UC Law SF Boasts Top-Cited Scholars in Evidence, Civil Procedure

Four UC Law SF professors rank among the most-cited scholars in their fields over the past five years.

One of them—UC Law SF Chancellor and Dean David Faigman—topped the list of evidence scholars at #1. Two—Richard Marcus and Scott Dodson—made the top-10 civil procedure list alongside scholars from Yale, NYU, and Stanford. The only other school with two faculty members in the civil procedure top 10 is Harvard. And Joan Williams ranked #11 in critical theories of law, which includes feminist and critical race theory.

The rankings were reported in Brian Leiter’s Law School Reports blog. See more detail and the full evidence list,  civil procedure list, and critical theories list.

Provost and Academic Dean Morris Ratner noted that cite counts are one measure of scholarly impact.

“Our colleagues’ very high cite counts reflect that their work and ideas are being broadly and frequently digested, discussed, and debated,” he said. “So, in celebrating their status as most-cited scholars, we’re really recognizing the significance of their ideas and contributions to our understanding of the law.”

Faigman has written more than 50 articles and essays for law reviews, scientific journals, and other publications. He is co-author/co-editor of the five-volume treatise Modern Scientific Evidence: The Law and Science of Expert Testimony. He’s written three books exploring subjects including the Constitution and the interplay between science and the law. He has also helped shape evidence law by serving on national panels such as the McArthur Law and Neuroscience Network and the National Academies of Science panel that investigated the validity of polygraphs.

Marcus, who joined the UC Law SF faculty in 1988, writes mainly about litigation. He is a lead author of the West casebooks Complex Litigation (6^th ed. 2015) and Civil Procedure: A Modern Approach (7^th ed. 2018). He is also the author of several volumes of the Federal Practice & Procedure Treatise (known as Wright & Miller). Since 1996, he has served as Associate Reporter to the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules of the Judicial Conference of the U.S. and has had a principal role in drafting amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure over the past 20 years, including amendments to the class-action rule and the rules of discovery.

Dodson, director of UC Law SF’ new Center for Litigation and the Courts, has published seven books, including The Legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Cambridge 2015) and New Pleading in the Twenty-First Century (Oxford 2013). He has written more than 100 shorter works in law journals and leading peer-reviewed journals. His scholarly writings have been cited in more than 35 court opinions and downloaded more than 55,000 times. He is currently researching and writing a paper on the U.S. Supreme Court’s rulemaking process.

Williams, UC Law SF Foundation Chair and Director of the Center for WorkLife Law, has authored 11 books and more than 90 academic articles. Her work has been covered in publications from Oprah Magazine to The Atlantic, with the New York Times Magazine describing her as having “something approaching rock star status” in her field.

“We congratulate our most-cited scholars and their colleagues across the legal academy,” said Associate Dean Jodi L. Short.