The University of California, Irvine, has been ranked No. 7 among accredited American law schools in terms of making a scholarly impact, in a study done by University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minnesota.
The study calculated a weighted “scholarly impact score” for each law faculty by taking the average and median of total law journal citations over the past five years.
UC Irvine’s law school, which opened in 2009 and graduated its inaugural class a few months ago, got an adjustment in the calculation “since they have only filled about a third of their planned faculty slots” and since Dean Erwin Chemerinsky is “now the most cited full-time law professor in the country,” according to the report.
Chapman University’s School of Law in Orange, now 17 years old, ranked No. 64 on the list.
It has had “a scholarly impact that dramatically outpaces their present academic reputation,” according to the report.
Chapman’s law school is ranked No. 110 among law schools in the country by U.S. News and World Report.
