MinnLawyer Blog

Move over, U.S. News and World Report. University of St. Thomas School of Law Professor Greg Sisk has completed a new “scholarly impact study” where he applies the methodology of Prof. Brian Leitner in evaluating the scholarly impact of the faculty at U.S. law schools. Leitner applied his study methods to determine the top 25 law schools in the country (Sisk agrees with his choices) and Sisk expanded to create a top 70 list. It was a big job because it involves counting the citations per tenured faculty member of each school, and Sisk was assisted by Valerie Aggerbeck, Debby Hackerson, Mary Wells, and several UST law students. An objective evaluation of a school’s scholarly impact is important because the influential U.S. News and World Report school rankings are 25 percent based on peer reputation.   
In an additional piece of happy news for St. Thomas, it ranked 38th in the country in Sisk’s report. “One virtue of a scholarly impact measure is that it is a way for relatively new schools that have done good hiring–like St. Thomas…to measure what they have accomplished,” Leitner wrote on his blog, extending kudos to Sisk and his team.