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.”

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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.

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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

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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

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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)

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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:

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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

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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

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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.

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

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

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.

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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

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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:

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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.

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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. ...

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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:

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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)

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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:

Continue reading

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:

Continue reading

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	42	82
2	Yale Law Journal	52.5	38	67
3	Columbia Law Review	50	39	61
4	Stanford Law Review	49.5	37	62
5	University of Pennsylvania Law Review	47	36	58
6	Georgetown Law Journal	43	36	50
7	Michigan Law Review	43	30	56
8	Texas Law Review	41	32	50
9	California Law Review	40.5	34	47
10	Virginia Law Review	39	31	47
11	New York University Law Review	38.5	28	49
12	Minnesota Law Review	38	29	47
13	Cornell Law Review	35.5	30	41
14	Duke Law Journal	35.5	29	42
15	UCLA Law Review	35	29	41
16	Vanderbilt Law Review	34	27	41
17	University of Chicago Law Review	34	26	42
18	Notre Dame Law Review	32.5	27	38
19	William and Mary Law Review	32	26	38
20	Iowa Law Review	31.5	27	36
21	North Carolina Law Review	30.5	26	35
22	Florida Law Review	30	25	35
23	Northwestern University Law Review	30	25	35
24	Fordham Law Review	30	24	36
25	Wisconsin Law Review	30	21	39

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.

Continue reading

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	39	71	55
2	Stanford Law Review	34	63	48.5
3	Yale Law Journal	37	56	46.5
4	Columbia Law Review	37	56	46.5
5	University of Pennsylvania Law Review	38	49	43.5
6	Michigan Law Review	31	56	43.5
7	UCLA Law Review	32	51	41.5
8	Duke Law Journal	31	52	41.5
9	Georgetown Law Journal	30	52	41
10	Cornell Law Review	31	48	39.5
11	Virginia Law Review	32	46	39
12	Texas Law Review	31	47	39
13	New York University Law Review	29	46	37.5
14	California Law Review	31	43	37
15	Minnesota Law Review	29	44	36.5
16	Journal of Law & Economics	27	46	36.5
17	Northwestern University Law Review	28	43	35.5
18	Iowa Law Review	27	43	35
19	University of Chicago Law Review	27	41	34
20	William and Mary Law Review	27	37	32
21	Vanderbilt Law Review	25	37	31
22	University of Illinois Law Review	24	38	31
23	Notre Dame Law Review	26	35	30.5
24	Boston College Law Review	24	37	30.5
25	Emory Law Journal	22	39	30.5

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

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: 

1. Harvard Law Review: 869
2. Michigan Law Review: 496
3. Yale Law Journal: 459
4. Columbia Law Review: 436
5. Chicago Law Review: 431
6. NYU Law Review: 428
7. Penn Law Review: 408
8. California Law Review: 406
9. Stanford Law Review: 388
10. Virginia Law Review: 364

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) 

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

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:

• 2011
• 2010
• 2009
• 2008
• 2007
• 2006
• 2005
• 2004
• 2003
  

(Hat Tip: Omri Marian,)

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

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:

• 2009
• 2008
• 2006

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.

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.

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

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)

Fall 2011 Law Review Article Submission Guide

Nancy Levit (UMKC) & Allen Rostron (UMKC) have updated their incredibly useful document, which contains two charts for the Fall 2011 submission season covering 202 law reviews.

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.

Galle: Scholarly Influence in Law Review Rankings

Tax Prof Brian Galle (Boston College) offers his thoughts on 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.

Spring 2011 Law Review Article Submission Guide

Nancy Levit (UMKC) & Allen Rostron (UMKC) have updated their incredibly useful document, which contains two charts for the Spring 2011 submission season covering 202 law reviews.

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.

Law Review Circulation Continues to Plummet

Ross E. Davies (George Mason) has published The Dipping Point: Law Review Circulation 2010, 14 Green Bag 2d 547 (2011). Here is the abstract:

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.

 

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:

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.

(Hat Tip: Blackbook Legal Blog.)

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.

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.

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.) 

     

Rankings Boost For UC-Hastings?

UC-Hastings opens a new parking garage.  (Hat Tip:  Law School Headlines.)

This Won't Help Arizona State in the U.S. News Rankings

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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:

1. Virginia:  -77.9%
2. Michigan:  -73.5%
3. Harvard:  -70.2%
4. Georgetown:  -71.1%
5. Northwestern:  -67.5%
6. UC-Berkeley:  -65.3%

See Inside Higher Ed, Documenting the Decline of (Print) Law Reviews, by Doug Lederman.

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:
  • Editorial: Freshmen Given Preferential Treatment in SAT Testing
  • Faculty Senate Decries SAT Retakes
  • Talk of Code Violation Fuels Controversy
• Christine Hurt, LSATs, SATs, Sound and Fury
• Larry Ribstein, Admitting without LSATs: What's the Game?
• New York Times:
  • Baylor Faculty Members Condemn SAT Retaking
  • Baylor Rewards Freshmen Who Retake SAT
• Ilya Somin, Manipulating College Rankings by Paying Students to Retake Standardized Tests
• U.S. News & World Report:  Baylor Pays Freshmen to Retake SAT

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.) ...

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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:

• ABA Journal
• Above the Law
• The Faculty Lounge
• Leiter's law School Reports
• National Law Journal
• Race to the Bottom
• Wall Street Journal Law Blog

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]:

 

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:

1. Princeton
2. California Institute of Technology
3. Harvard
4. Swarthmore
5. Williams
6. U.S. Military Academy
7. Amherst
8. Wellesley
9. Yale
10. Columbia
11. Northwestern
12. Wabash
13. Centre College (KY)
14. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
15. Bowdoin College
16. U.S. Air Force Academy
17. Middlebury
18. University of Chicago
19. Smith
20. Pomona
21. Wesleyan
22. Haverford
23. Stanford
24. Hamilton
25. Sarah Lawrence

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.

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