Becoming a professor from a T50? Forum

[hoponthiswood]

I’m a 0L and I keep practice testing around 161, so I think I’m probably destined to go a T50 but I really want to be a criminal law professor.

Is robbing banks my only shot?

I figure if I do that and spend a few years in the slammer drafting petitions for other felons or whatever, I can use my T50 degree to apply to law schools and be like omg I’m so sorry, but now I truly “understand the flaws in the system”

Idk. I was just trying to think of ways for my application to stand out when I eventually apply to be a professor, and if I can’t get into HYS, maybe robbing banks is statistically the best option?

[64Fl]

Probably troll, but I'll bite, despite the subpar joke. If you're testing around a 161 and you're going to resign to going to a T50, you have essentially 0% chance of becoming a law professor. There are thousands of people with criminal law experience from PD to AUSA to ADA to AFPD, but there is probably 1 spot as a professor for ever 1,000 of them. Those professors are essentially all T14 trained, graduated top 10% of their class, did a prestigious clerkship/VAP, and might have prestigious criminal legal experience. Going to an elite law school is by far the easiest box you can check of all the typical qualifiers. If you aren't willing to put in the effort now, you're not going to survive on the legal hiring market, which is frequently referred to as the meat market for a good reason.

[aliciacflorrick]

You'd have a very difficult time obtaining a tenure-track professorship at schools better than where you attended and probably at most schools ranked worse. That said, I think there's always a fair amount of T50 professors teaching at their alma mater, but you can't expect to land that position because you'll need stellar credentials (LR, clerkship, publications) and luck.

If you do really well and become some well-respected local practitioner by a LS, then it's possible you could teach there as an adjunct for literally no money in a niche or experiential area.

[acr]

Who gets on TLS and writes something as outlandish as this lol. I don't understand deriving entertainment value from being a fool. It wasn't even close to funny.

[decimalsanddollars]

How badly do you want to be a professor? The advice on TLS usually sounds like this:

"Don't go to law school if you don't want to be a lawyer."

If you want to be a professor, I highly recommend advanced degrees (perhaps even a PhD) in another field. Not that it's necessarily easier to become a tenured professor in other disciplines, but there are more opportunities and, in most cases, more margin for error. You could be a professor of psychology, sociology, criminology, criminal justice, or any of the myriad related disciplines, and while the hurdles are still high, there are more routes around them. In any case, many law professors at top law schools also have advanced degrees/PhDs in other disciplines, so if you still want to be a law professor after that, your resume is better (and it may help your law school application).

[QContinuum]

Probably troll, but I'll bite, despite the subpar joke. If you're testing around a 161 and you're going to resign to going to a T50, you have essentially 0% chance of becoming a law professor. There are thousands of people with criminal law experience from PD to AUSA to ADA to AFPD, but there is probably 1 spot as a professor for ever 1,000 of them. Those professors are essentially all T14 trained, graduated top 10% of their class, did a prestigious clerkship/VAP, and might have prestigious criminal legal experience. Going to an elite law school is by far the easiest box you can check of all the typical qualifiers. If you aren't willing to put in the effort now, you're not going to survive on the legal hiring market, which is frequently referred to as the meat market for a good reason.

Cosign all of the above. In addition, given OP's frequent references to Prof. Hopwood, I'd point out:

• Hopwood, as a jailhouse lawyer, convinced SCOTUS to grant not just one but two prisoner cert. petitions.
• Hopwood so impressed the former US Solicitor General he worked with on his SCOTUS cases that Waxman became one of his strongest advocates.

So, OP, if you're not a troll, you have two options. You can retake the LSAT and attend a T13, or you can try to follow Prof. Hopwood's footsteps and get SCOTUS to grant two of your cert. petitions, plus convince a former US Solicitor General to go to bat for you.