Like most working lawyers, I know little about what really goes on inside the oak-paneled walls of this nations many, many law schools.  Even though I’m close with many lawprofs, they’ve never shared the secret handshake.  And they get awfully defensive when trench lawyers suggest that they are churning out too many inchoate lawyers, putting competency aside.

Now I know why.  From Paul Carron, keeper of the lawprof truth:

 

Holy Moly.  Senior lawprofs, like David Papke, are making $330k and don’t have to deal with a single client?  They get paid this to write scholarly articles about due process at the Ministry of Magic?  All the time, churning out youngsters incapable of representing anyone?  Have I ever missed the boat.

Some wags have suggested that I’m a frustrated law professor, though this reveals their lack of understanding of lawprofs.  To the contrary, I have no tweed jackets with patched elbows, and prefer a beer to sherry.  Still, I am fully prepared to adapt, if need be. 

The end of this week will mark my return to Cardozo Law School as a faculty member of the ITAP program with Barry Scheck and Ellen Yaroshefsky, and a host of new law students seeking experience in trying cases.  I’m good with the students.  I don’t coddle them and provide them with a warm, nurturing environment.  But they seem to really get into having real lawyers teach them real skills.  Really they do.

The opportunity to write scholarly articles that other lawprofs will download from SSRN thrills me.  And none of that Ministry of Magic stuff for me.  I would learn to use words like “normative” and “pedagogical” in my everyday speech, and promise it will flow off my tongue as if these were words that everyone says regularly.  I can do it.  I swear I can.

The idea of never having to listen to another client whine about how unfair it is that his having sold 37 kilos of heroin to an undercover “isn’t like I murdered anyone” appeals to me.  Ditto with the momma who tells me about this other person she knows (via her friend’s cousin’s neighbor’s mailperson’s daughter) who did the same thing and got probation.  As fascinating as that used to be, it gets old.

Instead, I can stroll down the quiet hallways of academia, tweed jacket across my shoulders, patches covering my bony elbows, prepared to impart deep thoughts on the fertile octogenarian rule to eager young people.  I will give my all for three hours a week, restraining any impulse to provide practical information.  No student shall ever leave my charge knowing how to effectively argue a motion.  I promise.

And I’m not done.  Not by a long shot.  I would make a great dean.  Really, I would.  A dean has to keep all those feral lawprofs in line, and I’m just the hammer to do it.  They don’t want to teach on Friday?  Hah!  Think you’re getting a condo at NYU?  Get to your class!  I will show no fear, no reluctance to push the prima lawprofs to their limits.  I will motivate, cajole, compel them to teach like they’ve never taught before.  No sherry for you until you have a 100% bar pass rate!

And most importantly, I will cease all commentary designed to challenge the absurd output of tuition-paying students into the legal marketplace.  I was misguided until now, not appreciating the need for the ever-increasing student population to provide the wherewithal for lawprof compensation.  I now understand, and fully support law porn and the use of public monies to build law schools in distressed urban areas. 

To all those lawprofs (except Papke) who I may have insulted from time to time, I apologize profusely.  I want to be one of you.  I want to be your dean.  I want to be paid $430,000 for doing what I do now for nothing.  Please teach me the secret handshake.