Top Law Schools

"The process of founding Irvine law school—their priorities and the choices they made—illustrates that liberal law professors pursue prestige and, like most people, try to maximize their pay. Irvine Law School exhorts its students to en- gage in public service, which requires a significant financial sacrifice on their part: starting pay at public interest jobs ranges from approximately $40,000 to $50,000; pay eleven to fifteen years out ranges from $65,000 to $79,000.109 Meanwhile, Irvine professors insist on being paid market value “or they will not come,” as Dean Chemerinsky put it, resulting in new professor salaries ex- ceeding $150,000 and experienced professors pulling in well above $200,000. Since professor salaries typically constitute half or more of the budget, high professor pay adds to the debt burden carried by students. Although Irvine pro- fessors are fully entitled to market salaries, what results is in tension with their advocacy of public service. We cloak ourselves in public service (pace Olivas), but a closer look at our own conduct is less flattering."

Great article

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm? ... wnload=yes

Docreviewsux wrote:Irvine professors insist on being paid market value “or they will not come,” as Dean Chemerinsky put it, resulting in new professor salaries ex- ceeding $150,000 and experienced professors pulling in well above $200,000.

Law professors were once law students. I think it's perfectly acceptable for them to want to make market.

TripTrip wrote:

Docreviewsux wrote:Irvine professors insist on being paid market value “or they will not come,” as Dean Chemerinsky put it, resulting in new professor salaries ex- ceeding $150,000 and experienced professors pulling in well above $200,000.

Law professors were once law students. I think it's perfectly acceptable for them to want to make market.

Yea but not students when they had to take out 200k in debt for a chance at a job.

lukertin wrote:

TripTrip wrote:

Docreviewsux wrote:Irvine professors insist on being paid market value “or they will not come,” as Dean Chemerinsky put it, resulting in new professor salaries ex- ceeding $150,000 and experienced professors pulling in well above $200,000.

Law professors were once law students. I think it's perfectly acceptable for them to want to make market.

Yea but not students when they had to take out 200k in debt for a chance at a job.

Seems reasonable to think that many of the entry-level hires had significant debt. Many entry-level people only do clerkships/vaps/government work before going on the teaching market.

I do think that law professors are overpaid and that's part of the problem with the cost of law schools, but seems odd to rage against individuals when it's the market that's out of whack.

Richie Tenenbaum wrote:but seems odd to rage against individuals when it's the market that's out of whack.

While I agree, I perceive the point of him admonishing his colleagues is for them to understand that they are profiting off the backs of their students. That no matter how they may perceive themselves, they are no better than the bankers peddling MBSs to investors, bankers lending risky ARMs to home buyers, Phillip Morris selling cigarettes when it knew how bad it was, the tobacco execs marketing to children, the food industry trying to hook people on sugar/salt/fat so they buy more, etc, etc.

bk187 wrote:

Richie Tenenbaum wrote:but seems odd to rage against individuals when it's the market that's out of whack.

While I agree, I perceive the point of him admonishing his colleagues is for them to understand that they are profiting off the backs of their students. That no matter how they may perceive themselves, they are no better than the bankers peddling MBSs to investors, bankers lending risky ARMs to home buyers, Phillip Morris selling cigarettes when it knew how bad it was, the tobacco execs marketing to children, the food industry trying to hook people on sugar/salt/fat so they buy more, etc, etc.

Well that escalated quickly...

bk187 wrote:

Richie Tenenbaum wrote:but seems odd to rage against individuals when it's the market that's out of whack.

While I agree, I perceive the point of him admonishing his colleagues is for them to understand that they are profiting off the backs of their students. That no matter how they may perceive themselves, they are no better than the bankers peddling MBSs to investors, bankers lending risky ARMs to home buyers, Phillip Morris selling cigarettes when it knew how bad it was, the tobacco execs marketing to children, the food industry trying to hook people on sugar/salt/fat so they buy more, etc, etc.

That's pretty fair (though obviously there's more of spectrum when it comes to law schools and their placement ability)--I think a lot of law professors can be pretty clueless on what the cost of education now is and how bad the job prospects can be. Spreading this information has value in showing how predatory law schools can be.

Richie Tenenbaum wrote:That's pretty fair (though obviously there's more of spectrum when it comes to law schools and their placement ability)--I think a lot of law professors can be pretty clueless on what the cost of education now is and how bad the job prospects can be. Spreading this information has value in showing how predatory law schools can be.

Yeah I think it's a bit different than other industries where the knowledge and profit goes hand in hand, whereas here profs profit but don't have the knowledge (they are just intentionally ignorant) and admin staff have the knowledge but don't profit (as much).

So this is his shtick now. But is this really the source of the failing system? No, it might be a symptom and certainly doesn't help, but it's not really the cause. What's he expecting, for some law profs who feel bad enough abut it to donate their pay back to the schools, to then leave the truly useless dead wood profs collecting top pay?! Wonder if he's elected to cut his own pay?

sfhaze wrote:So this is his shtick now. But is this really the source of the failing system? No, it might be a symptom and certainly doesn't help, but it's not really the cause. What's he expecting, for some law profs who feel bad enough abut it to donate their pay back to the schools, to then leave the truly useless dead wood profs collecting top pay?! Wonder if he's elected to cut his own pay?

I believe he got all his colleagues at his school to donate a portion of their pay to a scholarship fund, so yes, he did elect to "cut his own pay"

lukertin wrote:

sfhaze wrote:So this is his shtick now. But is this really the source of the failing system? No, it might be a symptom and certainly doesn't help, but it's not really the cause. What's he expecting, for some law profs who feel bad enough abut it to donate their pay back to the schools, to then leave the truly useless dead wood profs collecting top pay?! Wonder if he's elected to cut his own pay?

I believe he got all his colleagues at his school to donate a portion of their pay to a scholarship fund, so yes, he did elect to "cut his own pay"

That's admirable. Wonder by how much though? Even if it's really not that much, if he got all on board giving the same back that's very symbolic. How he got this done, if he did, amazes me. Now he should get profs in nearly every academic field to do this and we might begin to right the ship. Then move right on to bloated university admin budgets. I don't think the problem so much is that top profs get paid top dollar, but that mediocre profs get paid near top dollar (and of course UC Irvine et al. are attempting to be a school full of top profs). I guess he probably wouldn't disagree with this though.

If you offered me a job teaching 2 classes a semester at a law school for half that I would DEFINITELY take it.

Kronk wrote:If you offered me a job teaching 2 classes a semester at a law school for half that I would DEFINITELY take it.

That raises a good question, I wonder how much adjunct/practicing professors are paid.

lukertin wrote:

Kronk wrote:If you offered me a job teaching 2 classes a semester at a law school for half that I would DEFINITELY take it.

That raises a good question, I wonder how much adjunct/practicing professors are paid.

I mean, most full-time professors only teach one or two classes a semester anyway. Not sure how much practicing professors make. They had a rundown of all Boalt profs but didn't include the LRW / WOA crowd.

John Yoo makes 311k a year. Farber makes 400k . Doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to why some of the numbers, though. Some of our "rockstar" professors make under 200k.

bk187 wrote:

Richie Tenenbaum wrote:but seems odd to rage against individuals when it's the market that's out of whack.

While I agree, I perceive the point of him admonishing his colleagues is for them to understand that they are profiting off the backs of their students. That no matter how they may perceive themselves, they are no better than the bankers peddling MBSs to investors, bankers lending risky ARMs to home buyers, Phillip Morris selling cigarettes when it knew how bad it was, the tobacco execs marketing to children, the food industry trying to hook people on sugar/salt/fat so they buy more, etc, etc.

Let the hate flow bro

sfhaze wrote:

lukertin wrote:

sfhaze wrote:So this is his shtick now. But is this really the source of the failing system? No, it might be a symptom and certainly doesn't help, but it's not really the cause. What's he expecting, for some law profs who feel bad enough abut it to donate their pay back to the schools, to then leave the truly useless dead wood profs collecting top pay?! Wonder if he's elected to cut his own pay?

I believe he got all his colleagues at his school to donate a portion of their pay to a scholarship fund, so yes, he did elect to "cut his own pay"

That's admirable. Wonder by how much though? Even if it's really not that much, if he got all on board giving the same back that's very symbolic. How he got this done, if he did, amazes me. Now he should get profs in nearly every academic field to do this and we might begin to right the ship. Then move right on to bloated university admin budgets. I don't think the problem so much is that top profs get paid top dollar, but that mediocre profs get paid near top dollar (and of course UC Irvine et al. are attempting to be a school full of top profs). I guess he probably wouldn't disagree with this though.

Law professors are generally paid much more than their counter-parts in other academic programs (business schools profs might make a lot of money too, though). Part of this rationale has been that law schools need to tempt these people away from the big salaries at law firms--I think this is starting to show to be less and less true. A lot of academics or wannabe-academics have no desire to spend any/significant time doing biglaw. Another part of the equation has been that law schools have been huge money-makers, though that is starting to become less true.

lukertin wrote:

Kronk wrote:If you offered me a job teaching 2 classes a semester at a law school for half that I would DEFINITELY take it.

That raises a good question, I wonder how much adjunct/practicing professors are paid.

Significantly less usually. (I think at UT, it's usually in the 80 to 120K range?)

I think we can all agree law professors salaries are just a flame. Just a huge flame, bros. Especially considering it takes those fuckers 4 weeks to grade exams for the 1 or 2 classes they teach.

Kronk wrote:I think we can all agree law professors salaries are just a flame. Just a huge flame, bros. Especially considering it takes those fuckers 4 weeks to grade exams for the 1 or 2 classes they teach.

Plus their useless scholarship. Half of all law review articles are never cited.

Mick Haller wrote:

Kronk wrote:I think we can all agree law professors salaries are just a flame. Just a huge flame, bros. Especially considering it takes those fuckers 4 weeks to grade exams for the 1 or 2 classes they teach.

Plus their useless scholarship. Half of all law review articles are never cited.

Truth. Its exceptionally easy for them to get published because (1) there are such a huge number of journals out there and (2) they are not peer reviewed.

Oh no! Irvine has to pay a law professor less than market for a first year biglaw associate! The horror!

Doorkeeper wrote:Oh no! Irvine has to pay a law professor less than market for a first year biglaw associate! The horror!

Yeah but. They're paying those profs about twice as much per hour.

Kronk wrote:

Doorkeeper wrote:Oh no! Irvine has to pay a law professor less than market for a first year biglaw associate! The horror!

Yeah but. They're paying those profs about twice as much per hour.

I don't know that I buy this when you factor in all of the time they have to spend writing and editing each others work, reviewing articles for law reviews, faculty meetings, workshops, etc. But even if that was the case, I hardly see how $150-200,000 for a law professor is an unreasonable salary in the least. That's about what they would make if they were senior counsel in government, and infinitely less than if they were in private practice. No one goes into law teaching after graduating from a T10 for the salary.

Doorkeeper wrote:No one goes into law teaching for the salary.

Nope. They go in for the salary and the incredibly relaxed QOL that isn't available in practice.

Kronk wrote:

Doorkeeper wrote:No one goes into law teaching for the salary.

Nope. They go in for the salary and the incredibly relaxed QOL that isn't available in practice.

I worked with fed gov lawyers pulling in $120-150,000 and they were working straight 9-5pm. It's not unheard of outside of biglawl.

Doorkeeper wrote:

Kronk wrote:

Doorkeeper wrote:No one goes into law teaching for the salary.

Nope. They go in for the salary and the incredibly relaxed QOL that isn't available in practice.

I mean I worked with fed gov lawyers pulling in $120-150,000 and they were working straight 9-5pm. It's not unheard of outside of biglawl. It's the independence that matters.

Federal government jobs are about as awesome and cushy as jobs in academia, yep. Those jobs are pretty rare unless you work for the SEC though.

The difference is that a lot of people go straight into academia and never leave. You generally have to earn your $120-150k salary in the fed government over 10 years or so, and it never goes far above that. Like I said a few posts above, there are probably a dozen professors at Boalt that make over $280-300k, with a few in the $350-400k range. You'll never make that kind of cash with the government. The highest paid federal government worker that has probably worked in an agency for 15 years makes as much as a well-paid practicing lawyer or the bottom-of-the-barrel first year law professor.