In a new and wide-ranging set of rankings that track the scholarly impact of law schools and legal academics, UCLA School of Law placed among the top 10 institutions in the country, while 36 members of the faculty were listed as the top scholars in 25 different areas of research.

HeinOnline, one of the premier legal research platforms, which is especially noted for its extensive law journal library, launched the Scholarly Impact Rankings in January “to offer a clearer, fuller view of scholarly influence, one that reflects both the reach of the ideas and the people behind them.” Including nearly 60 different lists, the rankings will be updated every month as new content is released. (Therefore, this article reports on only the first set of rankings that HeinOnline published.)

In the inaugural list of the Most-Cited Authors from ABA-approved law schools, three UCLA Law professors placed in the top 100 in the country for scholarly impact: Distinguished Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw (No. 4), Distinguished Professor Emeritus Eugene Volokh (No. 29), and Distinguished Professor Stephen Bainbridge (No. 40).

The more granular Most-Cited Authors by Subject tracks the top 100 legal scholars in 25 different subject areas. In the first installment of that ranking, 36 UCLA Law and UCLA faculty members appeared a total of 86 times across all 25 subject areas.

Alongside current members of the core law school faculty, those 36 scholars included several emeritus professors, law lecturers, and academics from other UCLA divisions whose research is related to the law. Many of them appeared on multiple subject lists, with Crenshaw (10 lists), Volokh (nine lists), and Professor Joanna Schwartz (seven lists) appearing most frequently. Crenshaw also ranked No. 1 nationally for “criminal law and justice” and “social justice and public interest,” while Schwartz was No. 1 on the “courts and jurisprudence” list.

UCLA Law performed strongly in HeinOnline’s other new rankings of scholarly impact. On the list of Most-Cited Institutions by Author Affiliation, UCLA Law was No. 9 in the country. On the list of the Most-Cited Flagship Journal, the UCLA Law Review was No. 13.

Several complex metrics are part of the rankings’ methodology. They include the number of times an author was cited in HeinOnline’s law journal library during the past five years and more than five years after publication, as well as the popular “h-index” that tracks overall research productivity and impact.