The University of St. Thomas School of Law has once again been ranked among the top 25 law schools in the nation for scholarly impact. Professor Gregory Sisk this week released the latest installment of a study he conducts every three years that measures the influence of a law school’s faculty based on how often its work is cited.
St. Thomas Law is No. 23 on the list, which ranks the top third of ABA-accredited law schools. St. Thomas Law tied with George Mason University, Fordham University and Boston University. It was also ranked No. 23 in 2018. In 2015, St. Thomas ranked No. 39.
"We don’t think a law school has to choose to be either student-centered or committed to world-class research – we can and will be both,” law school Dean Robert Vischer said. “Our scholarly culture shapes the student experience by bringing our students into the conversations at the center of legal reform. Our mission compels us to challenge the status quo, and the leading scholars who comprise our faculty equip our students to be part of that process. Our commitment to faculty scholarship is not an add-on to our mission; it’s at the core of our mission.”
The report looked at the mean and median of total law journal citations to tenured faculty scholarship from 2016-20. Most highly cited among the St. Thomas faculty are Thomas Berg, Neil Hamilton, Lyman Johnson, Wulf Kaal, Joel Nichols, Jerry Organ, Mark Osler, Michael Stokes Paulsen, Gregory Sisk and Robert Vischer.
The study was led by Sisk with research assistance from law librarian Nicole Catlin as well as law students Alexandra Anderson and Lauren Gunderson. Additional research support was provided by law students Anna Barton, Sarah Carpenter, Ashley Finck, Emily Gootzeit, Nicklaus Johnson, Michelle Lester, Colin Schaeffer, Anna Steinwand and Hugh Van Scoy.
The top 30 schools are:
1. Yale University
2. University of Chicago
3. Harvard University
4. New York University
5. Columbia University
6. Stanford University
6. University of California, Berkeley
8. University of Pennsylvania
9. University of Virginia
9. Vanderbilt University
11. University of California, Los Angeles
12. Duke University
13. University of Michigan
14. University of California, Irvine
15. Northwestern University
15. Cornell University
17. Georgetown University
18. George Washington University
18. University of Texas, Austin
18. University of Minnesota
21. Washington University, St. Louis
22. University of California, Davis
23. George Mason University
23. Fordham University
23. Boston University
23. University of St. Thomas (MN)
27. University of Arizona
27. College of William & Mary
29. University of Southern California
30. University of San Diego
Read the report and view the full list of law schools on SSRN.
