What is so attractive about teaching law? Forum

[Snooker]

prob the best job. six figures for 5 hours of work a week. You make the students do most of the teaching.

One small example - at our school, it is completely impermissible on most memo assignments to get outside feedback about how to improve your work.

This probably has absolutely nothing to do with lightening professor workloads. Do you see why?

A fixation on summative evaluations is a good pretext for this sort of thing, but I don't think it explains the whole thing. You certainly don't need to rely on essay assignments for summative evaluations. There are open assignments that can get outside feedback, and we've had profs just straight up say they won't look at anything. We have one prof that won't even look at student outlines, and wrote that on her syllabus. Some professors are even pretty candid about it. They have better stuff to do.

Law profs expect to spend 20-30 minutes preparing for class, and an hour teaching it, four times a week.

I never encountered that attitude in college.

[eth3n]

Other then the clear issue with correcting inchoate LRW papers, couldnt you force them to do anything academic (reading outlines like you mentioned) during their office hours? Just filibuster their ass if they refuse to read your outline (read it out loud and make everything on your outline a question), they will give in.

[Snooker]

Other then the clear issue with correcting inchoate LRW papers, couldnt you force them to do anything academic (reading outlines like you mentioned) during their office hours? Just filibuster their ass if they refuse to read your outline (read it out loud and make everything on your outline a question), they will give in.

Yeah but what if the professor decides she doesn't have time to show up for office hours? Office hours are some serious, pro-bono, volunteer type work that law profs grudgingly accept.

[macattaq]

In answer to the OP's question, I would say 'getting to indulge your sadistic tendencies in a socially acceptable manner'.

[Aeroplane]

A fixation on summative evaluations is a good pretext for this sort of thing, but I don't think it explains the whole thing. You certainly don't need to rely on essay assignments for summative evaluations. There are open assignments that can get outside feedback, and we've had profs just straight up say they won't look at anything. We have one prof that won't even look at student outlines, and wrote that on her syllabus. Some professors are even pretty candid about it. They have better stuff to do.

Law profs expect to spend 20-30 minutes preparing for class, and an hour teaching it, four times a week.

I never encountered that attitude in college.

Are you saying profs should be willing to review student outlines?

[eth3n]

Other then the clear issue with correcting inchoate LRW papers, couldnt you force them to do anything academic (reading outlines like you mentioned) during their office hours? Just filibuster their ass if they refuse to read your outline (read it out loud and make everything on your outline a question), they will give in.

Yeah but what if the professor decides she doesn't have time to show up for office hours? Office hours are some serious, pro-bono, volunteer type work that law profs grudgingly accept.

Unless your joking, I can't really relate to your post, I can't imagine a professor refusing office hours for an entire semester, I didn't think office hours were voluntary.

[RVP11]

A fixation on summative evaluations is a good pretext for this sort of thing, but I don't think it explains the whole thing. You certainly don't need to rely on essay assignments for summative evaluations. There are open assignments that can get outside feedback, and we've had profs just straight up say they won't look at anything. We have one prof that won't even look at student outlines, and wrote that on her syllabus. Some professors are even pretty candid about it. They have better stuff to do.

Law profs expect to spend 20-30 minutes preparing for class, and an hour teaching it, four times a week.

I never encountered that attitude in college.

Are you saying profs should be willing to review student outlines?

Yeah, WTF. I would laugh if someone asked me to review their outline.

You can always rely on Snooker to say something ridiculous.

[mikeytwoshoes]

They have personal secretaries and huge offices. When they research issues, the have research assistants. Other than grading, they have no responsibilities. It's the perfect racket and it's legal.

[macattaq]

They have personal secretaries and huge offices. When they research issues, the have research assistants. Other than grading, they have no responsibilities. It's the perfect racket and it's legal.

They do?

[Aeroplane]

They have personal secretaries and huge offices. When they research issues, the have research assistants. Other than grading, they have no responsibilities. It's the perfect racket and it's legal.

They do?

Not at Michigan.

[VincentChase]

The animosity toward professors is just bizarre to me.

[270910]

The animosity toward professors is just bizarre to me.

You probably do well in law school

It seems pretty obvious to me that given how little feedback professors give, anybody who does poorly is going to feel shafted by their policies.

[MF248]

people want the prestige of going to a fancy law school without actually becoming a lawyer

TITCR

[VincentChase]

The animosity toward professors is just bizarre to me.

You probably do well in law school

It seems pretty obvious to me that given how little feedback professors give, anybody who does poorly is going to feel shafted by their policies.

I know. It's always someone else's fault. And yet others somehow seem to miraculously do OK not getting their hand held throughout the semester ...

Look, I know it's a huge adjustment going from getting quizzes and papers and tests returned throughout the semester, but it ain't undergrad any more. Even if there was feedback once a week, there would still be a curve.

[mikeytwoshoes]

They have personal secretaries and huge offices. When they research issues, the have research assistants. Other than grading, they have no responsibilities. It's the perfect racket and it's legal.

They do?

Not at Michigan.

By personal, I mean one secretary for every five professors.

[RVP11]

The offices here are like 15x12. IDK if that's huge.

[macattaq]

The offices here are like 15x12. IDK if that's huge.

I think ours are about the same, if not, smaller.

[Xiaolong]

I think law profs make a small amount of money when you compare it to what they could be making. A law prof will alwyas be someone who has been at the top of their class, oftentimes at a T20 or better. As such most of these people could be working as partners at V20 firms making 10 x, or even 20 x (think Wachtell) what a tenured Harvard prof makes.

[macattaq]

I think law profs make a small amount of money when you compare it to what they could be making. A law prof will alwyas be someone who has been at the top of their class, oftentimes at a T20 or better. As such most of these people could be working as partners at V20 firms making 10 x, or even 20 x (think Wachtell) what a tenured Harvard prof makes.

That could be true. But then, you can't really put a price on the ability to call in for a sick day because your child is ill, taking family vacations whenever you aren't teaching, having much lower stress (and arguably better health as a result, although MAN! Some profs need to hit the gym...), and so on. If its only the scrilla you're after, then yeah, you take the job at Wachtell. If its being squarely amongst the middle to upper middle class in a single earner household while having a great quality of life...then you go teach law. At least, that's my take.

[Snooker]

The profs as massive money makers is a huge myth. Dozens of studies and surveys, published in ABA journals and law reviews (easy to google up) find that the long-term biglaw prospects of graduates varies only marginally with the prestige of the school and the candidate's grades. A top Harvard associate is little more likely than a Boston University associate to make partner at a firm.

This is only half of the picture. Professors' expertise is highly invested in theoretical areas of the law that are of little practical application. Once a professor spends five or six years writing about critical race studies, or interdisciplinary studies between religion and the constitution, or law and behavioral economics, they have very little to offer to the world of big law firms. Moreover, talk to many professors, and you will find that they do not have very good social skills - but social skills are absolutely essential to developing business in big law firms.

In general, the door to either profession is very narrow and based 100% on grades, but in reality they utilize completely different skill sets. The average professor might be earning 160k for the first 3 years in BigLaw, but after that most of them would leave.

[apper123]

The profs as massive money makers is a huge myth. Dozens of studies and surveys, published in ABA journals and law reviews (easy to google up) find that the long-term biglaw prospects of graduates varies only marginally with the prestige of the school and the candidate's grades.

This is a forum full of law students of all places. If you are going to make a statement like that you really need to back it up with your own links. If it is so easy to find it on google, why not take the 15 seconds to do it and paste the link here? It will make your post much more credible.

I know this is completely off-topic, but that's just a pet peeve of mine and I'm feeling grouchy today.

[RVP11]

I think law profs make a small amount of money when you compare it to what they could be making. A law prof will alwyas be someone who has been at the top of their class, oftentimes at a T20 or better. As such most of these people could be working as partners at V20 firms making 10 x, or even 20 x (think Wachtell) what a tenured Harvard prof makes.

You have to consider the types of people who become professors, though. Most of them were never going to be V20 partners. They had great academic credentials, but few law school professors strike me as billing machines or rainmaker-types. People who become professors do it for a reason; they're theoreticians, not practitioners, and nor are they particularly socially adept on the whole.

And I'm not sure how much those great grades matter when it comes to making partner 7 years later. Probably not that much. And very few V10-V20 associates are making partner there.

Yes, virtually every law school professor could be making more money, even as a partner in a good small firm or as a solo, but very few could realistically be making 10x or 20x more.

[BigFatPanda]

u get the kick out of failing people

[VincentChase]

"Do not have very good social skills."

Not "socially adept."

Where do you guys come up with this stuff? On what planet does standing in front of a classroom of upwards of 100 students day after day, year after year, not require some baseline level of social skills?

For whatever reason, these men and women chose to teach and research law rather than practice. Attributing all these negative character traits to them because of it seems to say more about the posters than about the professors.

[macattaq]

"Do not have very good social skills."

Not "socially adept."

Where do you guys come up with this stuff? On what planet does standing in front of a classroom of upwards of 100 students day after day, year after year, not require some baseline level of social skills?

For whatever reason, these men and women chose to teach and research law rather than practice. Attributing all these negative character traits to them because of it seems to say more about the posters than about the professors.

Standing in front of a group of people, using a medium as an interface, does not necessarily mean that they can interact with those same people as individuals. Try talking to one of your profs one-on-one.