Law Review Ranking Studies

Jarvis/Coleman 2001-05

The study is from, Robert M. Jarvis & Phyllis Coleman, Ranking Law Reviews by Author Prominence - Ten Years Later, 99 Law Libr. J. 573 (2007). In an update to their 1997 survey (which covered 1991-95), Professors Jarvis and Coleman rank student-edited law reviews based on the prominence of their lead article authors.

George/Guthrie 1990-98

The study is from, Tracy E. George & Chris Guthrie, An Empirical Evaluation of Specialized Law Reviews, 27 Fla. St. U. L. Rev. 813 (1999). The authors used the Jarvis and Coleman author-prominence scale to rank the top 100 specialized law journals.

Shapiro 1987-97 SSCI

Fred Shapiro's study uses a database derived from the Social Sciences Citation Index to rank legal periodicals according to their frequency of citation in the scholarly literature. This study is from Fred R. Shapiro, The Most-Cited Law Reviews, 29 J. Legal Stud. 389-396 (2000). Table 2 (General Law Reviews) and Table 4 (Specialized Legal Periodicals) are included here. Further rankings can be found in the original study based on "impact factor", which takes into account the "average number of citations per article".

Chicago-Kent Study 1995 Shepards

This study uses Shepard's Law Review Citations to rank legal periodicals according to their frequency of citation in the scholarly literature. The cited volumes are from the period 1987-1989. This study is from Colleen M. Cullen and S. Randall Kalberg, Chicago-Kent Law Review Faculty Scholarship Survey, 70 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 1445 (1995). The Shepard's citation numbers come from Table I of the study.

Chicago-Kent Study 1995 SSCI

This study uses the Social Sciences Citation Index to rank legal periodicals according to their frequency of citation in the scholarly literature. The numbers are citations are those occuring in 1991, citing to any volume of the legal periodical. This study is from Colleen M. Cullen and S. Randall Kalberg, Chicago-Kent Law Review Faculty Scholarship Survey, 70 Chi.-Kent Law Rev. 1445 (1995). The SSCI citation numbers come from Table II of the study. NOTE: Table II in the Chicago-Kent Study has a complex methodology related to ranking by "impact factor" (taking account of the size of each volume) - the original study should be consulted for ranking that includes an impact factor, and for Table III which merges the Shepards (Table I) and SSCI (Table II) results.

Mann 1978-79 Shepards

Richard Mann's study counts all citations appearing in Shepards Law Review Citations (up to the Jan. 1984 issue) that cite to journal articles published in the one year span of 1978-79. This study is from Richard A. Mann, The Use of Legal Periodicals by Courts and Journals, 26 Jurimetrics J. 400 (1986).