| This is based on a Westlaw search
in early June 2000. Only faculty eligible are faculty listed as tenured
or tenure-track in the 1999-2000 AALS Directory. Citation counts are
rounded to the nearest ten. There is a rough correlation between total
citations and prestige, less of a correlation between total citations
and actual quality (I would estimate that a fifth of the faculty on the
top 50 list could not get appointed at Texas, for example). Two law professors
often considered the "smartest" in the legal academy--Jeff Strnad
at Stanford (in tax and corporate law), and Alan Schwartz at Yale (in
commercial and corporate law)--do not make these lists, though Schwartz
comes close. But the lists are heavily dominated by constitutional law
scholars, as well as scholars in currently "hot" areas, like
Critical Race Theory.
Rank |
Scholar (age in 2000) |
Citations |
School |
1 |
Laurence Tribe (59) |
5460 |
Harvard University |
2 |
Cass Sunstein (46) |
4940 |
University of Chicago |
3 |
Richard Epstein (57) |
3900 |
University of Chicago |
4 |
Ronald Dworkin (69) |
3820 |
New York University/University of
London |
5 |
John Hart Ely (62) |
2870 |
University of Miami |
6 |
Bruce Ackerman (57) |
2670 |
Yale University |
7 |
Daniel Farber (50) |
2650 |
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities |
8 |
Mark Tushnet (55) |
2640 |
Georgetown University |
9 |
William Eskridge, Jr. (49) |
2400 |
Yale University |
10 |
Ronald Rotunda (55) |
2130 |
University of Illinois |
11 |
Owen Fiss (62) |
2080 |
Yale University |
12 |
Akhil Amar (42) |
2070 |
Yale University |
13 |
Arthur Miller (66) |
2060 |
Harvard University |
14 |
Richard Delgado (n/a) |
2050 |
University of Colorado, Boulder |
14 |
Frank Michelman (64) |
2050 |
Harvard University |
16 |
Martha Minow (46) |
1990 |
Harvard University |
17 |
Catharine MacKinnon (54) |
1960 |
University of Michigan/University
of Chicago |
18 |
John Nowak (53) |
1940 |
University of Illinois |
19 |
Duncan Kennedy (58) |
1910 |
Harvard University |
20 |
John Coffee, Jr. (56) |
1890 |
Columbia University |
21 |
Geoffrey Hazard, Jr. (71) |
1840 |
University of Pennsylvania |
22 |
Jonathan Macey (45) |
1790 |
Cornell University |
23 |
Philip Frickey (47) |
1780 |
University of California, Berkeley |
24 |
Derrick Bell (70) |
1710 |
New York University |
25 |
Lawrence Friedman (70) |
1680 |
Stanford University |
26 |
Erwin Chemerinsky (47) |
1620 |
University of Southern California |
27 |
Kathleen Sullivan (45) |
1600 |
Stanford University |
28 |
Daniel Fischel (50) |
1590 |
University of Chicago |
29 |
Mary Ann Glendon (62) |
1580 |
Harvard University |
30 |
Michael McConnell (45) |
1560 |
University of Utah |
30 |
Martin Redish (55) |
1560 |
Northwestern University |
30 |
Deborah Rhode (48) |
1560 |
Stanford University |
33 |
Sanford Levinson (59) |
1540 |
University of Texas, Austin |
34 |
William Landes (61) |
1520 |
University of Chicago |
35 |
Charles Fried (65) |
1480 |
Harvard University |
36 |
Mari Matsuda (44) |
1460 |
Georgetown University |
37 |
Robin West (46) |
1430 |
Georgetown University |
38 |
Charles Lawrence (57) |
1410 |
Georgetown University |
39 |
Morton Horwitz (62) |
1400 |
Harvard University |
39 |
Geoffrey Miller (50) |
1400 |
New York University |
41 |
Paul Brest (60) |
1390 |
Stanford University |
41 |
Peter Schuck (60) |
1390 |
Yale University |
43 |
Richard Stewart (60) |
1330 |
New York University |
44 |
Anthony Kronman (55) |
1310 |
Yale University |
45 |
Douglas Laycock (52) |
1280 |
University of Texas, Austin |
46 |
Patricia Williams (49) |
1260 |
Columbia University |
47 |
Margaret Jane Radin (59) |
1240 |
Stanford University |
48 |
Michael Perry (55) |
1230 |
Wake Forest University |
48 |
Suzanna Sherry (46) |
1230 |
Vanderbilt University |
50 |
Herbert Hovenkamp (52) |
1210 |
University of Iowa |
The list, of course, reflects the current interest in Critical
Race Theory in the legal academy, as well as the mutual citation practices
of the prolific authors associated with this movement. If one removed
the Critical Race Theory scholars from this list (Richard Delgado, Derrick
Bell, Mari Matsuda, Charles Lawrence, Patricia Williams), these additional
scholars would have made the top 50:
Robert Cooter (55) |
1190 |
University of California, Berkeley |
Richard Fallon (48) |
1190 |
Harvard University |
Geoffrey Stone (54) |
1190 |
University of Chicago |
Kimberle Crenshaw (41) |
1180 |
Columbia University (another CRT scholar) |
Ian Ayres (41) |
1170 |
Yale University |
Kent Greenawalt (64) |
1170 |
Columbia University |
Other scholars with more than 1000 citations are:
T. Alexander Aleinikoff (48) |
Georgetown University |
Jesse Choper (65) |
University of California, Berkeley |
Melvin Eisenberg (66) |
University of California, Berkeley |
Allan Farnsworth (72) |
Columbia University |
Marc Galanter (69) |
University of Wisconsin, Madison |
David Luban (51) |
Georgetown University |
Jerry Mashaw (59) |
Yale University |
Henry Monaghan (66) |
Columbia University |
Richard Pierce, Jr. (57) |
George Washington University |
George Priest (53) |
Yale University |
Judith Resnik (50) |
Yale University |
Steven Shavell (54) |
Harvard University |
Robert Summers (67) |
Cornell University |
Roberto Unger (n/a) |
Harvard University |
William van Alstyne (66) |
Duke University |
James J. White (66) |
University of Michigan |
Other scholars with nearly 1000 citations who are not primarily
in constitutional law (which is a high-citation field) are:
Douglas Baird (47) |
University of Chicago |
Anthony D'Amato (63) |
Northwestern University |
Theodore Eisenberg (53) |
Cornell University |
Robert Ellickson (59) |
Yale University |
Thomas Franck (69) |
New York University |
Ronald Gilson (54) |
Columbia University/Stanford University |
Louis Kaplow (44) |
Harvard University |
Lewis Kornhauser (50) |
New York University |
John Langbein (59) |
Yale University |
Edward Rubin (52) |
University of Pennsylvania |
Joseph Sax (64) |
University of California, Berkeley |
Alan Schwartz (60) |
Yale University |
Robert Scott (56) |
University of Virginia |
Joel Seligman (50) |
Washington University, St. Louis |
Detlev Vagts (n/a) |
Harvard University |
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