About 10 or 12 years ago Dale Fox and I did a study published in the JLSE
which looked quantitatively at what ALSB members are/were doing in terms of
publications. I don't have the cite close at hand but it appeared in the
early 90's, as I recall.
Also, a paper was given at the ALSB annual meeting in the late 80's or
early 90's by Lynn Ward, if memory serves, from Bowling Green State in which
he tried to relate number of publications by ALSB members and citation. I
don't know if Ward paper ever reached the ALSB proceedings but someone might
still have a copy.
There are a number of studies of law professors' publication rates and
levels of journals in which they publish. One appeared in the late 70's on
rankings of journals in Jurimetrics (if I recall). Also Prof. Paul Bowen of U
Queensland and I did an article published in the U N. Illinois Law Rev (1999)
relating salaries to various factors including publications of different
quality levels.
Bruce Fisher
>===== Original Message From "Academy of Legal Studies in Business (ALSB)
Talk" <[log in to unmask]> =====
><FONT face="Default Sans Serif, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"
size=2><DIV>My experience is that "quality" is assessed primarily by the brand
name of the school</DIV><DIV>publishing the journal. Thus, any publication in
a journal from a "top 20" school as defined by the US News rankings is akin to
an "A" journal in other disciplines. In a more rational system, your
categories 5 and 6 should matter most, with the most weight being given to 6
and substantial weight being given in 5 for other law review cites (court
opinion cites are another matter, as many excellent theoretical pieces will
never see the light of a judicial citation, while many pedestrian doctrinal
pieces get string-cited by courts). <BR></DIV><FONT
color=#990099>-----"Academy of Legal Studies in Business (ALSB) Talk"
<[log in to unmask]> wrote: -----<BR><BR></FONT>To:
[log in to unmask]<BR>From: Terence Lau
<[log in to unmask]><BR>Sent by: "Academy of Legal Studies in
Business (ALSB) Talk" <[log in to unmask]><BR>Date: 10/05/2004
02:30PM<BR>Subject: Assessing quality in legal scholarship<BR><BR><br><font
size=2 face="sans-serif">Here at UD, my department has undertakena project,
tasked by the Dean to all departments, to develop heuristicsthat measure
quality of legal scholarship. It's part of an ongoingdiscussion that all
academics undertake: "What is quality in termsof publications?" Some
disciplines argue in terms of publicationoutlets and lists of "A" "b" and so
on, journals. Somedisciplines argue for "Author Affiliation" and others argue
for"citation-based" studies and "journal impact ratings." With regards to
business law/legal environment, however, the slateis clean and blank, and I've
been asked to develop some input into whatheuristics would guide a discussion
on quality of legal scholarship. SoI'd like to put the question to the
listserv: How do you, as a legal environment/businesslaw professor OR
department, assess quality?</font><br><br><font size=2
face="sans-serif">Here's what I've come up with as a
startingpoint:</font><br><br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">1) Is the article
published ina law review operated by an ABA-approved law school (how to
capture internationallaw schools?)</font><br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">2)
Acceptance rate of journal</font><br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">3) Peer
reviewed?</font><br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">4) Picked up by
Westlaw/Lexis(does anyone know what criteria is used by these services to pick
up aparticular journal?)</font><br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">5) Citation
count in subsequentlaw reviews and court opinions/Relative
Importance</font><br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">6) External evaluation
and reviewof the article</font><br><br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">These
are not in any order, and thelist is obviously not exhaustive. The idea is,
to measure an articleagainst a set of heuristics, and the more heuristics it
hits, the higherthe "quality." Thought/opinions?</font><br><br><font size=2
face="sans-serif">_____<br>Terence Lau<br>Assistant Professor, Business
Law<br>Management and Marketing Department<br>University of
Dayton<br>[log in to unmask]</font></FONT>
|
