Harvard Law School’s faculty earned the top ranking for the number of academic papers authored and downloaded on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN), according to cumulative statistics (SSRN user login required) released for 2010. HLS faculty members captured 10 of the top 100 slots–including the number one slot–among the top 100 law school professors (in all legal areas) in terms of readers’ use of their work.
Professor Lucian Bebchuk, director of the Program on Corporate Governance, was ranked first among all law school professors, as he was at the end of each of the preceding three calendar years. Bebchuk was also ranked sixth among authors from all fields on SSRN. Bebchuk’s papers have attracted a total of more than 149,000 downloads, with 44 of his papers having been downloaded more than 1,000 times each.
In addition to Bebchuk, the top 100 law professors on SSRN at the end of 2010 included the following faculty members associated with the Harvard Program on Corporate Governance:
Cass Sunstein, ranked 4 among law school professors and 14 among all authors;
Reinier Kraakman, ranked 14 among law school professors and 72 among all authors;
Steven Shavell, ranked 22 among law school professors and 121 among all authors;
Adrian Vermeule, ranked 23 among law school professors and 124 among all authors;
Allen Ferrell, 24 among law school professors and 29 among all authors;
Jesse Fried, 26 among law school professors and 135 among all authors;
Alma Cohen, 29 among law school professors and 143 among all authors;
Mark Roe, 39 among law school professors and 174 among all authors; and
Louis Kaplow, 80 among law school professors and 454 among all authors.
SSRN is the leading electronic service for social science research. As of the end of 2010, its electronic library contained over 254,600 full-text documents by more than 150,000 authors.