‘Selling the Dream’: Law School Branding and the Illusion of Choice

Abstract

This article offers a site-specific study of neoliberalism in practice in the discipline of law. It documents the way research assessment policies were imposed on the discipline of law leading to the creation of law journal ranking lists. It is a story about how law gradually lost autonomy over design of the methodologies for research assessment, while seeming to continually and steadfastly oppose that movement. The article concludes with some observations about strategic thinking about sector research policies and the need for law to focus efforts on forestalling further erosion of traditional, scholarly values and power distributions within the legal academy.