BECOMING AN ACADEMIC | WHAT IS POSSIBLE? Forum

[Elleonleo]

I'll give more details if needed but I would like to get advice, and only from people who actually know from either experience or anecdotally directly from people who know (sorry, but speculation is just not worth it here - though you may ask why the hell I'm asking on this forum then but honestly I just don't exactly know where to ask).

I started going to a school, either brooklyn or cardozo, in nyc for free(not including cost of living though I'm only taking out 50k in total) and am doing well (how well I'm not totally sure yet). The highest ranking school I got into otherwise was Northwestern with essentially no money. But I'm having reservations because I know that at some point in my career (not right after law school) I would like to become an academic, most likely pursuing a PhD. I have a Master's degree already. I went to a Top 5 undergrad if it makes any difference. I went to this school in particular because I am pursuing public interest and was worried about costs, plus the school, at least educationally speaking, is great and offers a tremendous amount of clinical experience etc. Still, I'm worried that all future academic aspirations have been foreclosed by attending this school. Is this the case?

So, and sorry for the rambling, I'm wondering - to what extent is it true that I MUST ABSOLUTELY go to a t14 school in order to later become an academic. If it is not absolutely true, what sorts of things do I need to have done in order to be in a good position given I came out of a T2 school? Publications...clerkship...years working at a prestigious PI org??

Any and all help would be very appreciated.

[thesealocust]

It will be prohibitively difficult to become an academic given your background. To the extent you wish to try anyway, you'll need to get sterling grades and publish like a crazy person. Transferring to a better school and clerking could also help.

Academic hiring focuses narrowly on publishing potential coupled with credentials, but credentials aren't unrelated (it will be easier to get published if you're coming off of fancy clerkships and have an @yale.edu email address)

[BigZuck]

What do you mean by "an academic?"

Maaaaaaaaybe you can be like an adjunct legal writing teacher or something someday. If you want to teach law stuff then you need to drop out, go to Yale, and make peace with the fact that even then you almost certainly won't become an academic.

[FSK]

Drop out and retake may be your path of least resistance.

Understand, though, that academic hiring is going to be abysmal for the foreseeable future. Law schools are going to close down over the next 10 years.

[Hand]

[crazycanuck]

I teach a couple of accounting courses at a very strong university in my city (I think it's fun) and going full time into academia is not something I would ever consider, or recommend anyone consider, ever.

I know a few people on the law faculty who are all trying to get tenure and they are always stressed as fuck. Here's why:

1) if you don't get tenure you are beyond fucked. No one wants a washed out academic. Your only option is community college which will pay you next to nothing.
2) tenure is going away. The days of the 70s and 80s are over. You can't get tenure by publishing one article and sittin on your ass forever. Getting tenure is extremely difficult and pays total shit. The law profs I know probably make around 80 or 90k and work 60-70 hours a week because of point #1. They must get tenure. Schools are moving away from tenure because they need more financial flexibility and tenure removes.
3) you have to go wherever you get in. This is not a position where you can pick where you live. You go wherever the school that takes you is.
4) Profs are being replaced by technology. Deans, chancellors and boards are really working on experiential learning to reduce costs and eliminate unnecessary profs. Technology is finally getting to the point where we can replicate an effective learning experience online through the use of video, virtual classrooms, etc. tenure and prof positions are going to become more rare every year.

The days of getting tenure and sitting on your ass for 30 years are ending.

[03152016]

I started going to a school, either brooklyn or cardozo, in nyc for free(not including cost of living though I'm only taking out 50k in total) and am doing well (how well I'm not totally sure yet).

what do you mean you're doing well
if you go to brooklyn regular classes started a week ago
at cardozo regular classes started three days ago

[03152016]

just pointing it out since your doing well or not is highly relevant to the q and the feedback you'll get

[A. Nony Mouse]

If you're seeking to enter legal academia, you should probably make other plans. Consider this data. If you want to be an academic in a different field, get into a top PhD program in that field.

Yeah, pretty much this. Although a PhD (in a relevant field) can help you get a job in legal academia, a JD from Brooklyn/Cardozo won't get you very far at all. The most important element will be getting publications in top law reviews, so if you excel at that, you might get something - except that law is a snobby profession and law reviews generally don't do blind submissions, and the higher-ranked schools offer a lot more support/opportunity for writing highly-placed articles.

If you want to go into academia in whatever field you get the PhD in, where your JD is from won't matter, except you probably shouldn't, because getting an academic job is way harder than getting a legal job.

[kartelite]

So, and sorry for the rambling, I'm wondering - to what extent is it true that I MUST ABSOLUTELY go to a t14 school in order to later become an academic. If it is not absolutely true, what sorts of things do I need to have done in order to be in a good position given I came out of a T2 school? Publications...clerkship...years working at a prestigious PI org??

Two short anecdotes from which you can take what you will:

One of my recommenders was a law professor (not at a highly-ranked school) who went to a low T1 school. S/he also had a PhD and puts a lot of effort into publishing (s/he also has some work experience in investment banking, which is closely related to his/her research).

A member of my immediate family is also a professor (non-T14 T1) who went to a school just outside the T14. No other graduate degree or significant publications before beginning his/her career (was a junior partner), but now is recognized as a leader in his/her field. However, said family member said that it would be nearly impossible for him/her to land such a job today with his/her background at the time.

My advice, since you already have a graduate degree, would be to:

1) Get great grades.
2) Publish, publish, publish. In many areas of graduate study, the expectation is that you will become an academic, and publishing is your ticket to success. Try to incorporate your other graduate training into some new area of law to be explored, or even publish in the other field with a legal bent.
3) Get a clerkship, even if state level, and try to network hard from there while continuing to publish.
4) Publish some more. Even if you can't get a legit journal to accept a paper, put it up on SSRN or some other online place that hosts articles. I did this with a paper I wrote as a college sophomore, and a few years later I discovered it had been republished in hard cover in an essay collection and had received a number of citations across various media (including in a law journal). You can also create a professional-looking web page where you provide a brief CV, describe your research interests, and link to your publications.