Elite Law Schools Research Articles

American Legal Realism and the Revitalization of Literary Realist History

American Legal Realism and the Revitalization of Literary Realist History

The Most-Cited Law Review Articles of All Time by the Supreme Court of Canada

Scholars use citation counts to measure the impact of scholarly works in a wide range of disciplines, including law. The aims of this study are twofold: to present the methods most commonly used to measure the impact of scholarly works and to determine which law reviews and articles the Supreme Court of Canada has cited most since its creation. Part II of this study reveals that legal scholars typically use three methods to generate lists of important works: the periodical citation method; the judicial citation method; and the peer rating method. The choice of method depends on the research objective. Part III of this study adopts the judicial citation method to identify the law reviews and articles most cited by the Supreme Court and provides a qualitative analysis of the top three articles. It focuses solely on publications in generalist, peer-reviewed, and university-based law reviews that were created in or before 1982. This study finds that two law reviews — the McGill Law Journal and the University of Toronto Law Journal — and 39 articles have been particularly successful. These articles were predominantly written in English by male law professors holding degrees from elite law schools and concern pressing constitutional law issues. As society shifts to tackle biases in all professions, including academia and law, the attributes of the most-cited articles can be expected to evolve — and the gender gap to close — in the years to come.

The Mechanisms of White Space(s)

In 2008, I published a theoretical frame of White institutional space beginning with the generalized proposition that social organizations, social institutions, and social structure are fundamentally and recursively related. In other words, individual organizations (like particular law schools) are produced by and function to reproduce racialized social institutions (like the institutions of education and law), just as social organizations and institutions are produced in as an element of and therefore reify the racial social structure—which in the United States is based on White supremacy. Within U.S. social organizations, there exist routine and systematic mechanisms, including racist historical and contemporary institutionalized hierarchies of power, racist institutionalized logics, and racist discourses and ideologies which inform everyday racialized practices, that function synergistically to channel the resources of U.S. organizations and institutions disproportionately to Whites. In this article, I utilize elements of my original research in elite law schools to delineate and demonstrate how mechanisms of White institutional space function tacitly and explicitly to reify White power and privilege.

Faculty Perceptions of Online Law Journals

Online-only law journals (OLJs) are sometimes referred to as “companions” or “supplements.” They are law journals that are only distributed in a digital medium. The Yale Law Journal Pocket Part became the first OLJ in 2005. In the brief existence of OLJs, they have experienced rapid growth in both prestige and prevalence. There were already four OLJs in the top 100 of the Washington & Lee law journal rankings by 2015. In 2020, there are now seven OLJs in the top 100. Using the impact factor measure, there are ten OLJs in the top 100. The Forum—Harvard’s OLJ—is ranked ahead of the flagship print journals North Carolina Law Review and Connecticut Law Review. The performance of OLJs in rankings is even more impressive when considering how a key measure used in the rankings—impact factor—disadvantages OLJs because they publish shorter articles. OLJs generally have less stringent footnote requirements and a faster turnaround time from acceptance to publishing. OLJs publish a greater variety of articles than their print counterparts. Book reviews, short essays, responses, current event musings, and even poetry and satirical pieces are published in OLJs. Some scholars applaud this flexibility, while others criticize it as unpredictable. There is great variance in OLJ article lengths, but they are generally shorter than flagship print journal articles. Some OLJs have an explicitly stated maximum of only 2,500 words including footnotes. Others allow submissions of over 15,000 words. Demand for printing and purchasing physical law journal editions has been steadily decreasing due to cost, limited library shelf space, and increased popularity of digital legal research. Physical distribution of the Harvard Law Review has decreased almost 90%. Even libraries at elite law schools, such as Columbia, are canceling subscriptions to hundreds of print law journals. Some commentators argue persuasively that certain flagship journals should move exclusively online. The budget cuts many colleges face from coronavirus will likely accelerate this trend of transitioning toward OLJs.This article first examines current conceptions for weighting OLJs compared to print law journals, criticism of OLJs, and praise for OLJs. It then reports the findings of a survey of business law faculty to measure perceptions of OLJs. Finally, faculty demographic factors are also analyzed to determine what role they may play in forming these perceptions.

Inbreeding and the Reproduction of Elitism: An Empirical Examination of Inbreeding Within Australian Legal Academia

Academic inbreeding refers to the practice of universities hiring their own graduates. Academic inbreeding has been shown to reduce research productivity, encourage hiring and promotion practices based on social connections rather than transparent, objective and merit-based criteria, and to inhibit innovation by entrenching existing academic culture. Despite the negative effects of inbreeding, there is little empirical research on the problem. This paper investigates the extent and profile of different types of inbreeding among 700 legal academics in 17 Australian law schools. It examines the extent, characteristics and effects of different types of inbred academics, including ‘highly immobile’ academics who have spent their entire careers in the one institution and ‘silver-corded’ academics who return to their alma mater after working elsewhere. We also examine whether inbreeding relates to the status of the university and law school in which an academic is employed, gender, level of appointment, and research productivity. We find that over 40% of Australian legal academics are inbred at some level, and that high levels of inbreeding are more likely to occur in elite law schools and among female and early career academics, although inbreeding does not relate to research productivity.

Keeping international law international, a reflection on Anthea Roberts’ “is international law international?”

INTRODUCTION. Occasionally a book appears which has a significant impact on the scholarly community. A fine example of this is the work considered here by the Australian international lawyer, Anthea Roberts. Until very recently, comparative studies on international law were rare. However, as international law further develops and widens, so special attention will need to be paid to ensure that international law students are, to a greater extent, taught the same material and in the same way. As municipal systems of law became more mature, so doctrine and jurisprudence began to diverge. International law has now entered such a phase in its development and, in this excellent book, Dr. Roberts asks a series of very important questions: exactly what is taking place, what are the factors that are driving these processes, is such to be welcomed, is it unstoppable and where do we go from here?MATERIALS AND METHODS. The article reflects on Anthea Roberts’ book “Is International Law International?” (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2017). The authors of the article consider the contribution of the monograph to legal science, particularly with its interest in a revived Comparative International Law.RESEARCH RESULTS. The view of the authors of the article is that Anthea Roberts’ book is a work of profound significance, which will, hopefully, inspire additional research in the field of Comparative International Law in years to come.DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS. Comparative International Law is a relatively neglected field in International Law. Without question, the international legal academy (from the elite law schools of the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council) emphasises different things both in its scholarly writings and pedagogy. This needs to be given greater attention, even if, at least for now, it cannot be entirely arrested; so that the much-feared fragmentation of international law into not only separate fields and standards, but also in terms of agreeing on its content and application, is minimised.

Taking Note: Justice Harry A. Blackmun's Observations from Oral Argument about Life, the Law, and the U.S. Supreme Court

Taking Note: Justice Harry A. Blackmun's Observations from Oral Argument about Life, the Law, and the U.S. Supreme Court

The Norm among the Exceptional? Experiences of Latino Students in Elite Institutions

This article examines Latino students’ experiences within two elite educational contexts: an elite liberal arts college and an elite law school. Drawing on combined data of 42 in‐depth interviews, we interrogate how elite institutional spaces reify and shape panethnic identities. In the face of marginalization in predominantly white, elite spaces Latino students strategically search for new community and comfort, which in turn influence how they perceive their identities, encouraging a broadening of boundaries to include both panethnic and minority alliances. By documenting the experiences of Latino students in two stages of the educational pipeline, we show how elite institutions influence identity talk lead students to cultivate a sense of shared fate with other Latino‐origin individuals and at times, people of color in general.

It’s Not What It Looks Like: How Claims of Self-Publishing Bias in Legal Scholarship Are Exaggerated

The unique transparency in law journal submissions invites criticism for both letterhead bias and self-publication bias. Letterhead bias is when editors use information about an author—prior publications, reputation, prestige of affiliated institution, etc.—as a proxy for article quality, thus adjusting the level of consideration given to their submission accordingly. Self-publishing bias is when student editors give preferential treatment to the submissions received by law professors at their same institution. Studies as early as 1983 have consistently and conclusively found that self-publishing rates among elite law schools can surpass 20%. However, the existence of high self-publishing rates does not necessarily prove self-publishing bias. This Article presents numerous, alternative explanations that do not implicate self-publishing bias. Unfortunately, current scholarship on the subject largely ignores these alternative explanations. This Article also highlights problems with self-publication proponents’ claims. These include how claiming “disproportionate” self-publishing levels is flawed because there is no “correct” self-publishing level from which to judge a deviation, the implication that the merits of submissions are objectively measurable, how the alleged harms from self-publishing are frequently overstated, and how proposed reforms would be largely ineffective at addressing these problems. The novel arguments provided in this Article serve to fill glaring gaps in the literature, thus providing a more complete view of the issue.

The ins and outs of hiring pipelines

Every fall, a steady stream of student and postdoctoral resumes flows into the inboxes of hiring managers across the chemical industry. After email exchanges and Skype calls, job seekers will make their way to on-site interviews. And then something very predictable happens: certain companies will hire people from the same universities they always have, leaving behind those who don’t fit the companies’ desired pedigree. I began thinking about this phenomenon of established pipelines after reading an article about the late US Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia. In a conversation with a law student, Scalia admitted that since the student did not attend an elite institution, it was unlikely that she would be hired as one of the few clerks that Supreme Court justices assign to help write opinions. Scalia also mused that although one of his best law clerks was not actually from one of those elite law schools, he

The Paradox of Elite Law Schools in India—A comparison with Canadian Legal Education

Legal education, like law, should always be overhauled and refitted to changes in society. What is sought is a model of legal education that best meets the needs of the society, by law students and law professionals alike. In 1987, a new model of law school was established in Bengaluru, India—the National Law School of India University (NLSIU)—drawing largely upon components of the Socratic method and the case-study method that had already been implemented, tried and tested in North America. This paper is a comparison of legal education in North America, particularly in Canada, and in the National Law Universities (NLUs) in India, based on the model of NLSIU. The comparison identifies similarities and dissimilarities between legal education of two countries, India and Canada, one developed and one developing, both of which imbibed the Harvard case method at some point in time. The object of the study is to point out the paradoxes existing in legal education in general and the NLU system in India and is a preliminary study of whether Canadian law schools and NLU systems can learn lessons from each other. At one time—when law-school education was characterized by disinterested practitioners and academicians lecturing a passive group of students and evaluating them through closed-book examinations, where students needed to spend time memorizing the law instead of analyzing it—NLUs were a welcome experiment. They changed the face of legal education by encouraging discussion in class; incorporating an interdisciplinary approach, introducing research projects, compulsory internships and introducing many other innovations. With time, these innovations proved to be less effective and perhaps the time is ripe for change in legal education in India, as in the words of Roscoe Pound, “[w]e must seek principles of change no less than principles of stability.”

The Returns to Elite Degrees: The Case of American Lawyers

The authors study the market for young attorneys. Using data from two surveys of attorneys who passed the bar exam in 2000, they find that attorneys who graduate from law schools ranked in the Top 10 nationally earn considerably more than those without such a qualification, even compared to attorneys who graduate from schools ranked 11–20. The premium to an elite education carries over to an attorney’s undergraduate institution as well, and the findings suggest that elite bachelor’s degrees and elite law degrees are close substitutes in terms of their relationships to salaries. The elite–law school premium is more robust to various methods for correcting for selection on ability than the widely studied premium to attending a selective undergraduate institution. The authors consider several reasons elite-school premiums may exist in this labor market.

Social preferences of future physicians

We measure the social preferences of a sample of US medical students and compare their preferences with those of the general population sampled in the American Life Panel (ALP). We also compare the medical students with a subsample of highly educated, wealthy ALP subjects as well as elite law school students and undergraduate students. We further associate the heterogeneity in social preferences within medical students to the tier ranking of their medical schools and their expected specialty choice. Our experimental design allows us to rigorously distinguish altruism from preferences regarding equality-efficiency tradeoffs and accurately measure both at the individual level rather than pooling data or assuming homogeneity across subjects. This is particularly informative, because the subjects in our sample display widely heterogeneous social preferences in terms of both their altruism and equality-efficiency tradeoffs. We find that medical students are substantially less altruistic and more efficiency focused than the average American. Furthermore, medical students attending the top-ranked medical schools are less altruistic than those attending lower-ranked schools. We further show that the social preferences of those attending top-ranked medical schools are statistically indistinguishable from the preferences of a sample of elite law school students. The key limitation of this study is that our experimental measures of social preferences have not yet been externally validated against actual physician practice behaviors. Pending this future research, we probed the predictive validity of our experimental measures of social preferences by showing that the medical students choosing higher-paying medical specialties are less altruistic than those choosing lower-paying specialties.

Evaluating Chinese Legal Scholarship in Journals: Are Journal Rankings and Elite Law Journals Representing the Best Quality?

In China law journals are ranked together with journals from the (other) social sciences. As a result the evaluation of journals is based on bibliometric indicators. This has major disadvantages because quantitative indicators, such as citation scores, are merely a proxy for research quality and the citation patterns in law are quite different from other disciplines. Moreover, the current journal rankings do not enhance a fair status competition between law journals because only a very small part of the total amount of Chinese law journals are included in the rankings, while specialized law journals with relatively few readers have to compete with general interest law reviews aiming for a much broader audience. As far as Chinese elite law journals, also apply more qualitative evaluation methods, such as peer review, this does not solve the problem as long as there is no consensus on the criteria that reviewers have to apply and there are no guidelines for the selection of (independent) reviewers. More importantly, there are signs that the peer review process of journals is corrupted by “guanxi” – the informal social relationships that rule the publishing culture in legal academia. This might also explain the high level of in-house publications that can be found in most elite law journals run by staff members from the elite law schools. The paper argues that serious reforms are unavoidable if China wants to be ready for the challenges that globalisation is posing for academic legal publishing.

'Lost' Clerks of the White Court Era

While studies of early Supreme Court clerks have focused on the scholarly Justices (Horace Gray, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Louis Brandeis, Benjamin Cardozo) who hired clerks from elite law schools and mentored them on to successful careers after one or two terms, most Justices in the White Court era employed private secretaries, who, although graduates of local D.C. law schools, performed mainly clerical work and often stayed with their Justice for many years before becoming government lawyers. Wide variations in tenure, promotion, and remuneration existed for the White Court era clerks while they served the Supreme Court.

An Empirical Study of Political Bias in Legal Scholarship

AbstractLaw professors routinely accuse each other of making politically biased arguments in their scholarship. They have also helped produce a large empirical literature on judicial behavior that finds that judicial opinions sometimes reflect the ideological biases of the judges who join them. Yet no one has used statistical methods to test the parallel hypothesis that legal scholarship reflects the political biases of law professors. This paper provides the results of such a test. We find that, at a statistically significant level, law professors at elite law schools who make donations to Democratic political candidates write liberal scholarship and law professors who make donations to Republican political candidates write conservative scholarship. These findings raise questions about standards of objectivity in legal scholarship.

An Empirical Study of Political Bias in Legal Scholarship

Law professors routinely accuse each other of making politically biased arguments in their scholarship. They have also helped produce a large empirical literature on judicial behavior that has found that judicial opinions sometimes reflect the ideological biases of the judges who join them. Yet no one has used statistical methods to test the parallel hypothesis that legal scholarship reflects the political biases of law professors. This paper provides the results of such a test. We find that, at a statistically significant level, law professors at elite law schools who make donations to Democratic political candidates write liberal scholarship, and law professors who make donations to Republican political candidates write conservative scholarship. These findings raise questions about standards of objectivity in legal scholarship.

Responding to the Market: The Impact of the Rise of Corporate Law Firms on Elite Legal Education in India

Corporate law firms have emerged in the past twenty years as a small, but economically important and growing part of the Indian legal sector. While these firms have been critical in transforming elite legal education in India, their direct influence has actually been relatively minor. Instead, their far larger impact has been in creating a new corporate employment market for lawyers that students and schools have worked to supply. In this paper we explore three impacts on elite legal education in India caused by this growing demand for corporate lawyers. First, we argue the prospect of high-paying prestigious corporate work has changed who applies to law school, how these prospective students pick the law schools they attend, and how much they are willing to pay for their education. Second, dividing elite law schools in India into three categories (“national law schools,” “legacy schools,” and “private law schools”) we find that these institutions have each changed the educational experience they offer as they have adapted to an increasingly corporate-oriented legal environment. Third, we claim that inside the institutional context of elite law schools, students have emphasized and shaped parts of their legal education they believe will be appealing to corporate firms. We claim that together these three impacts of the rise of law firms in India have fundamentally altered the educational experience at elite law schools in the country.

MOOCs and Legal Education: Valuable Innovation or Looming Disaster?

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have spread across the landscape of higher education like an invasive plant species. Although few people had heard of MOOCs before 2012, these internet-based courses, taught by university professors, are now routinely offered simultaneously to tens of thousands or in some cases, hundreds of thousands of people. Most MOOCs are still provided free of charge, but the two companies and one non-profit entity that promote MOOCs and provide the software have recently created partnerships with institutions of higher education in order to realize substantial revenues by offering MOOCs for academic credit to tuition-paying students at colleges and universities. Despite resistance from professors at some institutions, MOOCs for credit are proliferating rapidly. This development has great significance for the future of legal education, because most law schools are experiencing an economic crisis and are searching for ways to cut costs and lower tuition so that they can fill their classes and remain viable. Already, some law schools are offering academic credit for distance learning, within limits permitted by the Section of Legal Education of the American Bar Association — limits that may soon be relaxed. Within ten years, MOOCs could replace traditional law school classes altogether, except at a few elite law schools that produce lawyers to serve large corporations and wealthy individuals. However, most law schools might survive by embracing rather than resisting internet-based learning. They could cut costs by reducing faculty and staff positions, using MOOCs for the delivery of most of the legal information that students need, hiring part-time lawyers to help students with exercises to supplement the MOOCs, and concentrating the remaining full-time faculty on first-semester offerings, writing seminars, and clinics. Sadly, the result will be a watered-down form of legal education compared to the three years of interactive experiences that law schools have offered students for the last century. But it may be the only way in which most law schools can survive.

The Paths of Christian Legal Scholarship

The history of twentieth century Christian legal scholarship - really, the absence of Christian legal scholarship in America's elite law schools - can be told as a tale of two emblematic clashes: the first an intriguing historical footnote, the second a brief, explosive war of words. In the first, a tort action in Nebraska circa 1890,William Jennings Bryan and Roscoe Pound served as opposing counsel; the second was a war of words in the 1940s between a group of neo-Thomist scholars and defenders of Oliver Wendell Holmes. Using these two incidents to frame as a starting point, this essay briefly chronicles the disappearance of Christian legal scholarship from the elite law reviews for much of the twentieth century. In the past few years, however, there have been signs of a possible renaissance. The second half of the essay focuses on the signs of renewal. To organize the discussion, I address three very basic questions: What?, Who?, and How? - What are the most promising directions for Christian legal scholarship? Who is a Christian legal scholar? And how can Christian legal scholarship best be facilitated?