Aspiring Law Professors: The Non-Elite JD

Thanks to Jacqui, Dan and the rest of The Faculty Lounge for letting me hang my hat here during September.  As Jacqui's introductory post and my title suggest, I'm planning on sharing some insights from my personal experience on the academic market.  Seeing as how I'm sharing my personal experiences, some of these posts will come across as self-referential, my apologies in advance.   Here's my one time disclaimer: this is all based on my limited experience on the market, take it with a grain of salt.  It's more reliable than an anonymous comment on the PrawfsBlawg thread, but I don't make any promises beyond that.

Let's start with a biographical detail that Jacqui shared about me that should jump out at you as unique... that is my pedigree...I didn't graduate from an "elite" law school, I went to Case Western.  Now, Case is a great law school, but it's not a law school that typically places graduates as law professors (although I know of about a half dozen Case alums teaching at different law schools).  I also know of at least one Case Western alum on the market this year who already has a half dozen interviews, a great publication record, top notch professional experiences, public service, is a sharp mind and a caring person, and if this is a meritocracy (more on that later) should land a job.  So for those of you thinking that it's not possible to land a law professor job if you didn't go to an elite law school, I'm proof that it's possible.  It won't be as easy as if you went to an elite school, but it's possible, and if your experience is anything like mine you'll feel pretty good about the fact that you could do it despite the obstacles.  Moreover, even with a non-elite JD you can have options... I had 14 AALS interviews and 7 callbacks.  I interviewed with schools ranging from the mid-30s to the fourth tier with most of my interviews and callbacks falling between 50 and 90 in the oft maligned but influential USNWR rankings.  If I can do it, you can do it. 

While I'm on a feel good point, I thought I'd share how remarkably different people's perspectives on eliteness are.  In particular, I found it funny last year when I met candidates and law professors who convinced themselves that they too did not go to an elite law school because they went to NYU, Georgetown, Michigan, Duke, or Northwestern.  (Those are true stories, not my examples).  It seems that no matter what your background, there is something about our profession that makes us all very good at making ourselves feel as though we aren't good enough.  You clerked on the DC Circuit, well someone else has a SCOTUS clerkship.  You went to Yale, well someone else went to Yale and has a PhD.  You went to Yale and have a PhD, well someone else did the same thing and was a Rhodes scholar.  You placed articles in Indiana and Georgetown, someone else has articles in Northwestern and Chicago.  That is a game you could play in your head forever and every time you try and make up for some self-perceived inadequacy you'll feel like the goal posts were moved on you, when really you're moving them on yourself.  Maybe that's a good thing, as it will keep you motivated but I'd counsel against pegging your non-work related self-worth to those measures or you'll never be happy.  (See e.g.)

Alright, so if it's possible to get a job with a non-elite pedigree, what obstacles will you face?  I'll talk about obstacles at different times throughout my guest blogging stint, but the first obstacle I want to address is "the presumption."  The presumption is the belief among some law professors that one who has attended an elite law school, has the right clerkship, and big firm experience is presumably competent to be a law professor.  Those who didn't go to an elite law school probably didn't land the prestigious clerkship and big firm job, and therefore aren't competent to be a law professor.  This is an old school notion, but it persists at many law schools.  (For more on the new realities see Larry Solum here.)  My own experience was that "the presumption" is still alive and well, and although this is anecdotal, I thought it was more evident at lower ranked/regional law schools than at the higher ranked schools I interviewed with.

On to the good news ---the presumption is rebuttable.  It would be nice to have a Yale JD, but it's time to get over that and focus on how to rebut the presumption.  The single best rebuttal is to write and place quality law review articles.  Many law professors use pedigree as a proxy for scholarly potential, and what better proxy for scholarly potential than scholarship?  Of course this is where the presumption poses a big obstacle for the non-pedigreed candidate because while pedigree can be overcome by writing, guess what?  All serious candidates know that they need to write.  What you will quickly find is that your competition has the right pedigree and publications.  So you'll need to write to stay in the game and write some more to overcome your pedigree disadvantage.  And with that non-elite JD some will see you as less intellectually capable, and as such your scholarship will be more closely scrutinized.  You will need to write and place high quality articles and probably need to do so at a faster rate than a pedigreed candidate.  In short you are going to have to work very hard just to qualify for the tournament. 

And of course, what qualifies as quality is a moving target...  In my experience article placement mattered, synergy of my publications with my research agenda mattered and the fact that my work was cited mattered to some people, but not as many as I would have thought.  (As an aside, you may have ego-Googled yourself, but have you ego-Leiter'd yourself lately?  That would be FIRST /2 LAST in the Westlaw JLR database). 

I'll have more to say to aspiring law professors in future posts where I plan to write about Fellowships, VAPs, and PhDs as other ways to rebut the presumption and enhance your chances. 

Beyond rebutting the presumption I also plan to write posts with exciting titles like: "Getting Known in Your Field," "What Should Hiring Committees Look For?", "Why Your Teaching Evaluations Will Matter," "The Practice Experience Debate," "Choosing and Managing Your References," "The Reimbursement Envelope or Neat Receipts?" "The Job Talk and the 'Work in Progress'," "The Callback," and "The FAR Form."  Some of the posts will end up being more helpful for people going on the market next year (sorry).  I'd also like to write some posts on scholarly technology, RSS readers and other tech related things (perhaps iPads v. Kindle?).  Depending on time I might even write about some substantive stuff, but I shouldn't over promise.

Thanks for welcoming me aboard, I'm looking forward to our conversations. 

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Aspiring Law Professors: The PhD

Comments

[andy]

judging from your penultimate paragraph, you may have already over-promised. . .

[Tim Zinnecker]

Greg,

First -- welcome to the Lounge. Great to have you!

Second -- thanks for your timely, informative, and encouraging post. As one who has reviewed countless FAR forms over the years, I'll confess to moments of joy (giddiness?) when I come across a candidate who graduated in the top 10% from a school outside the "top twenty." I truly wish there were more! We need you!

(From one who graduated from BYU's law school, not a traditional feeder into the academy.)

[John Nelson]

Here's a question:

How much does/should class rank count in the process?

Much is said about elite JDs, but less is spoken about class rank.

One of my mentors likes to equate each of the various "pluses" a candidate might have as "merit badges."

As someone who doesn't have many traditional merit badges, at what point can their absence be "rebutted?"

For example, can published articles overcome this? Can practice experience (after a certain time) overcome this?

It seems many (most?) of the merit badges function as proxies for scholarly potential. Even so, reputation appears to be important as well and many merit badges also serve to establish a candidates reputation.

So, in the conflict between reputation and ability, can actual evidence of scholarship overcome lack of merit badge proxies when those merit badges also serve to distinguish reputation?

I guess the answer is that one needs to build a reputation independent of your CV stats, which may be where the "Getting Known In Your Field" post might go.

[1styrprof]

I'm glad you are doing these posts, Greg. I was on the market last year as a VAP candidate with the requisite 3 publications, and though I did end up getting a tenure-track position in the end (which I love and I think is a perfect fit for me), I was shocked and bewildered at how many people "advising" me about my chances on the market dismissed me out-of-hand because of my "non-elite" (top 20 but not top 10) JD. My 5+ years of practice experience was also flagged as fatal to my academic aspirations. In sum, the conventional wisdom was that I could not compete with Harvard/Yale JDs, even those with less publications than I because, well... I was not a Harvard/Yale JD, and therefore presumptively not fit to join the club. I'm glad that like you, I was able to rebut this presumption, but a year later and now a tenure-track faculty member myself, I find myself no less baffled by this extremely narrow mindset.

Of course, not all faculty who advised me were of this mind - in fact, I agree with you that this attitude was more common at regional, aspirational law schools who are intensely (and detrimentally?) focused on the USNWR rankings and believe that they should only be interviewing super-elite candidates to join their faculty and thus, increase their ranking. If that is what a school is looking for, clearly a candidate such as myself is not what they are looking for - however, my biggest issue with this school of thought is how often the advice given to "non-elite" candidates by faculty is that they can't play ball at any ABA school, not just their own, so there is no use in trying. I think that is patently false, as you and I and countless others who are now full-time law professors at ABA schools can attest.

I look forward to the rest of your posts! My appreciation for analytical post-mortems on the AALS hiring process seems to have no end... :)

[Jeff Lipshaw]

I'm coming on board shortly, but let me put in a plug for our forthcoming (getting proofs soon - and I hope out so that it's still useful this recruiting season) book, Becoming a Law Professor: A Candidate's Guide (ABA, 2010), by Brannon Denning, Marcia McCormick and me (as the designated kibitzer). The book began as a project of Brannon and Marcia on precisely this topic: what they called at the time "Becoming a Law Professor the Hard Way," which had to do primarily with not having an elite school J.D. (When I joined the author team, I was a different kind of "hard way;" that being with what nowadays is called an elite school J.D., but having practiced so long most academics would think the scholarly synapses had long since turned sclerotic). The book morphed into a general tutorial on the process.

Brannon will be speaking at the Arizona State "aspiring prof" conference in October, so that ought not to be missed.

I'm hoping the book comes out in time for Greg to give us his take on some of the recommendations we've made.

[Jeff Lipshaw]

UPDATE: I just learned that you will be able to pre-order the book at the Arizona State conference.

[John Kang]

Very good post. I applaud your efforts and congratulate you on landing a terrific job.

[Orin Kerr]

"It seems that no matter what your background, there is something about our profession that makes us all very good at making ourselves feel as though we aren't good enough."

It's the anxiety of ambition, I think: If you feel you've all set, you've lost it.

[David Case]

I think that people who share the "conventional wisdom" with you are, in general, trying to be kind. The odds of landing a tenure track spot in the hiring market are long for everyone. Relatively few open slots from year to year and an astronomically larger number of wonderfully qualified and talented people vying to fill those slots every year. It is certainly not incorrect to warn people that the odds are longer (though not at all quantifiable) for those with "non-elite" JDs, no matter how one might define the elusive concept of "eliteness." Although some people's bedside manner could be far better in delivering the news, I think for the most part the warnings being delivered are well intentioned.

But, two messages definitely should get through. First, the odds are long for everyone and longer for some than others. Second, the "eliteness" or not of any individual's JD is only one of scores of factors that go into what a(n impossible to actually perform) calculation might be of that specific individual's odds. Any individual graduate from any individual law school can improve their own personal odds immensely in any number of ways, if they have the drive and desire. Knowing both of those general precepts can only help, not hurt, in my opinion.

For those who may have not come across it, I wrote a personal account of a story about a non-elite JD and long odds in the market. "The Pedagogical Don Quixote de la Mississippi," 33 U. Mem. L. Rev. 529 (2003). I wrote the piece for just this sort of discussion. My odds wouldn't have been correctly calculated at absolute zero -- although I had many people actually advise me that they were -- but you could certainly see absolute zero from where I was standing when I started out. I never hesitate to be painfully honest with people in the market about how long the odds are, but I also never hesitate to encourage them by giving my view that effort and quality work in the quest to improve your odds can be rewarded with success in the market no matter the relative rankings influenced perception of your JD granting school.