In Signaling Value of Law Reviews, I noted an article by Al Brophy (North Carolina) cautioning that scholarship should be judged on its own merits. Paul Caron notes an empirical study of “the theory of cumulative advantage in science (Matthew Effect),” that controls for article quality. In The Impact Factor’s Matthew Effect: A Natural Experiment in Bibliometrics, Vincent Larivière & Yves Gingras conclude
The intrinsic value of a paper is thus not the only reason a given paper gets cited or not; there is a specific Matthew effect attached to journals and this gives to paper published there an added value over and above their intrinsic quality.
So, it’s not just a matter of the quality of the paper, but also of its placement. It follows that an author’s academic reputation is also enhanced by placement. Thus, the urge to “trade-up” in placement of articles. Presumably, a law school’s peer reputation follows (with a lag?) that of its faculty. Earlier, I discussed Jeff Lipshaw’s (Suffolk) thoughts on the penchant of ambitious young professors to “move up the food chain to a law school with a higher ranking.
Given the strong influence of peer reputation in the US News law-school rankings, should lower-tier law-schools try to move up in the rankings by using pay-for-placement bonuses to young professors that might be just moving through? Or does their ability to do that–or their earlier association with a school–also enhance the peer reputation of that school?
Gary Rosin