Well, the article in question reflects one problem with these rankings.
They rank the journals based on the authors who publish in them --
e.g., Supreme Court Justice, leader of foreign country, law professor
from top school, etc.  They have ranked non-law school professors
near the bottom of their lists, below minor dignitary.  Which means
the ABLJ would be very low ranked, independent of its actual quality,
simply because it publishes blaw folks.  The FSU LR in question actually
has a pretty good response to this ranking system.


At 11:09 PM 12/23/1999 EST, you wrote:
>Hope everyone has a great holiday season!!
>    Two issues that seem to raised annually have to do with the "what's my
>title" or "to be a doctor or not to be a doctor" and the question regarding
>the ranking of law journals and evidence thereof.
>    With regard to the journal rankings, I came across some information which
>may or may not be helpful.  As an alumnus of Widener University School of
>Law, I periodically receive the alumni magazine.  The most recent is the
>fall/winter 1999-2000 (volume 7, number 1) edition which contained the
>following news "blurb":
>        DELAWARE JOURNAL OF CORPORATE LAW RANKED 18TH       IN SURVEY
>        The Delaware Journal of Corporate Law was ranked 18th in        a
>survey of 284 specialized journals based upon the       prestige of the
>authors who chose to publish their articles.        An article in the Florida
>State University Law Review details         the research conducted by
>Professors Tracey E. George         and Chris Guthrie of the University of
>Missouri-Columbia       School of Law.  The Delaware Journal of Corporate Law
>        was ranked ahead of those published by Harvard, Yale,       Columbia,
>Georgetown, George Washington, Villanova and        Temple...
>(For those whose e-mail gets a bit scrambled and can't see the indenting as I
>sent it, the above paragraph is a direct quote from the "blurb" and no
>citations were given.)
>    The article then goes on to mention the ranking of the publication issued
>from the Harrisburg campus.
>    I have not seen the article so I cannot comment on its research methods
>or accuracy however, it may be of help to those of you facing a justification
>of your publications problem.
>    A thought...Proud as I am of my school, given a choice of publishing at
>Harvard, Yale or Columbia..., I'm not sure this (or any) article would
>justify passing up such an opportunity.   I wonder how a Business School Dean
>would feel about someone passing up Harvard for Widener.
>--Mike Katz
>
Frank Cross
Herbert D. Kelleher Centennial Professor of Business Law
CBA 5.202
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX 78712