Ranking Law Reviews: An Empirical Analysis Based on Author Prominence
![handle is hein.journals/arz39 and id is 35 raw text is: RANKING LAW REVIEWS: AN EMPIRICAL
ANALYSIS BASED ON AUTHOR PROMINENCE
Robert M. Jarvis and Phyllis G. Coleman*
Over the years, a number of attempts have been made to rank the law
reviews of American law schools., These efforts have relied on either citation
counts2 or usage surveys.3
Unfortunately, both citation counts and usage surveys suffer from a
critical flaw: once one gets past the elite journals, the number of hits (i.e., the
instances in which a periodical is either cited or used) drops off so markedly
that it is impossible to obtain meaningful rankings. Moreover, citation counts
can be badly skewed by a single article. As a result, studies that rely on either
citation counts or usage surveys are useful only in determining the identity of
* Copyright © 1996 Robert M. Jarvis, Phyllis G. Coleman, and the Arizona Board of
Regents. The authors are Professors of Law at Nova Southeastern University. The assistance of
Stephanie B. Cohen, a member of the NSU Law Center Class of 1998, is gratefully
acknowledged.
1. As has been noted elsewhere, this subject often takes on the air of a Victorian parlor
game: One pastime of American law professors involves speculation about the identity of th[e
country's] 'leading' law reviews.... Ranking academic law reviews is a thoroughly entertaining
exercise. It combines the thrill of competition with each reader's deeply held prejudices for his
own law school or law review. James Leonard, Seein' the Cites: A Guided Tour of Citation
Patterns in Recent American Law Review Articles, 34 ST. LOUIS U. L.J. 181, 186-87 (1990).
See also Arthur Austin, The Top Ten Politically Correct Law Reviews, 1994 UTAH L. REV.
1319; Ronald L. Brown, Rave Reviews: The Top Ten Journals of the 1990s, 12 LEGAL REF.
SERV. Q. 121 (1992) (humorous rankings).
Nevertheless, law review rankings can and regularly do have very serious career
consequences for law professors and would-be law professors. Decisions regarding faculty
recruitment, retention, promotion, tenure, pay, and status often are made on the basis of where
an individual'$ written work has appeared. For a further discussion, see Michael I. Swygert &
Nathaniel E. Gozansky, Senior Law Faculty Publication Study: Comparisons of Law School
Productivity, 35 J. LEGAL EDUC. 373 (1985); Ira M. Ellman, A Comparison of Law Faculty
Production in Leading Law Reviews, 33 J. LEGAL EDUC. 681 (1983); Robert L. Bard,
Scholarship, 31 J. LEGAL EDUC. 242 (1981).
2. See, e.g., Leonard, supra note 1; Richard A. Mann, The Use of Legal Periodicals by
Courts and Journals, 26 JURIMETRICS J. 400 (1986); Louis J. Sirico, Jr. & Jeffrey B.
Margulies, The Citing of Law Reviews by the Supreme Court: An Empirical Study, 34 UCLA
L. REV. 131 (1986); Fred R. Shapiro, The Mst-Cited Law Review Articles, 73 CAL. L. REV.
1540 (1985); Olavi Maru, Measuring the Impact of Legal Periodicals, 1976 AM. B. FOUND.
RES. J. 227.
3. See, e.g., Max Stier et al., Law Review Usage and Suggestions for Improvement: A
Survey of Attorneys, Professors, and Judges, 44 STAN. L. REv. 1467 (1992); Margaret A.
Goldblatt, Current Legal Periodicals: A Use Study, 78 L. LIBR. J. 55 (1986); Nancy P.
Johnson, Legal Periodical Usage Survey: Method and Application, 71 L. LIBR. J. 177 (1978);
Cameron Allen, Duplicate Holding Practices of Approved American Law School Libraries, 62
L. LIBR. J. 191 (1969); Gerhard O.W. Mueller & Jerome H. Skolnick, Bar Reactions to Legal
Periodicals: The West Virginia Survey, 11 J. LEGAL EDUC. 197 (1958).](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/arz39&div=9&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Ranking Law Reviews: An Empirical Analysis Based on Author Prominence
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