It seems like every law blogger is offering his or her own (although it’s usually “his”) list of the “hierarchy of legal scholarship”. I think there’s quite a lot to be said for Eric Muller’s Hierarchy of Legal Scholarship, but it’s just too darn complicated.
So here’s mine:
0 – Lousy articles which get the facts wrong
1 – Lousy articles
2 – Good articles
3 – Articles which would have been really good except they go on too long
4 – Really good articles (bonus for a snappy title)
5 – Supremely good articles (very rare)
Not only is this much simpler, but I expect it will command wide agreement.
[Original draft 9/23/2006. In preparation for my blog redesign, I found draft blog posts that somehow never made it to publication. This is one of them.]
2010: A forerunner of Jotwell? The serious posts on this subject include J.B. Ruhl’s hierarchy of legal scholarship and Larry Solum’s critique and Jim Chen’s response.
