Website of the Week

Most-Cited American Legal Periodicals, http://law.wlu.edu/library/research/lawrevs/mostcited.htm

URL changed to http://law.wlu.edu/library/research/lawrevs/mostcited.asp (June 11, 2003)

Law librarian John Doyle at the Washington and Lee University Law Library offers information based on three studies:

1. Fred Shapiro, "The Most Cited Law Reviews," 29 Journal of Legal Studies 389 (2000). Covers 1987-97.
2. Searches of Westlaw's full-text journals and law reviews database (JLR). Covers 1995-2002.
3. Searches of Westlaw's ALLCASES database. Covers 1995-2002.

Users can choose one of the three studies and then specify how they want the lists sorted, by general titles, specialized titles, both sets, or merged lists. The site also provides an alphabetic list of the 136 titles in one or all of the studies.

Faculty considering where to publish their articles might find such lists interesting.

Citation analysis--the study of who cites to which sources most often--has been the subject of several articles. The Journal of Legal Studies published a symposium issue on Interpreting Legal Citations in January 2000, which included the following articles:

• Theodore Eisenberg & Martin T. Wells, "Inbreeding in Law School Hiring: Assessing the Performance of Faculty Hired from Within," at 369.
• Fred R. Shapiro, "The Most-Cited Legal Books Published Since 1978," at 397.
• Fred R. Shapiro, The Most-Cited Legal Scholars," at 409.
• Brian Leiter, "Measuring the Academic Distinction of Law Faculties," at 451.
• Robert C. Ellickson, "Trends in Legal Scholarship: A Statistical Study," at 517.

A LegalTrac search for the subject Citation of Legal Authorities reveals dozens of articles.