Is this good?
Excerpts from an article re: an interview re: legal academia from a Hardvard Law professor:
Even practical legal experience is not a good predictor of scholarly ability, and, Levinson noted, "is pretty nearly disqualifying." Levinson pointed out that today's younger professors have no significant practical experience, and that if they tried to become involved in the world, "the world would probably recoil in horror."
. . .
Q: What do you most dislike about being a professor?
A: It's a bad job for people who don't like a lack of structure. It's also bad for people who like to make a difference in the real world. Increasingly, this is an ivory tower profession.
------
Is this good is a very general spur for comments and discussion, but that's what I'm wondering. I recoiled, somewhat aghast when I read these comments. Perhaps I'm naive, but what use is legal scholarship if it is not practically applicable to the real world? What good is a class in Civil Procedure if your professor has no real world experience?
[shoutout: a good reason to take Civil Procedure with Prof. Bundy, now also tearing it up in private practice. also: what a perfect tough litigator picture. he's hired.]
Have at it folks!
Even practical legal experience is not a good predictor of scholarly ability, and, Levinson noted, "is pretty nearly disqualifying." Levinson pointed out that today's younger professors have no significant practical experience, and that if they tried to become involved in the world, "the world would probably recoil in horror."
. . .
Q: What do you most dislike about being a professor?
A: It's a bad job for people who don't like a lack of structure. It's also bad for people who like to make a difference in the real world. Increasingly, this is an ivory tower profession.
------
Is this good is a very general spur for comments and discussion, but that's what I'm wondering. I recoiled, somewhat aghast when I read these comments. Perhaps I'm naive, but what use is legal scholarship if it is not practically applicable to the real world? What good is a class in Civil Procedure if your professor has no real world experience?
[shoutout: a good reason to take Civil Procedure with Prof. Bundy, now also tearing it up in private practice. also: what a perfect tough litigator picture. he's hired.]
Have at it folks!
Labels: Classes/Professors, Law School, Legal Culture
posted by Tom Fletcher at 8:12 PM
2 Comments:
...a bad job... for people who don't like... a lack of structure... i'm still working on that one. when i figure it out i may have more substantive commentary.
It's a nice thought to think that the measure of a professor is their ability as an educator -- and to be sure, that's a measure of their value to us -- but let's not kid ourselves that it's the measure of their success. The measures of their success are the hotness of their research agenda and their ability to publish and place. There are plenty of fine scholars here who do some fantastic research but whose classes would probably be better taught by a 3L working off of gilbert's, and a good number of profs on the boalt faculty page who basically just don't teach (admittedly, next semester seems like an anomaly on that front).
Let's be realistic - this is true across academia - but it seems more pronounced in law. Maybe it's because the professional school model doesn't allow for the faculty:student ratios or student scholarship development (via dissertations) you see in other disciplines. Maybe it's because most profs have a JD + maybe a few years of practice, instead of a PhD and experience as a TA/GSI. Maybe it's because many law students act like sheep, waiting to be handed The Law, instead of being willing to engage in some self-motivated inquiry and critical thought.
Or maybe it's just that many practitioners realize that the Langdell model of legal instruction doesn't really seem to teach you how to be a lawyer, but at the same time nobody can agree on any better ideas. I think some practitioners are pushing back. While some of it is the usual, every-generational lament that the new generation knows nothing and is grossly incompetent, there seems to be a pretty strong plurality of lawyers arguing that legal education is basically broken. See, eg., calls for more clinical education and skills classes, the abolition of the 3L year, and better writing instruction.
I don't think this is one grumpy prof - it actually sounds understated compared to the feeling in the practitioner community that law profs (or at least those on a tenure track) are so ivory-tower as to be irrelevant. (Another example: declining judicial citations to law reviews).
Post a Comment
<< Home