Monday, May 17, 2010
Most Cited Property Scholars
Brian Leiter has posted the most recent iteration of his scholarly impact study, which includes list of the most cited Property scholars. Professor Leiter provides a good amount of detail on his methodology, but the most important thing to note is that this is a study of citations within the last five years, not overall citation.
Property
Rank |
Name |
School |
Total Articles Citing Name |
Age in 2010 |
1 |
Robert Ellickson |
Yale University |
810 |
69 |
2 |
Carol Rose |
University of Arizona |
790 |
70 |
3 |
Michael Heller |
Columbia University |
570 |
48 |
4 |
Joseph William Singer |
Harvard University |
500 |
56 |
5 |
Henry Smith |
Harvard University |
370 |
45 |
Stewart Sterk |
Cardozo Law School/Yeshiva University |
370 |
58 | |
7 |
Vicki Been |
New York University |
310 |
54 |
8 |
Gregory S. Alexander |
Cornell University |
290 |
62 |
Lee Fennell |
University of Chicago |
290 |
44 | |
Lior Strahilevitz |
University of Chicago |
290 |
37 | |
Runner-up for the top ten |
||||
David Callies |
University of Hawaii |
260 |
67 | |
Nicole Stelle Garnett |
University of Notre Dame |
250 |
40 | |
Eduardo Penalver |
Cornell University |
200 |
37 | |
Michael Schill |
University of Chicago |
190 |
52 | |
Steven Eagle |
George Mason University |
180 |
65 | |
Highly Cited Scholars Whose Cites Are Not Exclusively in This Area |
||||
Thomas Merrill |
Columbia University |
1400 |
61 | |
Margaret Jane Radin |
University of Michigan |
860 |
69 | |
Gideon Parchomovsky |
University of Pennnsylvania (half-time) |
530 |
42 | |
James Krier |
University of Michigan |
460 |
71 | |
Abraham Bell |
University of San Diego (half-time) |
270 |
42 |
Ben Barros
[Comments are held for approval, so there will be some delay in posting]
https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/property/2010/05/most-cited-property-scholars.html
Comments
Nicholas, the survey is parochial by design - the whole project is a little bit of US law school navel-gazing. Not only does it exclude non-US law professors, but it excludes folks with appointments outside of law who write on legal topics. So, to take two quick examples, Hanoch Dagan and Bill Fischel are both excluded, even though they are major players in US property law discourse. So, take it for whatever it is worth. It might be fun at some point to do a broader survey of property scholars, though it might be hard to settle on cross-border metrics -- the oddities of US legal academic publication might not compare well to publications from other areas.
Posted by: Ben Barros | May 18, 2010 8:46:42 AM
Fair enough, Ben. And, of course, citation counts are a very blunt instrument to begin with. However, it does strike me as rather an exclusive list (as someone outside a law school who does write on property and law, maybe I'm just being over-sensitive, ha ha). It's interesting that there seems to be such a divide between property scholarship inside Law and that going on outside (with a few exceptions) - e.g. the work of anthropologists, socio-legal scholars, geographers, political theorists etc. Or am I mistaken? My sense is that their may be different conceptions of property at work here that may serve to rule some sorts of scholarship out of court. Maybe this is blog-worthy?
Posted by: Nicholas Blomley | May 18, 2010 3:12:50 PM
I agree that there seems to be too big a divide between property scholarship being done inside and outside of law schools. The recently-founded Association for Law, Property, and Society (ALPS) has bridging this gap as one of its goals. The website is here:
http://www.alps.syr.edu/
I'm involved in the organization, and we hope to (among other things) make the anual meeting a gathering of property scholars across disciplines.
Posted by: Ben Barros | May 20, 2010 8:11:48 AM
Thanks, Ben: yes, I was made aware of ALPS recently: it looks like an excellent forum, and I hope to attend the conference next year. NB
Posted by: Nicholas Blomley | May 20, 2010 7:32:39 PM
While such lists are always amusing, I would note that the sample is rather parochial. As far as I can see, only US property scholars in Law Schools are included. What of non-Americans outside Law?
Posted by: Nicholas Blomley | May 18, 2010 7:17:34 AM