The latest, newly released version of the Sisk Scholarly Impact Rankings has ranked Seattle U Law as the top Pacific Northwest law faculty and the number-two Jesuit, Catholic law faculty in the West, placing it in the top third of all law schools nationally. It is the highest ranking the law school has ever achieved, and the first time it has been included since 2012.
“Scholarly Impact of Law School Faculties in 2024,” by Gregory C. Sisk of the University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minnesota, calculates “the mean and the median of total law journal citations over the past five years to the work of tenured faculty members,” according to an abstract.
“I am thrilled but not surprised with this result. It confirms that our faculty are making an outsized impact by producing groundbreaking and thought-provoking scholarship about a range of topics that add to our collective understanding of the law,” said Dean Anthony E. Varona. “Our law students benefit from having access to this tremendous knowledge base in their classrooms as well.”
In 2023, the Forward Looking Academic Impact Rankings for U.S. Law Schools (FLAIR), developed by Emory University School of Law Professor Matthew Sag, also ranked Seattle U Law the top law school in the Pacific Northwest and among the top 25% nationally. This is the first time Seattle U Law has appeared in Sisk’s rankings since 2012.
The law school counts several scholarly powerhouses among its faculty.
Credited as a founder of critical race theory, Distinguished Professor Richard Delgado has been recognized as the eighth most-cited legal scholar in U.S. history. During a four-year period, he had the greatest number of published articles in top law reviews of any scholar in the country.
From 2018 to 2021, Research Professor Jean Stefancic was in the top 10% of authors by all-time downloads on Social Science Research Network (SSRN) and has been among the top-cited scholars in critical theories of law.
Other notable faculty members who have been frequently cited include:
- Brooke D. Coleman, who has published widely on civil procedure and gender issues and the law
- Margaret Chon, who has written articles on intellectual property and technology
- Angela P. Harris researches and writes regularly on topics including critical legal theory, law and political economy, and climate justice
- Professor John B. Kirkwood is a prolific scholar of antitrust law who has received several awards for his work
- Charles R.T. O’Kelley has published widely on corporate law and governance and directs the Berle Center for Corporations, Law, and Society
- Eduardo Peñalver, Seattle University’s president and a faculty member who is an expert in property law
- Sara Rankin, an expert on homeless rights who directs the law school’s Homeless Rights Advocacy Project
- Andrew Siegel, a constitutional law expert and scholar
- Dean Spade, an expert in transgender law, poverty law, and social movements
- Steven Bender, who has written extensively on racial and social justice.
"It is extraordinary to work at a school whose faculty members are so influential in their spheres of scholarship. They are not just central to the national conversation – in so many cases, they actually started it,” said Professor Deborah Ahrens, vice dean for Intellectual Life, who publishes widely on topics related to criminal law.