Google Law Review Rankings 2014

As the fall law review submission season heats up, everyone faces a bewilderingly vast array of different law reviews.  How should one compare an offer from from a specialty journal to a mainline law review?   How do the US News Law School rankings compare to journal quality? Until recently, there were few good answers.

As is the case for most things, however, Google has ridden to the rescue with Google Scholar Metrics, which produces a ranking of journals based on citations to recent articles in Google Scholar.

I wrote about Google's rankings for 2013 in a previous post, ranking law reviews using the H5 index as ranked by Google. In another post, I used Google's rankings to list the most cited articles in top-20 journals. Google has updated its Scholar Metrics database, which allows a more current ranking.

In this post, I have used the more recent Google data to rank the journals using the average of the H5 index and the H5 median, which seems to give more balanced and less volatile results. For more details on these measures, see my original post on the Google Rankings.

The table ranks main law school law reviews only, but you can access a (longer) ranking with specialty and some peer-reviewed journals along with the main law reviews here. There are some pretty serious differences in a few cases from US News rankings. For example, the University of Chicago Law Review comes in 18th and the Southern California Law Review comes in 35th. Has Google has captured some measure of quality independent of US News rankings? Or are the deviations due to methodological blips? I leave the dissection exercise for the comments.

This is not a complete list as Google does not keep track of all  journals. As a result, a journal that is listed low in this list is not necessary a "low-ranked journal," as there may be dozens or hundreds ranked lower that are not part of the dataset. As always, please feel free to contact me with any corrections or omissions, and please refrain from shooting the messenger. 

NOTE: You can click the blue number under the "H5 Index" column to see any journal's most cited articles for the last five years. [Updated as of 8/25/14 to include Fordham Law Review which was inadvertently omitted.]

                                    Main Law Reviews Only

                            (for all law reviews click here)

Rank	Law Review Name	H5 Index	H5 Median	Avg
1	Harvard Law Review	39	71	55
2	Stanford Law Review	34	63	48.5
3	Yale Law Journal	37	56	46.5
4	Columbia Law Review	37	56	46.5
5	University of Pennsylvania Law Review	38	49	43.5
6	Michigan Law Review	31	56	43.5
7	UCLA Law Review	32	51	41.5
8	Duke Law Journal	31	52	41.5
9	Georgetown Law Journal	30	52	41
10	Cornell Law Review	31	48	39.5
11	Virginia Law Review	32	46	39
12	Texas Law Review	31	47	39
13	New York University Law Review	29	46	37.5
14	California Law Review	31	43	37
15	Minnesota Law Review	29	44	36.5
16	Northwestern University Law Review	28	43	35.5
17	Iowa Law Review	27	43	35
18	University of Chicago Law Review	27	41	34
19	William and Mary Law Review	27	37	32
20	Vanderbilt Law Review	25	37	31
21	University of Illinois Law Review	24	38	31
22	Notre Dame Law Review	26	35	30.5
23	Boston College Law Review	24	37	30.5
24	Emory Law Journal	22	39	30.5
25	Fordham Law Review	25	33	29
26	Connecticut Law Review	21	37	29
27	Indiana Law Journal	24	33	28.5
28	Boston University Law Review	23	34	28.5
29	Wisconsin Law Review	24	31	27.5
30	North Carolina Law Review	22	33	27.5
31	Cardozo Law Review	21	31	26
32	Arizona Law Review	22	28	25
33	Hastings Law Journal	23	26	24.5
34	Florida Law Review	23	26	24.5
35	Washington University Law Review	21	28	24.5
36	Southern California Law Review	20	29	24.5
37	Lewis & Clark Law Review	20	29	24.5
38	George Washington Law Review	20	29	24.5
39	UC Davis Law Review	20	28	24
40	Wake Forest Law Review	19	26	22.5
41	Buffalo Law Review	17	27	22
42	Vermont Law Review	16	28	22
43	Washington & Lee Law Review	18	25	21.5
44	American University Law Review	18	25	21.5
45	Missouri Law Review	17	26	21.5
46	Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review	18	23	20.5
47	Denver University Law Review	18	22	20
48	Ohio State Law Journal	17	23	20
49	Houston Law Review	17	23	20
50	Pepperdine Law Review	16	24	20
51	Kansas Law Review	16	24	20
52	Nebraska Law Review	11	29	20
53	Washington Law Review	16	23	19.5
54	South Carolina Law Review	16	23	19.5
55	Akron Law Review	16	23	19.5
56	Tulane Law Review	15	24	19.5
57	Alabama Law Review	15	24	19.5
58	Maryland Law Review	17	21	19
59	George Mason Law Review	16	22	19
60	University of Richmond Law Review	15	23	19
61	Seattle University Law Review	16	21	18.5
62	Brigham Young University Law Review	15	22	18.5
63	Chicago-Kent Law Review	15	21	18
64	New York Law School Law Review	15	20	17.5
65	Georgia Law Review	15	20	17.5
66	DePaul Law Review	15	20	17.5
67	SMU Law Review	14	21	17.5
68	Pennsylvania State Law Review	14	21	17.5
69	Marquette Law Review	13	22	17.5
70	Santa Clara Law Review	14	19	16.5
71	Rutgers Law Review	14	19	16.5
72	Indiana Law Review	13	20	16.5
73	Georgia State University Law Review	12	21	16.5
74	Drake Law Review	12	21	16.5
75	Albany Law Review	12	21	16.5
76	Seton Hall Law Review	14	18	16
77	University of Miami Law Review	13	19	16
78	San Diego Law Review	13	19	16
79	Florida State University Law Review	13	19	16
80	Brooklyn Law Review	12	20	16
81	Tennessee Law Review	11	21	16
82	Hofstra Law Review	11	21	16
83	Utah Law Review	14	17	15.5
84	Oregon Law Review	13	18	15.5
85	Howard Law Journal	11	20	15.5
86	Loyola University of Chicago Law Journal	14	16	15
87	Louisiana Law Review	13	17	15
88	Arizona State Law Journal	12	18	15
89	Loyola Consumer Law Review	9	21	15
90	University of Cincinnati Law Review	13	16	14.5
91	Arkansas Law Review	13	16	14.5
92	William Mitchell Law Review	12	17	14.5
93	Temple Law Review	12	17	14.5
94	Michigan State Law Review	10	18	14
95	UMKC Law Review	13	14	13.5
96	Pace Law Review	13	14	13.5
97	St. Louis Law Journal	12	15	13.5
98	Washburn Law Journal	11	16	13.5
99	Catholic University Law Review	11	16	13.5
100	University of St. Thomas Law Journal	11	15	13
101	McGeorge Law Review	11	15	13
102	Creighton Law Review	11	15	13
103	Valparaiso University Law Review	10	16	13
104	Suffolk University Law Review	11	14	12.5
105	Nevada Law Journal	11	14	12.5
106	Villanova Law Review	10	15	12.5
107	Case Western Reserve Law Review	10	15	12.5
108	University of Toledo Law Review	10	14	12
109	Syracuse Law Review	10	14	12
110	Maine Law Review	10	14	12
111	Widener Law Journal	9	15	12
112	Oklahoma City University Law Review	9	15	12
113	Texas Tech Law Review	10	13	11.5
114	John Marshall Law Review	10	13	11.5
115	Mississippi Law Journal	10	12	11
116	Tulsa Law Review	9	13	11
117	Ohio Northern University Law Review	9	13	11
118	Mercer Law Review	9	13	11
119	Cleveland State Law Review	9	13	11
120	St. John's Law Review	8	14	11
121	West Virginia Law Review	10	11	10.5
122	Southwestern Law Review	8	13	10.5
123	South Dakota Law Review	9	10	9.5
124	South Texas Law Review	8	11	9.5
125	Baylor Law Review	8	11	9.5
126	Rutgers Law Journal	8	10	9
127	Northern Kentucky Law Review	8	10	9
128	Hamline Law Review	8	10	9
129	Southern Illinois University Law Journal	7	11	9
130	Roger Williams University Law Review	8	9	8.5
131	Western New England Law Review	7	10	8.5
132	North Dakota Law Review	7	10	8.5
133	University of Arkansas Little Rock Law Review	6	10	8
134	Texas Wesleyan Law Review	7	8	7.5
135	Oklahoma Law Review	7	8	7.5