Posted: August 16th, 2018 | By: Lisa Snedeker
Members of the Wake Forest Law faculty have moved up eight spots on the “Scholarly Impact of Law School Faculties in 2018: Updating the Leiter Score Ranking for the Top Third“ by Gregory C. Sisk (St. Thomas) et al.
The updated 2018 study explores the scholarly impact of law faculties, ranking the top third of American Bar Association (ABA)-accredited law schools. Refined by Brian Leiter, the “Scholarly Impact Score” for a law faculty is calculated from the mean and the median of total law journal citations over the past five years to the work of tenured faculty members. In addition to a school-by-school ranking, it reports the mean, median, and weighted score, along with a listing of the tenured law faculty members at each school with the 10 highest individual citation counts.
According to the new ranking, Wake Forest faculty members whose scholarship had the most impact in 2018 are: Jonathan Cardi, Kami Chavis, Michael Curtis, Michael Green, Mark Hall, John Knox, Alan Palmiter, Gregory Parks, Sid Shapiro, Margaret Taylor, and Ron Wright.
From the ranking:
Representing about one-third of accredited law schools, 68 law faculties are ranked in this 2018 update of the Scholarly Impact Scores. The law faculties at Yale, Harvard, the University of Chicago, and New York University continue to be the top four ranked for scholarly impact. Since 2015, Columbia has moved into the fifth position, with Stanford at the sixth. The University of California-Berkeley has risen two positions since 2015 (to No. 7). Duke (at No. 8), Pennsylvania (at No. 9), and Vanderbilt (at No. 10) round out the Top 10.
The most dramatic rises in the ranking involve four schools that have climbed 16 ordinal spots: Kansas (to No. 48), USC (to No. 23), the University of St. Thomas (Minnesota) (to No. 23), and William & Mary (to No. 28). In addition, two schools rose by 10 positions: Florida State (to #o. 29) and San Francisco (to No. 54). Three schools moved up by 8 positions: Chicago-Kent (to No. 44), Missouri (to No. 54), and Wake Forest (to No. 44). Three schools are appearing in the Scholarly Impact Ranking for the first time in 2018: Richmond (at No. 54), Santa Clara at (No. 58), and Denver (at No. 64).
1. Yale
2. Harvard
3. Chicago
4. NYU
5. Columbia
6. Stanford
7. UC-Berkeley
8. Duke
9. Pennsylvania
10. Vanderbilt
11. UCLA
12. UC-Irvine
13. Cornell
14. Michigan, Northwestern
16. George Washington, Virginia, Georgetown
19. Texas, George Mason
21. Minnesota, Washington University
23. UC-Davis, St. Thomas, USC
26. Notre Dame
27. Boston University
28. William & Mary
29. Colorado, Florida State, Fordham
32. Cardozo, Emory, Case Western, Arizona
36. Indiana, Illinois, North Carolina, San Diego, Arizona State
41. Maryland, Utah, Ohio State
44. Wake Forest, UC-Hastings, Chicago-Kent, Brooklyn
48. Kansas
49. Alabama, BYU, Hofstra
52. Temple, UNLV
54. San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Richmond, Missouri
58. Florida, Iowa, Santa Clara, Boston College, Georgia, Houston
64. Denver, Hawaii, American, Loyola-L.A., Washington & Lee
