Criminal Law Professor Jocelyn Simonson Named No. 4 on Top 100 Legal Scholars Ranking

Ascending Scholar

Professor Jocelyn Simonson, who was named the Herman Badillo ’54 Professor of Law this academic year, was ranked #4 on “The Top 100 Legal Scholars of 2025,” released as part of a recurring study that looks at the number of citations recent scholarly work has received.  

The ranking marks a rapid ascension for Simonson, who teaches and writes about criminal law and was ranked 63rd on the same list last year. (The 2024 ranking also named her colleague Professor Alice Ristroph, the Les Fagen Professor of Law, as #84).  

This recognition comes amid continued strength in Brooklyn Law School’s overall scholarly profile. In a 2024 nationwide Scholarly Impact Ranking of U.S. law schools, the Law School ranked No. 29, reflecting the influence and citation impact of faculty scholarship over time. The triennial study, conducted by Professor Greg Sisk and colleagues at the University of St. Thomas School of Law, measures how frequently faculty work is cited in law review articles and is widely regarded as a leading indicator of scholarly influence across the legal academy. 

This year’s list also gained media attention in Reuters, which noted that it “flips the script on who is making the biggest impact, with women occupying seven of the top 10 spots on the list—more than double the number from the ​previous year.” This trend reflects the growing number and prominence of women law professors, who now make up 49 percent of full-time U.S. law school faculty, up from 40 percent in 2011, according to the American Bar Association. 

The study was designed by Rob Willey and Melanie Knapp, researchers at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, to spotlight the scholarly impact of recently published work. 

Citations are used as a measure of scholarly influence and attention generated by academic work. The ranking tracks how often a scholar’s work is cited over a three-year period, in this case from 2019 to 2021. As part of the study, the law schools are also ranked by the number of faculty authors who made the list. Brooklyn Law School is ranked #8. Although it does not factor into that institutional ranking, Visiting Professor Hannah Bloch-Wehba, who teaches criminal law and joined the Law School this academic year from Texas A&M School of Law, also appears on the list at No. 46.  

Spotlight on Simonson’s Work 

Simonson, who joined the faculty in 2015, writes and teaches about criminal law, criminal procedure, evidence, and social change. She is also co-director of the Center for Criminal Justice at Brooklyn Law School. She served as associate dean for research and scholarship from 2022 to 2025, during which time she published Radical Acts of Justice: How Ordinary People are Dismantling Mass Incarceration (New Press, Aug. 2023). 

Here is what Simonson said about her scholarship after it was announced that she was appointed as the Herman Badillo ’54 Professor of Law: 

“I have spent the last decade writing about how groups are pushing back against criminalization, including in my book, Radical Acts of Justice, and I am still researching social movements in ways that I find exciting and invigorating. Currently, it is a scary time for marginalized communities, who are being repressed in stronger ways than they have in my lifetime, so I am starting to write about state repression and collective rights in the face of that repression. I am also examining the role of substantive criminal law and collective criminality that paint groups of people as criminal enterprises or criminal groups through statutes such as RICO and doctrines like conspiracy and use these as tools of repression. My work is also focused on looking back, historically, to think about social movements and collectives of people taking care of each other have been criminalized by the state.” 

The scholarship that Simonson has produced continues to receive national recognitiongain accolades from her peers nationwide and her colleagues, and underscores Brooklyn Law School’s deep commitment to excellence in academic scholarship.  

"Professor Simonson's achievement of being in the top 5five cited legal scholars in recent years is remarkable and something of which all of us at BLS are so proud,” said Professor Cynthia Godsoe, the Associate Dean for Faculty Research and Scholarship. “Simonson's scholarship is creative and thought-provoking, and has great impact both in the academy and in the ‘real world’ of the criminal legal system and movements for change. In addition to her groundbreaking work, Simonson contributes so much to the BLS community as a generous and engaged colleague, teacher, and mentor."  

Taken together, Simonson’s recognition and the Law School’s continued strength in national scholarly impact rankings underscore the growing influence and visibility of Brooklyn Law School faculty scholarship across the legal academy.