National Jurist - November 2007 - (Page 10)

NEWS change anything about itself.” Unlike other rankings, which are based on either citations or on usage, Jarvis and Coleman’s rankings give points based on the prominence of the 7,574 authors who wrote for the 171 journals between 2001 and 2005. Netting an article by the president, for example, gives a university an easy 1,000 points. A major celebrity is worth 925 points, a U.S. District judge earns 700, a law student just 75. In terms of results, Jarvis said the two surveys are remarkably consistent. “As in 1997, our goal in doing the study was to find out where law authors prefer to place their articles,” Jarvis says. “Obviously, writers want to have their articles read and therefore want to appear in the journals with the most drawing power.” Jarvis said they expect to do a third survey in 2017. “Because each survey covers a five-year period, doing it once a decade seems to make the most sense in terms of timing,” he said. Blogs: The death-knell for law reviews? Blogging may make it harder for lesselite law reviews to compete, according to two law professors at Nova Southeastern University. That was one of several changes Robert Jarvis and Phyllis Coleman saw in an update to their 1997 News reports by study ranking studentMichelle Weyenberg edited law reviews based on the prominence of their lead-article authors. Jarvis said they see more law professors turning to blogging instead of authoring articles in law review journals because of timeliness and greater opportunities for feedback. The trend will continue, they said, if tenure committees begin accepting blogging as being on par with traditional publishing. The study, which appears in the Summer 2007 issue of the Law Library Journal, only included law reviews edited by students of a J.D.-granting law school accredited by the American Bar Association. Yale University garnered the top spot. “Last time, Columbia’s law review came out on top, although most people were more taken with the fact that the Yale Law Journal finished ninth,” Jarvis said. “This time, Columbia fell to third, while Yale zoomed into first place.” Harvard Law Review was a very close second — less than two points behind out of a possible 1,000. Rounding out the top 10 are: Virginia Law Review (4), Stanford Law Review (5), University of Chicago Law Review (6), Michigan Law Review (7), New York University Law Review (8), Texas Law Review (9) and University of Pennsylvania Law Review (10). The number of law reviews ranked increased from 161 in 1997 to 171 in 2007. Jarvis said it reflects the number of new law schools that have come into existence. As a result of the heightened competition, law reviews at the bottom of the survey had a harder time in 2007 than in 1997. “The reputation of all the law reviews we ranked in both surveys tended to be pretty close to the reputation of the law review’s law school,” Jarvis said. “In other words, if a law school is perceived as ‘moving up’ in the legal academy, its law review will enjoy a similar bump, even if it doesn’t Chemerinsky fired and rehired as head of UC-Irvine law school One week after his offer was rescinded, Erwin Chemerinsky, a prominent Duke University law professor, announced that he had accepted a renewed offer to be the founding dean of the Donald Bren School of Law at the University of California at Irvine. University of California at Irvine Chancellor Michael Drake’s decision to dump Chemerinsky in September set off a national debate about academic freedom and sparked a revolt by faculty at Irvine against Drake. Drake and Chemerinsky had given contradictory accounts of the split. Chemerinsky said he was told he was too politically controversial and would be a lightning rod for conservatives, he told the Chronicle for Higher Education. Drake said his decision to rescind the offer was a management choice and was not ideological, political or personal. Chemerinksy, a prominent legal scholar with well-known liberal views, was offered the deanship Aug. 16. The entire report can be found at http://www.aallnet.org/products/pub_llj_v99n03/2007-33.pdf 10 THE NATIONAL JURIST November 2007 http://www.aallnet.org/products/pub_llj_v99n03/2007-33.pdf

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of National Jurist - November 2007

National Jurist - November 2007 Contents Disturbing the Peace For the Record Blogs: The Death-knell for Law Reviews? Chemerinsky Heads UC-Irvine Ave Maria Dispute Raises ABA Inquiry John Marshall Establishes Veterans Clinic The Firm Report The Paper Chase Chronicles Law School Rankings at Math's Mercy Academic Freedom Called into Question St. Thomas Students Choose ‘Quality of Life’ Experience The Hidden Debt Crisis The Global Frontier International Education has to be a Part of Any Legal Education Employment Defender Career Hotline Off the Bench

National Jurist - November 2007

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.