The Potential Pathologies of "Leiter-scores"

I have a modest thesis, provoked by the release of the most recent Leiter rankings:  I suspect deans will now want a "Leiter-analysis" of any potential lateral candidates.  I have anecdotal evidence that this is already going on and I would guess that as these rankings become even more central to a school's self-conception and its promotional materials, faculty hiring will be more focused on attempts to "game" these rankings by poaching on the basis of "Leiter-scores".  (In theory, even the entry-level market could be affected, though much less so.)

A few caveats.  First, this may not be such a bad thing -- or it may ultimately tend to favor candidates who would otherwise be favored anyway.  If we like and embrace these rankings because we think they tend to measure scholarly influence, the lateral market is already designed -- at least in theory -- to give weight to this criterion.  Thus, assuming the metric is one we accept, Leiter and Leiter-scores (in short, your citation count) merely give us a proxy to quantify potential lateral candidates.  That may be a useful shorthand and may not adulterate the process through quantification, so long as the numbers are used sensibly.  Second, there are probably only a relatively small group of schools that are especially "Leiter-sensitive."  At the very top and the schools far outside the "top 50," few schools care where they find themselves, I'd guess.  Yale isn't losing much sleep over whether Chicago beats it out for the top slot.  But there is still a sizable group of law schools who probably do care, whether because the school "underperforms" in US News rankings or "underperforms" in Leiter's rankings, creating incentives to focus intensely on "Leiter-performance".  And given that some critical mass likely do care, one can reasonably ask whether there will be any effect on lateral hiring and if it is a welcome effect.

My instinct is that although the effects of "Leiter-fixation" will likely be small all-things-considered, they will be unwelcome.  First, it could lead schools to hire more people in "high citation" fields, disserving  those who focus in low-citation areas.  If I have one open hire and I am very Leiter-sensitive, I will hire another IP person over any evidence scholar:  the 10th most cited IP scholar beats out the highest cited evidence scholar.  Obviously a stylized example -- and rarely are lateral searches quite so open-ended -- but it makes the point fine.

A second effect is the potential to distort perception of a scholar's work and promise.  Although at the very top of the Leiter rankings ( Sunstein, Posner, etc.), no one would reasonably contest the importance of the winners of Leiter-competition, there is much less that can be said about using Leiter-scores in the middle of the field.  Yet, those on the hiring end with acute Leiter-sensitivity will tend to prefer a candidate with 250 citations over a candidate with a mere 50 citations, even though there is no evidence that that is a meaningful distinction, especially when the candidates work in high-citation fields like Con Law.

No doubt, Leiter is not responsible for the misuse of his metrics and he is fully honest about what they do and do not measure.  All the same, given their popularity, it does seem worth thinking about how to respond to deans and appointments committees who show themselves to be too Leiter-sensitive for comfort.

Any thoughts?