 1979-80 or 2007-08). The biggest percentage declines were:
- Virginia: -77.9%
- Michigan: -73.5%
- Harvard: -70.2%
- Georgetown: -71.1%
- Northwestern: -67.5%
- UC-Berkeley: -65.3%
See Inside Higher Ed, Documenting the Decline of (Print) Law Reviews, by Doug Lederman.
February 2, 2009 in Law Review Rankings, Legal Education | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Update on LSAT-Free Admissions and LSAT Retesting of Admitted Applicants
Following up on my recent posts:
- The Next Front in the Rankings War: Paying Admitted Students to Retake the LSAT?
- Illinois Offers LSAT-Free Admission to Undergrads With 3.0 GPA
- LSAT-Free Law School Admissions Can Goose U.S. News Ranking
Press and blogosphere coverage:
- Associated Press: Baylor Pays Incoming Freshmen to Retake SATs
- Baylor University Newspaper:
- Christine Hurt, LSATs, SATs, Sound and Fury
- Larry Ribstein, Admitting without LSATs: What's the Game?
- New York Times:
- Ilya Somin, Manipulating College Rankings by Paying Students to Retake Standardized Tests
- U.S. News & World Report: Baylor Pays Freshmen to Retake SAT
October 16, 2008 in Law Review Rankings | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Ranking Scholarly Journals: The European Experience
In this week's Chronicle of Higher Education: New Ratings of Humanities Journals Do More Than Rank — They Rankle, by Jennifer Howard:
A large-scale, multinational attempt in Europe to rank humanities journals has set off a revolt. In a protest letter, some journal editors have called it "a dangerous and misguided exercise." The project has also started a drumbeat of alarm in this country, as U.S.-based scholars begin to grasp the implications for their own work and the journals they edit.
The ranking project, known as the European Reference Index for the Humanities, or ERIH, is the brainchild of the European Science Foundation, which brings together research agencies from many countries. It grew from a desire to showcase high-quality research in Europe. Panels of four to six scholars, appointed by a steering committee, compiled initial lists of journals to be classified in 15 fields. Each journal was assigned to a category — A, B, or C — depending on its reputation and international reach. (See box below.) ...
October 7, 2008 in Law Review Rankings | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Thursday, September 25, 2008
LSAT-Free Law School Admissions Can Goose U.S. News Ranking
My MoneyLaw colleague Tom Bell (Chapman) notes Michigan's new Wolverine Scholars Program -- in which Michigan undergrads with a minimum 3.80 GPA are admitted to Michigan Law School if they agree to not take the LSAT. The rankings benefit is that there is no LSAT score to report to U.S. News, while the minimum 3.80 GPA will boost Michigan's median 3.64 GPA, which counts 10% in U.S. News' methodology. Other schools presumably will follow Michigan's lead and create similar programs to recruit their undergrads while also goosing their U.S. news ranking.
Update #1: As usual, my Law Professor Blog Network colleague Bill Henderson (Indiana) hits the nail on the head:
The rankings motive is further corroborated by the disqualification if the potential Wolverine Scholar has taken the LSAT. ... [T]here are terrible externalities from this alleged merit-based program. It is impossible to deny that the Wolverine Scholars program will encourage students to (a) take easier classes and majors to avoid the need to take the LSAT to get into an elite law school, (b) discourage extracurriculars that will threaten the 3.8, and (c) make a lot of Michigan undergraduate professors miserable with complaints from students that their B+ or A- grade is going to blow their Wolverine Scholar application.
From a rankings perspective, what happens when you get 20, 30, or 40 candidates with 3.8+ UPGA and no LSAT score? From day 1 of admissions season, Michigan has much greater latitude to lock in higher median LSAT and UPGA numbers--because zero Wolverine Scholars are dragging down the LSAT and all are helping the UPGA numbers. Further, because of the idiosyncrasies of the USNWR rankings formula, see Ted Seto's Understanding the U.S. News Law School Rankings, at the upper ranges, small changes in UGPA have a much greater sway on rankings that a single LSAT point. For example, in the simulation model that Andy Morriss and I created, a move from 3.64 to 3.66 has a greater effect than a move from 169 to 170. If Michigan can get to a 3.80 UGPA, they could tie with NYU at #5.
Update #2: A reader let me know that Georgetown has a similar Early Assurance Program:
Early Assurance applicants are exempt from taking the LSAT and registering with the LSDAS. Instead, please include an official transcript with at least five semesters of undergraduate grades. Early Assurance applicants must submit two recommendations, one of which must be the Early Assurance Dean's Certification Form. Competitive Early Assurance applicants should have an undergraduate GPA of at least a 3.8.
Update #3: For more, see:
September 25, 2008 in Law Review Rankings | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBack (0)
Friday, August 22, 2008
Texas Law School Rankings
Texas Lawyer has released its annual ranking of the nine Texas law schools, based on a survey completed by 1,132 students enrolled at the school (the response rate ranged from 10%-25% at each school). The ranking equally weighs eight variables:
- Teaching Quality
- Faculty Accessibility
- Preparation for Practice
- Placement Office Helpfulness
- Collegiality
- Student Diversity
- Technology
- Library Services
Here is the overall ranking of the Texas law schools under the Texas Monthly methodology, along with their ranking in U.S. News and World Report (overall and peer reputation) and SSRN downloads (as well as their ranking among U.S. law schools) [click on chart to enlarge]:
August 22, 2008 in Law Review Rankings | Permalink | Comments (21) | TrackBack (0)
Friday, August 15, 2008
Forbes College Rankings
Forbes has launched a new ranking of 569 colleges and universities, based on this methodology:
- Listing of Alumni in Who's Who in America (25%)
- Student Evaluations of Professors from Ratemyprofessors.com (25%)
- Four- Year Graduation Rates (16 2/3%)
- Enrollment-adjusted numbers of students and faculty receiving nationally competitive awards (16 2/3%)
- Average four year accumulated student debt of those borrowing money (16 2/3%)
Here are Forbes' Top 25:
- Princeton
- California Institute of Technology
- Harvard
- Swarthmore
- Williams
- U.S. Military Academy
- Amherst
- Wellesley
- Yale
- Columbia
- Northwestern
- Wabash
- Centre College (KY)
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Bowdoin College
- U.S. Air Force Academy
- Middlebury
- University of Chicago
- Smith
- Pomona
- Wesleyan
- Haverford
- Stanford
- Hamilton
- Sarah Lawrence
August 15, 2008 in Law Review Rankings | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBack (0)
Monday, July 28, 2008
Seto on the Proposed Boycott of the U.S. News Rankings
Theodore P. Seto (Loyola-L.A.), author of the influential article, Understanding the U.S. News Law School Rankings, 60 SMU L. Rev. 493 (2007), shares his thoughts on Case Dean Gary Simson's call to boycott the U.S. News rankings (blogged here, here, and here):
Writing in the on-line edition of the National Law Journal, Dean Gary Simson of Case Western says the following about U.S. News’ recent announcement of possible changes to its methodology:
This announcement, and the wrench that it threatens to throw into structural changes that have been made to avoid being disadvantaged by a deeply flawed methodology, should cause law school faculties and administrations everywhere to finally say ‘enough’ and that they are done participating in a ranking system that has done substantial harm and little, if any, good to legal education in the United States.
In response, Mr. Robert Morse of U.S. News states;
If a law school refuses to provide U.S. News directly with statistical data from their annual American Bar Association (ABA) accreditation data questionnaire, then U.S. News still can get almost all of that school’s official ABA data from the ABA website. U.S. News would still be able to rank a law school, even if it refused to participate
Mr. Morse’s response is correct, but only with significant caveats.
July 28, 2008 in Law Review Rankings | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)