Professors Horton, Miazad Among 'Top 100 Legal Scholars of 2025'

Professor Amelia Miazad ranks No. 74 and Professor David Horton ranks No. 81 among the nation’s most-cited legal scholars, according to a new paper by George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School librarian Rob Willey and Associate Dean Melanie Knapp.

The “Top 100 Legal Scholars of 2025” rankings cover citations to law review articles published from 2019 through 2021. The scholars on the list made up just over 1% of the approximately 9,500 full-time law faculty members employed in 2019, according to the paper's authors.

“Traditional legal scholarship rankings rely almost exclusively on career-long publication metrics, a method that inherently favors decades-old articles and often obscures the authors producing the most impactful research today,” Willey and Knapp write. “This article presents an alternative: a ranking of the 100 most-cited legal scholars based solely on citations to articles published during a recent three-year window.”

Fair Business Practices and Investor Advocacy Professor of Law David Horton’s primary research and teaching interests are wills and trusts, contracts, and arbitration law. In 2015, his article "In Partial Defense of Probate: Evidence from Alameda County, California" was selected as the winner of the 29th annual Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Scholarly Paper Competition and he was honored with UC Davis School of Law’s Distinguished Teaching Award.

Pofessor Amelia Miazad is an expert on the intersection of corporate law, environmental risk, and social risk governance. Her teaching and scholarship focus on investor fiduciary duties in addressing systemic risk, shareholder rights, heterogeneous investor preferences, and collaborative shareholder engagement. Her scholarship has been published in leading law reviews, including the Vanderbilt Law Review (“Corporate Law and Social Risk”), Minnesota Law Review (“Faith Investors”), Washington University Law Review (“Investor Climate Alliances”), and Boston University Law Review (“D&O Insurers as Climate Risk Monitors”). Professor Miazad is a leading voice in corporate governance and regularly presents to national and international audiences. Her commentary has appeared in prominent media outlets, including The New York Times, National Public Radio, Bloomberg TV, The Financial Times, Politico, and the World Economic Forum. She serves as Co–Associate Director of UC Davis Law's Center for Business Law and Society.