Capital Law Faculty Ranks High in New Study

September 22, 2008

In a newly released faculty productivity study by Roger Williams University, Capital University Law School faculty places 36th out of the 118 U.S. News listing of 2nd, 3rd and 4th tier law schools for scholarship published. Capital is one of only two 4th tier law schools in the top 40 — a list which predominately includes 2nd tier law schools.

Furthermore, the ranking places Capital third (following the University of Cincinnati and Case Western Reserve University) among the eight Ohio law schools included in the study and fourth among peer institutions (3rd and 4th tier U.S. News law schools) nationally.

“This is an outstanding achievement and a testament to the incredible hard work and high quality of the Capital University Law School faculty,” says Dean Jack A. Guttenberg. “Capital’s faculty pride themselves on being teachers who are dedicated scholars enhancing their teaching through their scholarship.”

According to Guttenberg, over the last four years, 81 percent of the Capital law school faculty members have published journal articles, books and treatises.

The Roger Williams study, “ Per Capita Productivity of Articles in Top Journals, 1993-2008: Law Schools Outside U.S. News Top 50,” draws on methods for ranking scholarly productivity originally developed by Professor Brian Leiter for his survey of per capita faculty productivity based on articles in top journals.” The Roger Williams study tracks articles published in 67 leading law journals by tenure and tenure-track faculty at ABA-accredited law schools, outside the U.S. News Top 50, between 1993 and 2008, measuring the number of articles each faculty member published in a qualifying journal during this time period. The study provides objective information to assess the relative strength of the law schools in one form of scholarly research.

“I am extremely proud of the dedicated faculty we have here at Capital,” Guttenberg says. “This accomplishment further exemplifies what I have been saying for a long time, ‘that our faculty can compete with the best and that we are a law school much better than our current U.S. News ranking may suggest.’”