Notre Dame Law School Faculty Research Among Top Cited

Notre Dame Law Professors Nicole Garnett and Mark McKenna were recently recognized as top-cited scholars in their respective research areas of property and intellectual property law.

“This news confirms what we have long known here at Notre Dame Law School,” said Dean Nell Jessup Newton. “Our law faculty produces top-rate scholarship that impacts not only other academics, but also the real world.”

In a list prepared by Steven Clowney, associate professor of law at the University of Arkansas’ School of Law, Garnett ranked in the top 10 most-cited property scholars under age 50.

“While I am, of course, gratified that my scholarship is widely read, I am even more gratified to be at a law school with such an outstanding faculty,” Garnett said. “My colleagues challenge me to excel in my scholarship and teaching.”

Garnett’s teaching and research focus on property, land use, urban development, local government law, and education policy. She is the author of numerous of articles on these subjects. Her first book, “Ordering the City: Land Use, Policing and the Restoration of Urban America” (Yale University Press 2009) examined how land use and policing policies intersect to affect the health of urban communities. Most recently, her book with Notre Dame Law School colleague Professor Peg Brining, “Lost Classroom, Lost Community: Catholic Schools’ Importance in Urban America” (University of Chicago Press 2014), represents the culmination of a major empirical research project examining the effects of Catholic school closures on urban neighborhoods.

Several of McKenna’s articles appeared on a recent list compiled by Ted Sichelman, professor of law at the University of San Diego’s School of Law, of the most-cited intellectual property articles published in the last 10 years. His article The Normative Foundations of Trademark Law, published in the Notre Dame Law Review, was the seventh most heavily-cited intellectual property article published between 2005 and 2009; his article Irrelevant Confusion, co-authored with Mark Lemley, professor of law at Stanford Law School, ranked fifth overall for articles published between 2010 and 2014. McKenna also authored or co-authored the most heavily cited trademark article in the 2005-2009 timeframe and the first, third, sixth, seventh, and tenth most heavily-cited trademark articles between 2010 and 2014.

McKenna’s teaching and research focus on intellectual property, with a particular emphasis on trademark law and issues relating to the overlap of intellectual property rights. He has written extensively on a wide range of intellectual property topics. His most recently-published article, with Mark Lemley, focuses on the ways courts define the scope of rights in utility patent, design patent, copyright, and trademark.

“All of us hope that our work has an impact on courts and other scholars working in our fields, and while these measures are imperfect, I’m pleased that others are reading and engaging with my ideas,” McKenna said. “I hope that helps push the law, and our Law School, forward.”