GW Law Professor Surpasses 500K Downloads on SSRN

January 29, 2025
Daniel Solove

GW Law professor Daniel Solove recently surpassed 500,000 downloads on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN). Solove is only the second law professor to reach this milestone – the other is Cass Sunstein of Harvard Law School. Solove is currently ranked No. 1 in the SSRN’s top law authors page for most downloads in the past year.

SSRN is a repository for academic papers in law, economics humanities, life sciences, health sciences, and other social sciences. SSRN hosts papers from more than 2 million researchers in more than 65 disciplines. Among all these researchers, Solove ranks in the top 10 for total downloads.

Solove’s accomplishment is evidence of GW Law’s global impact. GW Law is ranked No. 5 in the SSRN rankings of 750 law schools worldwide for downloads in the past 12 months with over 133,000 downloads in that time period. The other schools in the top five are Harvard, Stanford, NYU, and Yale. In the SSRN's all time rankings, GW Law is ranked No. 7 with 1.3 million downloads.

Solove, who is the Eugene L. and Barbara A. Bernard Professor of Intellectual Property and Technology Law and Faculty Co-Director of the GW Center for Law & Technology, is one of the world’s leading experts on privacy law. His research focuses on the legal and policy issues of privacy, technology, and artificial intelligence.

“It’s just really exciting and gratifying to hit this mark because it means people are interested in my work,” Solove said. “It’s always nice to know that there’s an audience out there for the work that I do.”

GW Law recently launched its new Center for Law & Technology. Focusing on the areas of technology, privacy, and intellectual property, the Center serves as a hub for thought leadership, interdisciplinary scholarship, and international discourse. The Center aims to expand curricular and career opportunities for students and hold events that forge connections between academics, policymakers, and practitioners. The Center offers one of the most extensive curricula in IP, privacy, AI, and technology law in the world.

“It’s very exciting that the law school has really leaned into this,” Solove said. “It’s great to be a part of this wonderful endeavor that will benefit students, academics, policymakers, and practitioners.”