Size Still Matters in Latest Per Capita Faculty Productivity Study

Professor Michael Yelnosky, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at Roger Williams has released this draft "productivity" study of Tier 3 and Tier 4 law schools (Criteria used in study). The Yelnosky study applies features of the method used by Texas law prof Brian Leiter in an earlier 2000-2002 study  (Criteria used in study) with some modifications. For example, unlike the Leiter study, the Yelnosky study examines the Top 50 journals, defined as the general law reviews published by the 54 schools receiving the highest peer assessment scores in the U.S. News Rankings (2.8 or higher).

Readers of this blog will note that I respect Leiter's law school rankings studies for their careful employment of objective metrics and equally careful identification and examination of the shortcomings of ranking studies, including his own. See, for example, Top 35 Law Faculties Based on Scholarly Impact for 2007 (one of "those rare citation studies coming out of the legal academy that exemplifies the precision of infometrics, not the carelessness of 'info antics.'").

One metric in Leiter's 200-2002 study that is used in Yelnosky's study, however, is not one of Leiter's best efforts. He applied a points system to the length of articles (0 points for articles under 6 pages; 1 point for articles 6-20 pages; 2 points for articles 21-50 pages; 3 points for articles exceeding 50 pages) and addressed the self-publishing aspect of articles published in-house by halving their point values. Objective? Yes, but the "so what" factor looms large because of the arbitrary nature of the page cutoffs for earning points. For an earlier study using the same methodology for per capita faculty productivity, see Brian Leiter, Measuring the Academic Distinction of Law Faculties, 29 Journal of Legal Studies 451 (2000) [Westlaw].

I agree with Leiter on two issues. Short law review articles and in-house publications should be addressed in per capita faculty productivity studies. But I would not use a points system. Instead I would simply identity both facets in a table and use cumulative stats for data analysis: (1) all articles; (2) all articles longer than X pages; (3) all non-in-house articles, etc.

The Yelnosky study continues the early Leiter "tradition." I'm happy to note that Leiter has not. [JH]