Number Crunching The List of Visitorships

Having wrapped up my two summer courses earlier in the week (the UCC never takes a vacation!), I looked around for another challenge (perhaps something just a bit less daunting than inventory financing, yet just as riveting as the topic of holders in due course).  So I decided to calculate some stats on Kevin’s list of visitors (available here).  By no means am I an empiricist, statistician, or math wizard.  With that caveat, here goes!

1) Total number of visits by professors, where the home and host school are both ABA-accredited law schools:  126.

This number, as you may guess from the description, does not include visits by professors affiliated with a foreign university, an American university department outside its law school, an American university without a law school, etc.  Also, this number may be slightly higher than the number of domestic law professors actually visiting, as some professors are visiting at two institutions.

2) Number of visits at the top five law schools, as ranked by USN&WR (Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, NYU):  64 (approximately 51% of the 126 total from #1 above).

Of these 64 visits, 18 visitors are from the same top five law schools (27%), 41 visitors are from law schools ranked 1-10 by USN&WR (64%), 54 visitors are from law schools ranked 1-20 by USN&WR (84%), and the other ten visitors (16%) are from American, Boston College, Brooklyn, Cardozo (2), Connecticut, Illinois, New Mexico, and New York Law School (2).

3) Number of visits at the top twenty law schools, as ranked by USN&WR:  93 (approximately 74% of the 126 total).

Of these 93 visits, 66 visitors are from the same top twenty law schools (71%), 15 visitors are from law schools ranked 21-50 by USN&WR (16%), seven visitors are from law schools ranked 51-100 by USN&WR (8%), and five visitors are from law schools ranked by USN&WR in the 3rd tier (5%).  No professor at a law school ranked by USN&WR in the 4th tier is visiting at a “top twenty” school.

4) Number of visits by professors whose home school is ranked in the 3rd tier by USN&WR:  14 (approximately 11% of the 126 total).

Of these fourteen visits, eleven professors are visiting at law schools ranked by USN&WR in the 1st tier (George Washington, Georgetown, Georgia, Harvard, Hastings, Iowa, Michigan (2), North Carolina, NYU, and Ohio State).  The other three professors are visiting at law schools ranked by USN&WR in the 2nd tier.

5) Number of visits by professors whose home school is ranked in the 4th tier by USN&WR: 8 (approximately 6% of the 126 total). 

Of these eight visits (half of which are by profs at Ave Maria), two professors are visiting at law schools ranked by USN&WR in the 1st tier (North Carolina and Ohio State), two professors are visiting at law schools ranked by USN&WR in the 2nd tier, three professors are visiting at law schools ranked by USN&WR in the 3rd tier,  and one professor is visiting at a law school ranked by USN&WR in the 4th tier.

6) Based on USN&WR rankings, and assigning a “midpoint” number to schools ranked by USN&WR in the 3rd tier (schools 103 through 139, so the midpoint number is 121) and the 4th tier (schools 140 through 184, so the midpoint number is 162), the following list represents visits where the visitor’s home school is ranked by USN&WR at least 50 points lower than the host school:

            Ave Maria to North Carolina                        132
            Tulsa to Ohio State                                            127
            New York Law School to Harvard              119
            New York Law School to NYU                     116
            Wayne State to Michigan (twice)                112
            New York Law School to Georgetown      107
            West Virginia to Iowa                                        95
            Syracuse to George Washington                   93
            West Virginia to North Carolina                   91
            McGeorge to Georgia                                        86
            Montana to Ohio State                                      86
            Chapman to Hastings                                        82
            Ave Maria to Marquette                                  75
            New Mexico to Stanford                                  74
            Chicago-Kent to Michigan                              68
            Seton Hall to Georgetown                               63
            Hamline to Hofstra      
                                      62
            Brooklyn to Columbia                                      57
            Brooklyn to Chicago                                         55
            Nebraska to Miami                                            50

Kevin’s list probably is incomplete.  Also, these stats fail to consider offers extended but declined, rely on a ranking system heavily criticized, and may or may not be representative of stats calculated on visiting data from other years.  But a casual glance leads me to offer three observations.  First, those of us at a law school ranked in the 4th tier may have difficulty landing a visiting stint anywhere (although I’ve been very fortunate on multiple occasions).  Second, folks teaching at a law school outside the “top twenty” may have difficulty landing a guest spot at those same top twenty schools.  And third, no matter the rank of the home school, a visit at a “top 50” law school is possible!

I hope others chime in with thoughts.  As for me, I need to turn my attention to grading summer exams.  If you wish to help, please send along a mailing address rather soon (indicating your preference for Payment Systems exams or Sadistic Transactions exams).  I'll front the postage.