Law School faculty scholarship ranked 6th in country

Penn Law School jumped 20 notches to a sixth place ranking in Chicago-Kent Law Review's "Faculty Scholarship Survey" which analyzes professor productivity. In 1990, when the survey was last released, the school was ranked 26th. "It's one way of confirming what I know has been happening," Law School Dean Colin Diver said. "The Law faculty have become more productive." Although Diver said he does not believe the recent increase in faculty publications was a "direct response" to 1990's ranking, he did admit that the low placement "brought it to [the faculty's] attention." Diver attributed the Law School's higher standing to increased funding and more opportunities for faculty to publish. According to the National Law Journal, the Chicago-Kent survey focused on the period from 1988-1992, rating faculty scholarship by number of articles published per professor, citations by peers and the number of pages published. Since the survey focuses only on quantity of faculty publications, some skeptical legal scholars have been critical of its lack of focus on the quality of the scholarship in the rankings, The National Law Journal reported. Diver noted that the survey does not take into account published books or interdisciplinary works published. But he disagreed with the criticism. "The methodology is easy to attack," Diver said. "It's not purely quantitative. It's a very rough measure of quality." In addition, the survey's creators argue that scholarship is vital to institutions and faculty, The National Law Journal said. Diver said he encourages his professors to write more often so that their teaching will improve. "Not only does it keep you up to date, but it makes you better at presenting ideas to your peers," he said. Ben Manevitz, a second-year law student and associate editor of The Comparative Labor Law Journal, agreed with this technique. "[Publishing] is definitely critical in the understanding of the law," Manevitz said. "The professor learns as much as he or she teaches." Although Diver admits that too great a focus on publication can be harmful to a law school, he said he does not believe that faculty scholarship is near that point. "Quality and quantity can go hand in hand," Diver said. The University of Chicago School of Law gained the highest scores in the survey. The Yale University, Cornell University, Harvard University and University of Texas law schools were ranked in the top five.