Previously, I’ve written about the professors and the students. Now it’s time for the law schools.
As we all know, lawprofs have blawgs and love to write about what they do. This has proven quite informative for me, as my understanding of what lawprofs believe their job to be differs from theirs. In a new post at Volokh Conspiracy, this issue was made plain in a post by Jim Chen, Dean of the University of Louisville Law School about whether a Supreme Court clerkship is overvalued as a credential for a law school professor.
Before one can divine an answer, one must first decide what the job of a law school professor is. This proved harder than you would think. The commentary showed two very different points of view. According to the professors (and some lawyers), the primary function of a law school professor is to be a scholar. She should think scholarly thoughts and write scholarly works.
According to law students (and some lawyers), the primary function of a law school professor should be to train students to become lawyers. For many commenters, this was a ludicrous proposition. To them, teaching law students was as de classe as it gets. Law school was a worthless joke, and the very notion of teaching was laughable. Law was something that students (and lawyers) either “get” or don’t, and teaching it was irrelevant. Worse yet, those who don’t “get it” were unworthy of further thought. Poof, they disappeared.
There was also a large measure of tier-ism involved in this discussion. Top tier law schools (you know, where the smart kids go) didn’t need teaching. These were the creme de la creme, and they naturally “get it”. The bottom 80% of law schools produced pedestrian lawyers, who were taught by pedestrian wannabe professors. These students needed to be taught (since they obviously were too stupid to get it on their own), but simultaneously would never excel regardless of instruction because they were just too dumb. Here, teaching students was fine because neither the students nor their professors would ever be significant enough to enter the ranks of the elite.
The line was clearly drawn. Harvard Law School is a place where former Supreme Court Clerks belonged so that they could hide in their paneled office and think about important things. Thomas M. Cooley Law School, well, not so much. While the former commanded important scholars, the latter needed teaching school certificate holders.
While not reaching the heights of scholarly discourse, my gut reaction to this is “bull”. The purpose of law school is to train lawyers, not to give former Supreme Court law clerks (or anyone else) a place to send their days so they don’t have to work for a living. We train lawyers (although we probably too many of them) to fulfill a function in society, to represent entities in their dealings or litigation to prevent society from tyranny or anarchy. Law students are not ATM from whence law schools withdraw funds to pay for their professors scholarly endeavors.
Not to slight scholarship, but the notion that law professors’ primary function is legal scholarship is repugnant. True scholarship will happen regardless of whether law schools promote it. Ideas cannot be thwarted. Forced scholarship, on the other hand, brings us such genius as law review articles on Due Process at the Ministry of Magic. And you wonder why courts no longer look to law reviews for inspiration?
This pressure on law professors to produce scholarly works has two bad outcomes. First, it means that law professors no longer care about teaching, for there is no reward to being a good teacher. This failure is clearly reflected in law students’ complaints about law school. Second, it has reduced law professors to fashion designers, moving hemlines up and down every year, just so they have something to say.
I venture to guess that no law professor will invent cold fusion or a cure for the common cold. Few will contribute anything of lasting substance to society in this year’s law review. But you could make a monumental contribution by preparing young men and women to go out into the world with the skills, knowledge, ethics and willingness to zealously represent people. Each of these students will touch the lives of many people, and if well trained, make their lives a little bit better. Law School can and should be a part of this. It is not beneath you, Harvard. It wasn’t beneath John Adams to defend the Brits who shot Crispus Attucks. And you are no John Adams.
As we all know, lawprofs have blawgs and love to write about what they do. This has proven quite informative for me, as my understanding of what lawprofs believe their job to be differs from theirs. In a new post at Volokh Conspiracy, this issue was made plain in a post by Jim Chen, Dean of the University of Louisville Law School about whether a Supreme Court clerkship is overvalued as a credential for a law school professor.
Before one can divine an answer, one must first decide what the job of a law school professor is. This proved harder than you would think. The commentary showed two very different points of view. According to the professors (and some lawyers), the primary function of a law school professor is to be a scholar. She should think scholarly thoughts and write scholarly works.
According to law students (and some lawyers), the primary function of a law school professor should be to train students to become lawyers. For many commenters, this was a ludicrous proposition. To them, teaching law students was as de classe as it gets. Law school was a worthless joke, and the very notion of teaching was laughable. Law was something that students (and lawyers) either “get” or don’t, and teaching it was irrelevant. Worse yet, those who don’t “get it” were unworthy of further thought. Poof, they disappeared.
There was also a large measure of tier-ism involved in this discussion. Top tier law schools (you know, where the smart kids go) didn’t need teaching. These were the creme de la creme, and they naturally “get it”. The bottom 80% of law schools produced pedestrian lawyers, who were taught by pedestrian wannabe professors. These students needed to be taught (since they obviously were too stupid to get it on their own), but simultaneously would never excel regardless of instruction because they were just too dumb. Here, teaching students was fine because neither the students nor their professors would ever be significant enough to enter the ranks of the elite.
The line was clearly drawn. Harvard Law School is a place where former Supreme Court Clerks belonged so that they could hide in their paneled office and think about important things. Thomas M. Cooley Law School, well, not so much. While the former commanded important scholars, the latter needed teaching school certificate holders.
While not reaching the heights of scholarly discourse, my gut reaction to this is “bull”. The purpose of law school is to train lawyers, not to give former Supreme Court law clerks (or anyone else) a place to send their days so they don’t have to work for a living. We train lawyers (although we probably too many of them) to fulfill a function in society, to represent entities in their dealings or litigation to prevent society from tyranny or anarchy. Law students are not ATM from whence law schools withdraw funds to pay for their professors scholarly endeavors.
Not to slight scholarship, but the notion that law professors’ primary function is legal scholarship is repugnant. True scholarship will happen regardless of whether law schools promote it. Ideas cannot be thwarted. Forced scholarship, on the other hand, brings us such genius as law review articles on Due Process at the Ministry of Magic. And you wonder why courts no longer look to law reviews for inspiration?
This pressure on law professors to produce scholarly works has two bad outcomes. First, it means that law professors no longer care about teaching, for there is no reward to being a good teacher. This failure is clearly reflected in law students’ complaints about law school. Second, it has reduced law professors to fashion designers, moving hemlines up and down every year, just so they have something to say.
I venture to guess that no law professor will invent cold fusion or a cure for the common cold. Few will contribute anything of lasting substance to society in this year’s law review. But you could make a monumental contribution by preparing young men and women to go out into the world with the skills, knowledge, ethics and willingness to zealously represent people. Each of these students will touch the lives of many people, and if well trained, make their lives a little bit better. Law School can and should be a part of this. It is not beneath you, Harvard. It wasn’t beneath John Adams to defend the Brits who shot Crispus Attucks. And you are no John Adams.
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I’ve worked a lot with pre-law students for several years. I’ve told them to talk to admissions offices about a couple things in particular. There are two kinds of schools these days (even in top tier). The first kind is that “Paper Chase”/Harvard stereotype. The look-to-your-left-look-to-your-right-one-of-these-people-won’t-graduate kind of schools. Then there are the schools that really work to teach, to train, and to find jobs. (These exist in the top tier, I promise. I went to one.) Once you get out of that top 10, you get some pretty great schools that actually want to do something for their students.
Sadly, the schools that are so brutal to their students remain the most prestigious. I decided against a very well-ranked law school because I had two friends who’d just graduated who hated it.
Students need to be appropriately informed these days. But as long as you have students who just want that diploma on the wall, you’ll have those terrible schools.
Excellent post — could you categorize and archive your various law school/law prof/law student posts so they would be easier to find? I find them extremely illuminating. Thanks!
I have been neglectful about categorizing posts. I’ve been warned about this failure, and yet have done little about it. I promise to try to get my act together and go back to deal with it. Until then, you can always use the search function on the side bar and look for “law school,” which should bring up whatever I’ve written.
Thanks for your kind words. I hope that the posts have been helpful.
You also need to fix that lack of titles on pages and get a better blogging software while you’re at it.
Sheesh :p
You sound like a broken record. If I spent all day making it pretty, I’d never had time to write anything.