Number 7 of The Top 8 Reasons Not to Go to Law School:
Law school professors are some of the most pretentious and arrogant people on this earth. They know everything about everything. In office hours you will find yourself thinking that God is talking to you and then you will realize it is your criminal law professor engaged in some diatribe about Moses. What does this have to do with Law? Nothing! But can you stop him from speaking…NO! Your grade depends on it!
I can’t believe we’re only number 7.
(HT: Paul Caron)
Hmm, that person probably should not have gone to law school. She or he has a lot of the facts wrong, I'm pretty sure, for one thing. I also wonder what sort of people she or he spends time around, because I've spent a lot of time around law professors (more than the vast majority of non-professors, I'm sure), and there are lots and lots of people I've met who are regularly more pretentious and arrogant than law professors. And I don't think I have an unduly rosey view of law professors! It's true, though, that this person should probably to into another field
Posted by: Matt | July 22, 2009 at 10:07 PM
Get in line if you think I'm an "a-hole." One of my student evaluations actually said I was (so you KNOW it's true!)! ("You're a fourth tier law professor at a fourth tier law school, and you're also an a******.")
Posted by: Tim Zinnecker | July 22, 2009 at 11:41 PM
Tim Zinnecker, who sounds like he has the ability to laugh at himself, is aware of this post but the profs who are really the aholes are probably to busy being aholes!
My favorite evaluation I received was that the prosecutor lacks the competence a second year law student should possess. Then he said he had to let a "guilty" person go free b/c I couldn't "block and tackle." I don't get it, if he thought the person was guilty, what difference does it make that I cannot "block and tackle" ...
Posted by: Michael Alexander | July 23, 2009 at 12:13 AM
Tim -- there's no way that you qualify as an a-hole (I'm quite the expert on such things). Now, Michael, we don't know whether this statement was intended as an insult without more information about the evaluator's baseline. If, for example, the speaker considers that most prosecutors lack the competence of a first year law student, then you're doing pretty well! (can't speak to your blocking and tackling skills -- or their relevance to your prosecutorial abilities).
Matt -- should we start our own list? "People who are more pretentious and arrogant than law professors"? Who goes at the top?
Posted by: Kim Krawiec | July 23, 2009 at 10:24 AM
I said last year that law professors might be giving (then Senator) Obama a bad name -- though for different reasons than their personality:
http://www.thefacultylounge.org/2008/04/are-law-profess.html
Posted by: Alfred | July 23, 2009 at 11:30 AM