Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Green Bag 2D
Publication Date
2007
ISSN
1931-9711
Page Number
19
Keywords
legal scholarship, legal education, network theory, collaboration
Disciplines
Law | Law and Society | Legal Writing and Research
Abstract
Degrees of separation is a concept that is intuitive and appealing in popular culture as well as academic discourse: It tells us something about the connectedness of a particular field. It also reveals paths of influence and access. Paul Erdős was the Kevin Bacon of his field - math - coauthoring with a large number of scholars from many institutions and across subfields. Moreover, his work was highly cited and important. Mathematicians talk about their Erdős number (i.e., numbers of degrees of separation) as a sign of their connection to the hub of mathematics: An Erdős number of 2 means a scholar did not co-author with Erdős but did collaborate with someone who did (i.e., an Erdős 1). In this study, we examine collaboration networks in law, searching for the Legal Erdős. We crown Sunstein as the Legal Erdős and name a complete (as possible) list of Sunstein 1s and 2s.
Recommended Citation
Paul H. Edelman and Tracey E. George,
Six Degrees of Cass Sunstein, 11 Green Bag 2D. 19
(2007)
Available at: https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/faculty-publications/649