Buckingham, D’Angelo, and Vaughn on Law School Rankings and Research Deans

Three of my colleagues to be at Suffolk have posted a new empirical piece on SSRN.  Richard Buckingham, Diane D’Angelo, and Susan Vaughn have posted Law School Rankings, Faculty Scholarship, and Associate Deans for Faculty Research.  Here is the abstract:

The authors contend that a boom in lawschool rankings has encouraged many U.S. law schools to take newmeasures to encourage and publicize faculty scholarship. Theestablishment of associate deans for faculty research is one suchmeasure. The authors conducted a study to determine the number of lawschools that have these dean-level positions. They argue that many lawschools have established these positions as part of their efforts toimprove their standing in the increasingly important rankings. 

Theauthors begin with a historical overview of the original law schoolmodel and discuss how that model evolved over time. They focus on howthose changes led to a competitive law school market that helped laythe groundwork for U.S. News & World Report and other law schoolrankings. They then explore numerous alternative ranking methodologiesand conclude with a study of ABA-accredited law schools that haveappointed associate deans for faculty research.

The authors have kind words for the assistance of our own Peerless Leader, Prof. Caron, in accumulating data on the institution of research deanships.  I also note that one such associate dean for faculty research is blogger extraordinaire Mike Madison of Madisonian.net.  Note, however, that when Mike is the research dean his picture is at shown at left.  When he is on his own web site, he is as shown at right.  Just keep that in mind.

[Jeff Lipshaw]