Chen on Ruhl on the Hierarchy of Legal Scholarship

Responding to J.B. Ruhl's The Hierarchy of Legal Scholarship, Jim Chen (really, it is Jim) has another great post on the hierarchy of legal scholarship.  Here are his six categories:

1. Self-referential scholarship

2. Scholarship solely of interest to other law professors

3. Scholarship solely of interest to law review editors

4. Scholarship addressing lawyers, judges, and legislators

5. Scholarship addressing fellow scientists

6. Scholarship that solves a significant social problem

Check it out.  For my take, see Ruhl on the Hierarchy of Legal Scholarship.  I'm not so sure about Chen's categories either--audience is not necessarily significance.  The history of serious thought is repleat with examples of work that was initially directed at a tiny audience and perhaps never reached beyond a tiny set of specialists, but nonetheless was truly important.  And I should think that the advancement of knowledge--rather that the resolution of social problems--was the ultimate criterion.

Read Chen's post!