"Info-antics" or How Chapman School of Law Beat Out Harvard to be Number 1 in a "Key Scholarly Output Ranking"

In an amazing display of hubris, the Chapman School of Law released the following press release on September 8, 2006:

Chapman School of Law Hits #1 in Key Scholarly Output Ranking
- Chapman Bests Harvard, NYU, Yale and Other Top Law School

ORANGE, Calif., Sept. 8, 2006 – In an increasingly important objective measure of scholarly productivity, the Chapman University School of Law has been ranked #1 in the nation in terms of the number of scholarly articles posted in the past 12 months on the Social Sciences Research Network, or SSRN (www.ssrn.com), a key online distribution network for legal scholarship.

The rankings, which became available this week based on data through September 1, 2006, list Harvard Law School at #2 , New York University at #3 and the University of Minnesota at #4. Rounding out the top ten were UCLA (#5), Yale (#6), Duke (#7), and the University of Chicago, University of Illinois and George Washington University (tied at #8). Chapman law professors also took top honors in the number of scholarly articles posted by author, out of 1,500 professors listed nationwide: Professor Jeremy Miller was #1, Professor John Eastman was #3, and Professor Donald Kochan was #21.

The Chapman law faculty also broke into the Top 100 on SSRN in terms of the number of articles downloaded over the past 12 months, an indication of the interest that the Chapman School of Law’s scholarship is generating among peers. Chapman ranked #71 out of more than 350 law schools worldwide in this important objective measure. In August, the Chapman tax law faculty ranked #8 in the nation in terms of SSRN downloads.

Parham Williams, dean of the Chapman School of Law, noted that the accomplishment was even more impressive than it first appeared, as the majority of Chapman faculty only began posting their scholarship on SSRN this past summer. “This is further proof,” Dean Williams noted, “that the Chapman law school is truly a community of scholars. That, combined with our commitment to small class size and student-focused personalized education, which resulted in a top ten ranking by the Princeton Review this past year in the 'Faculty Rocks' category, makes Chapman an exciting place for cutting-edge legal education and scholarship.”

Wow! How does Chapman Law best the likes of Harvard et al.?

Let's start by just comparing Chapman and Harvard for a moment using US News & World Report for our reference point. US News ranked Harvard the second best law school in the country in its 2006 report. Chapman, well, Chapman is a Fourth Tier school. Harvard's academic peers rated the school and its faculty 4.8 on a scale of 5.0. Chapman's peer assessment score is 1.5, only four law schools scored lower than Chapman in peer assessment.  I conclude, reasonably I think, that these two schools aren't exactly playing in the same league, not even in the same law school fantasy league.

Yet based on the press release's headline, one might think Chapman's faculty is kicking Harvard butt. With less than half as many law profs, Chapman's "scholarly output" was almost 17% higher than Harvard's. Click on the table (left) to view a larger version.

Hum. Let's flesh out Chapman Law's claims.

As Dean Williams states, it is absolutely true that "the majority of Chapman faculty only began posting their scholarship on SSRN this past summer." In fact, of the 145 Chapman Law documents posted in the SSRN digital depository in the last 12 months ending on September 1, 2006, a whooping 108 were submitted in August 2006 (and most of those were submitted on the last day of August). This has to be the most creative jag any law school faculty has ever experienced -- just-in-time productivity, no less. But a closer examination reveals that the only person who was really productive in Orange, California in August was the person who uploaded the documents to SSRN, documents whose dates of publication ranged from 2006 to ... wait for it ... 1981. Yes, 1981!

So is an objective measure of scholarly productivity the number of scholarly articles posted in SSRN in the last 12 months? Most of us might say "yes" but certainly we would only entertain the proposition if the documents were actually produced within a reasonable amount of time before being posted. In the case of Chapman Law, only 41 of the 145 SSRN documents can be dated to 2005-2006. That's only 28.3 percent. Click on the pie chart to enlarge it for viewing the entire breakdown.

This next chart illustrates the chronological distribution of Chapman Law documents posted in the last 12 months by date of publication, where publication date means publication in a journal, law review, or some similar publication. Where no such publication date is given, the SSRN-listed document is assumed to have seen the light of day on the date it was posted on SSRN. Granted, that assumption is not entirely valid because several documents have not even been viewed once, let alone downloaded.

I have also charted the Chapman Law claim as a percentage of total documents by certain milestones. Documents actually published (not SSRN-posted):

before 2005: 71.72%;

before 2000: 38.62%;

before 1995: 25.52%; and

before 1990: 11.03%.

Click on the image to view a larger version of the chart.

Remember, we are referring to a set of 145 documents. Clearly some very out-dated legal analysis just became available for reading via SSRN.

So which law school actually ranks number one in scholarly productivity as measured by documents posted on SSRN that were produced in a reasonable amount of time before being posted? Harvard Law, of course. There is no similar publication date range issue for Harvard's SSRN-posted documents.

It's not unusual for the have-nots in the academic prestige department to gulp the kool-aid of self-delusion. That's OK, I guess. It can even be the source of infotainment. Who doesn't enjoy a little "law porn", a dose of "Sextonism", every now and then? Chapman Law's "info-antics" is another example, but it is not just any sort of example. As law librarians we know that this silly side of document counts has become pandemic in the legal academy. Will it never end?

Closing Remarks
I hope the Chapman Law Library staff didn't spend its entire summer tracking down hardcopies for scanning!

Ultimately, what can we say about Chapman Law? I think it's fair to say, "this school posts!" [JH]

Sources:

• List of SSRN Top Law Schools (Beta) (September 1, 2006)
• SSRN Top Law Schools: Chapman University, School of Law Stats Page
• List of Chapman Law Profs and Librarians with Links to Their SSRN submissions
• SSRN Top Law Schools: Harvard Law School Stats Page
• List of Harvard Law Profs with Links to Their SSRN Submissions

Editor's Note: I leave the matter of Chapman Law's remarks about Law Profs Jeremy Miller, John Eastman, and Donald Kochan for you to ponder on your own and the matter of download counts to another day. Breaking the top 100 in terms of download counts isn't as much of a screamer as "Hit[ing] #1 in Key Scholarly Output Ranking."