The University of St. Thomas School of Law is once again ranked among the top 25 law schools in the nation for scholarly impact.
“St. Thomas School of Law has a longstanding commitment to excellence in faculty scholarship,” law school Dean Daniel Kelly said. “Our continued ranking in the top 25 of leading U.S. law schools based on scholarly impact is a testament to the powerful – and frequently cited – research that our talented faculty are generating year after year. This commitment to faculty scholarship is at the core of our mission as a Catholic law school whose ideas have national impact.”
St. Thomas Law is No. 23 on the Scholarly Impact of Law School Faculties in 2024, which ranks the top third of ABA-accredited law schools. It is tied with the College of William & Mary and University of Minnesota. The law school was also ranked No. 23 in 2021 and 2018. In 2015, St. Thomas ranked No. 39.
St. Thomas Professor Gregory Sisk conducts the study every three years, based on a refined methodology originally developed by University of Chicago Law School Professor Brian Leiter. It measures the influence of a law school’s faculty based on how often its work is cited.
This year’s report looked at the mean and median of total law journal citations to tenured faculty scholarship from 2019-23.
The study is led by Sisk with research assistance from law librarians Adam Bent, Nicole Catlin and Alison Shea, and law students Allie Dischinger and Lizzie Edinger. Additional research support was provided by law students Emily Becker, Elle Caton, Elaina Duclos, Jacob Fate, Jake Heyer, Ruwayda Issa, Sukaina Jeffri, Anna Larson, Quinn McKush, Abby O'Rourke, Jocie Scherkenbach, and Danielle Solheid.
The top 30 schools are:
1. Yale University
2. University of Chicago
3. Harvard University
4. New York University
5. Columbia University
6. University of California, Berkeley
7. University of Pennsylvania
8. Stanford University
9. Vanderbilt University
10. University of Virginia
11. Duke University
11. University of California, Los Angeles
13. Cornell University
14. University of Michigan
15. Georgetown University
16. Northwestern University
17. George Washington University
18. Emory University
18. University of California, Davis
20. Fordham University
20. University of Texas, Austin
22. University of California, Irvine
23. College of William & Mary
23. University of Minnesota
23. University of St. Thomas (MN)
26. University of Southern California
27. Boston University
28. Washington University
29. Brooklyn Law School
30. University of North Carolina
30. University of Florida
30. University of Utah
30. George Mason University
Read the report and view the full list of law schools on SSRN.
