UPDATED July 8, 2004, with new information; thanks to all for feedback. Various revisions below. I’m sure reasonable and similarly informed readers would likely differ by +1 or -1 on the final scores, below.

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The market for the “top” legal scholars is intense, and there is much coming and going. We looked at the top 18 law schools, in terms of faculty quality, to see how they fared between the 2000-01 academic year and the 2004-05 academic year to see who came out ahead and who lost ground. Quality is more important than quantity: did schools, e.g., lose their very best people; did schools add faculty who are at the very top of their roster in terms of quality, or did they merely add “filler”? The judgments are necessarily subjective, but well-informed. The detailed information appears below for those who want to assess the changes for themselves.

In summary form, the schools most improved among the top 18 over the last five years are:

Columbia University
University of California, Los Angeles
University of Texas, Austin
Vanderbilt University
Yale University

The schools who lost the most ground are:

Cornell University
Northwestern University
University of Chicago
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Schools that gained some ground during this five-year period are: Duke University; Harvard University; University of Pennsylvania.

Schools that lost some ground during this five-year period are: University of California, Berkeley.

Schools that “broke even” (as it were) in terms of gains and losses are: Georgetown University; New York University; Stanford University; University of Southern California; University of Virginia.

The details appear below:

Law Faculty Gains and Losses, 2000-01 to 2004-05,

+3: Dramatically improved
+2: Noticeably improved
+1: Slightly improved
0: no real change
-1: Slightly weaker
-2: Noticeably weaker
-3: Dramatically weaker

Approximate faculty size appears in parentheses next to school name.

Columbia University School of Law (circa 60)
Gone: R. Randle Edwards, Brad Karkkainen, Harold L. Korn, David W. Leebron, John F. Manning, Mark J. Roe, H. Richard Uviller.
New: Michael Doyle (joint), Ariela Dubler, Jeffrey A. Fagan (joint), Merritt B. Fox, Zohar Goshen (part-time), Michael A. Heller, Benjamin L. Liebman, Petros Mavroides (part-time), Thomas W. Merrill, Gillian Metzger, Edward R. Morrison, Katharina Pistor, Alex Raskolnikov, Catherine Sharkey, William H. Simon, John Fabian Witt.
Score: +2

Cornell Law School (circa 40)
Gone: Kathryn Abrams, Martha L.A. Fineman, Lily Kahng, Jonathan R. Macey, Larry Palmer, Katherine van Wezel Stone, Lee Teitelbaum.
New: Michael Heise, Robert Hockett, Mitchell Lasser, Jeffrey S. Lehman, Bernadette Meyler, Trevor Morrison, Annelise Riles, Emily Sherwin, W. Bradley Wendel.
Score: -2

Duke University School of Law (circa 40)
Gone: Herbert L. Bernstein, Michael Byers, Paul Carrington (retired, but still part-time), Amy Chua, Jerome Culp, Stanley Fish, Clark C. Havighurst (retired, but still part-time), William Reppy, Jr. (retired, but still part-time), Martin Stone, William W. van Alstyne.
New: Stuart Benjamin, Erwin Chemerinsky, Catherine Fisk, Ralf Micheals, Joost Pauwelyn, Jedidiah Purdy, Arti K. Rai, Barak Richman, James Salzman, Neil Siegel, Lawrence Zelenak.
Score: +1

Georgetown University Law Center (circa 80)
Gone: Richard A. Gordon, Douglas L. Parker, Warren F. Schwartz, Lynn A.Stout, Don R. Wallace, Jr.
New: William Wilson Bratton III, Michael R. Diamond, James Forman, Jr., G. Mitu Gulati, John Mikhail, Daniel K. Tarullo, John R. Thomas, Ethan Yale.
Score: 0

Harvard Law School (circa 70)
Gone: Samuel R. Bagenstos, David Charny, Christopher F. Edley, Jr., Diane M. Ring, Margo Schlanger, Anne-Marie Slaughter, Joseph H.H. Weiler.
New: Jack L. Goldsmith III, Ryan Goodman, Elena Kagan, John Manning, Mark J. Roe, Matt Stephenson, Guhan Subramanian.
Score: +1

New York University School of Law (circa 80)
Gone: Yochai Benkler, Robert Daines, Christopher Eisgruber, Thomas M. Franck, Lawrence King, Larry Kramer, Jerome Kurtz, Paul McDaniel, Dorothy Nelkin, Lawrence G. Sager, Michael Schill, John J. Slain, George H. Sorter.
New: Jennifer H. Arlen, Lily Batchelder, Kevin Davis, Noah Feldman, David Golove, Daryl Levinson, Deborah Malamud, Stephen R. Perry, Richard H. Pildes, Cristina Rodriguez, Stephen J. Schulhofer, Rebecca L. Tushnet, Joseph H.H. Weiler, Katrina Wyman.
Score: 0

Northwestern University School of Law (circa 40)
Gone: Richard Brooks, Thomas W. Merrill, Annelise Riles, Paul H. Robinson, Henry E. Smith, Richard E. Speidel.
New: Ronen Avraham, Tonja Jacobi, John O. McGinnis, Jide Nzelibe, Claire Priest, Max Schnazenbach, Robert H. Sitkoff, Emerson Tiller, Albert Yoon, Kimberly Yuracko.
Score: -2

Stanford Law School (circa 40)
Gone: Bernard S. Black, Paul Brest, Thomas J. Campbell, John J. Donohue III, Marc A. Franklin, William B. Gould IV, William H. Simon.
New: Mariano-Florentino Cuellar, Robert Daines, Amalia Kessler, Larry Kramer, Michelle L. Landis, Mark A. Lemley, Jennifer R. Martinez, Alison Morantz.
Score: 0

University of California, Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law (circa 50)
Gone: John P. Dwyer, Claire Finkelstein, Mark A. Lemley, John K. McNulty, Robert P. Merges (still part-time), Paul J. Mishkin, Robert C. Post, Joseph L. Sax.
New: Kathryn Abrams, Christopher F. Edley, Jr., Aaron S. Edlin (joint), Daniel A. Farber, Anne Joseph, Goodwin Liu, Jonathan Simon, Norman Spaulding.
Score: -1

University of California, Los Angeles School of Law (circa 50)
Gone: Michael R. Asimow, Mitu Gulati, Cruz Reynoso, Gary T. Schwartz, Phillip R. Trimble, John S. Wiley, Jr.
New: Steven Bank, Stuart Banner, Scott L. Cummings, Victor Fleischer, Mark F. Grady, Mark Greenberg (joint), Russell Korobkin, Neil W. Netanel, Michael Schill, Katherine van Wezel Stone, Samuel C. Thompson, Jr, Adam Winkler, Noah Zatz.
Score: +2

University of Chicago Law School (circa 40)
Gone: Elizabeth Garrett, Jack L. Goldsmith, Stephen Schulhofer, George G. Triantis.
New: Adam Cox, Carolyn Frantz, Bernard E. Harcourt, Catherine MacKinnon (part-time), Adam Samaha, Lior J. Strahilevitz.
Score: -2

University of Michigan Law School (circa 50)
Gone: Lee C. Bollinger, David L. Chambers, Merritt B. Fox, Peter J. Hammer, Michael A. Heller, Yale Kamisar, Jeffrey S. Lehman, Deborah C. Malamud, Ronald J. Mann, Richard H. Pildes.
New: Michael S. Barr, Laura N. Beny, Hanoch Dagan (part-time), Alicia Davis Evans, David M. Hasen, Jill R. Horwitz, Vik S. Khanna, Edward A. Parson (joint), John A.E. Pottow, Richard Primus, Steven R. Ratner, Rebecca J. Scott (joint), Molly S. van Houweling.
Score: -2

University of Pennsylvania Law School (circa 40)
Gone: Colin Diver, Robert A. Gorman, Peter Huang, Stephen R. Perry, Barbara Bennett Woodhouse.
New: Eric A. Feldman, Claire Finkelstein, Kristin Madison, Gideon Parchomovsky, Nathaniel Persily, Wendell E. Pritchett, Paul H. Robinson, Theodore Ruger, Chris Sanchirico, Amy L. Wax.
Score: +1

University of Southern California Law School (circa 40)
Gone: Jennifer H. Arlen, Erwin Chemerinsky.
New: Linda R. Cohen, Elizabeth Garrett, Howard Gillman (joint), Gillian K. Hadfield, Timur Kuran (joint), Andrei Marmor (part-time), Kevin J. Murphy (joint), Hilary M. Schor.
Score: 0

University of Texas School of Law (circa 60)
Gone: Hans Baade (still part-time), Joseph M. Dodge, Thomas Evans, James S. Fishkin, Robert W. Hamilton, J. Patrick Hazel, Neil W. Netanel, Jack Ratliff, Steven Ratner, Thomas Russell, Russell Weintraub (still part-time).
New: Bernard S. Black, Oren Bracha, John Deigh (joint), Jane M. Cohen, Karen Engle, Leslie J. Green (part-time), Kate Litvak, Ronald J. Mann, Robert Peroni, H.W. Perry (joint), Mary Rose (joint), Lawrence G. Sager, Jane Stapleton (part-time), Mark G. Yudof.
Score: +2

University of Virginia School of Law (circa 60)
Gone: Cora Diamond (still part-time), Alex M. Johnson, Jr., Daryl J. Levinson, Chris W. Sanchirico, Albert Turnbull, Walter Wadlington, Amy L. Wax, Larry B. Wenger.
New: Rosa Ehrenreich, Brooks, Risa L. Goluboff, Mitchell A. Kane, Anup Malani, Thomas B. Nachbar, Richard C. Schragger, A. John Simmons (joint), George G. Triantis, Ann Woolhandler, Timothy Wu.
Score: 0

Vanderbilt University Law School (circa 40)
Gone: Jonathan Charney, Margaret Howard.
New: Margaret M. Blair, Mark E. Brandon, Allison Marston Danner, E. Gordon Gee, Tracey George, Chris Guthrie, Laurence Helfer, Owen D. Jones, Beverly I. Moran, Richard Nagareda, Erin A. O’Hara, Jennifer R. Renganum, Michael P. Vandenbergh.
Score: +2

Yale Law School (circa 50)
Gone: Abraham S. Goldstein, Ruth Wedgwood, Stanton Wheeler.
New: Yochai Benkler, Richard Brooks, Amy L. Chua, John J. Donohue III, Oona Hathaway, Jonathan R. Macey, Daniel Markovits, Robert C. Post, Henry E. Smith.
Score: +2