Some advice for the new folks entering law school teaching

My buddy Tim Zinnecker has suggested that I start off my guest blogging with some advice for folks new to legal academia.  (Thanks, Tim!)  So here are some ideas, and I hope that lots of you will pitch in with your own ideas--both for newbies and for laterals who are heading off to somewhere new.

1.   If you haven't done so already, ask your dean to send you to the AALS's New Law Teachers' Conference.  It's coming up in a couple of weeks, and it was very helpful when I was a newbie.  It helped me make new friends at lots of schools, and I learned that I wasn't so alone in not knowing how to prioritize my time.  The faculty at this conference, along with the related conferences for new legal writing teachers and new pretenured minority law teachers continues to be top-notch.  (You might also want to read Peter Alexander's article, Silent Screams From Within The Academy: Let My People Grow, 59 Ohio St. L.J. 1311 (1998), which covers some of the pitfalls that plague newbies.

2.  Find a "blocker."  I know nothing about football.  But I know that there are people who block for other people on the field.  I had great blockers when I started my career at Ohio State (now the Moritz College of Law).  These folks looked out for me, said "no" for me when I was starting to get overcommitted, read my drafts, gave great teaching advice, and generally mentored me.  You need someone senior on the faculty who can block for you.

3.  There is no substitute for publishing.  Publishing is the coin of the realm in academia.  You do want to be a good teacher, and the best academics I know are great at teaching and at publishing--because the two complement each other.  But there is NO WAY TO GET TENURE without publishing good stuff. 

4.  That means that, as difficult as it will be to pull yourself away from other obligations (the not-so-"secret"-secret of teaching is that visiting with students is wholeheartedly rewarding), you must budget your time.  Block out some time for research and thinking, and write up a storm whenever you can. 

5.  Rapoport's rule of threes:  no good thought should go unpublished, and while you're at it, why not think about publishing a variant of the same thing for different audiences?  Publish articles (for tenure), op-eds on your ideas (for getting your ideas out there in the world generally), and bar journal short versions of your ideas (to have a good discourse with the practicing bar).  One of the goals for tenure is to show that you have a robust research agenda, but one of the goals for getting to be a full professor is that you're an expert in your field.  You get to be an expert by engaging in useful discourse with a wide variety of people, and you'll learn all sorts of good things for your research if you spend some time with non-academics.  It's a win-win.

OK, folks--those are some of my ideas.  Now, what advice do YOU have for newbies?

(Posted by Nancy Rapoport.)

Comments

[Archana]

Think about seeking external and/or university funding for research projects. That type of outside validation of your work adds credibility to your research agenda, makes you an expert, brings resources to the school, and helps to better define each research project. In other fields of the humanities and social sciences, this is normal, but not yet in law.

[Tim Zinnecker]

Great post!

Another suggestion: give some thought to what your classroom rules and expectations will be, put them in writing, distribute them as a first-day handout, and then abide by them (and if you decide to change, do so the next semester, not in mid-semester). Let this serve as a contract between you and your students. Matters that deserve your consideration include the following:

1. Recitation: random, assigned, panels, volunteers, etc.?
2. Attendance: taken, not taken? (If you don't take attendance, don't be surprised if at least one student decides to learn the material without your assistance. Do you care? Does your school policy dictate that you care?)
3. Exam format: essay, multiple choice, short-answer, drafting, combo? Closed book, open book, anything goes, no outside commercial outlines, etc.?
4. Office hours: appointment only, drop-ins welcome? Telephone conferences? Email chats?
5. Grade adjustments: none (final grade based solely on exam performance), adjustments based on in-class performance and/or attendance, etc.?

Also -- and this is challenging the first time you teach a course -- offer the students a [somewhat] detailed daily assignment schedule (something more than "stay twenty pages ahead of me"). You probably can't distribute an exhaustive schedule on the first day of class for the entire semester, but you probably can do so in two-week blocks.

Tim Zinnecker

[Vladimir]

Well put, Nancy. But I'd make your caution on teaching a bit stronger: as hard as it will be to do, given the paying faces you will see staring at you, minimize teaching prep as much as you possibly can feel comfortable doing. Teaching is just not an important part of your job in terms of what you will be evaluated on. Your teaching should be ok, but it need not be any better. So self0-consciously aim to be an average teacher and a stellar scholar. There will be plenty of time to work on the classes later.

[NRapoport]

Thanks, all y'all, for your comments! Vladimir, I think that some schools are less focused on teaching than others, and there's something really rewarding about making those connections with students, even in the first year. I'm friends w/several former students, and I even IM'd with a former student last night. (Hey, beats grading!)

The fact is that there's only a limited amount of time, and EVERYTHING takes longer for a newbie academic, just as everything takes longer for a newbie lawyer. As with any other environment, find out what's valued, and focus on that first. PRIORITIZE. And don't forget to save a little time for yourself.

[NRapoport]

BTW, one of my buddies (Seymour) has this suggestion:
Even after 50+ years out of [his school] - advise the newcomers NOT TO TALK DOWN TO THEIR STUDENTS even when called upon and they are unprepared - treat them as equal human beings.
I still remember (after 50+ years) 2 of my professors [names snipped] who "talked down" to 1st year students. (I doubt if I remember all the names of my other professors.)

I agree. At some point, if you're too aggressive, students stop listening and therefore stop learning.

[Jacqui L.]

This is a great post and discussion, Nancy. There's not much I can add. One thing that follows from Seymour's point that's easy to say but hard to do when you're new is try to feel comfortable in your own skin. If colleagues and students see that you're nervous and anxious they can play on that (either consciously or more like unconsciously) and then you end up just feeling worse about teaching and scholarship. So I say, just be yourself. If you don't know the answer to a question, say that you don't know and that you'll get back to the student when you do - or better yet, invite the student to find the answer for you and share it with the rest of the class. If your colleague has raised something about your teaching or scholarship that has floored you, thank him/her for the interesting advice/suggestion and say that you'll think on it. And then ask others for their opinions. But don't get fazed or ruffled. Just be yourself, enjoy your time in this crazy profession and make sure you find at least one "blocker"/mentor/whatever who you trust to help you out. [And senior folks - it's our JOB to do this so let's give the newbies a break when they ask for help. I'm sure most of us do that anyway, but it's worth remembering as the new folks walk in the door that it's harder for them to figure out the rules of the game than it is for us to play the game.]

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