Top 10 Scholarly Impact Law Schools

Before his full law school rankings are released in mid-April, Brian Leiter has released his "Scholarly Impact" ranking, which is based on the number of faculty citations over the past five years.

Top 10 Scholarly Impact Law Schools

1. Yale Law School
2. Harvard Law School
3. University of Chicago Law School
4. Stanford Law School
5. New York University School of Law
6. Columbia Law School
7. University of California, Berkeley School of Law
8. Northwestern University School of Law
9. University of California, Irvine School of Law
10. Vanderbilt Law School

It's interesting that UCI Law earned the No. 9 spot, though not necessarily a surprise. Although a new law school (its first class started in August 2009) with only one-third of its faculty on board, UCI Law employs the single most prolific law professor in the country, Dean Chemerinksy. The Top 25 also includes Florida State University College of Law, Emory University School of Law and University of California, Davis School of Law.

You can read about the full methodology here, but the most important elements are:

• School scores were calculated using the following equation:
  (Mean * 2) + Median
• Untenured faculty are not included
• The study included all articles published after 2004 and before January 15, 2010