Study ranks UCI law school faculty seventh nationally in scholarly impact

Just two
months after graduating its first class, the fledgling UC Irvine School of Law ranked seventh in the nation for scholarly impact.

A study published Monday, July 16, by the University of St. Thomas School of Law measured the impact of
law faculties based on citations in scholarly journals. UCI’s faculty
ranked in the top 10 with law schools at Yale University, Harvard University, University of Chicago, Stanford University, New York University,
Columbia University, Vanderbilt University, Cornell University and UC Berkeley.

“While all rankings and citation
counts should be taken with a grain of salt, this is still wonderful news,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, law school dean at UCI. “It
is a reflection of the terrific faculty we have and the great staff support for
all aspects of the law school.”

A similar
study in 2010 ranked UC Irvine ninth, and one the previous year ranked it 10th. The law school opened in 2009.

The
“Scholarly Impact Score” used in the ranking is calculated from the mean and
the median of the total law journal citations by tenured law faculty over
the last five years.

Gregory Sisk,
a professor at University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis who co-authored
the study, told The Wall Street Journal that the ranking should be an important factor for prospective law students
because it demonstrates “whether there’s an intellectual excitement” among faculty members.