Ilya Somin is of course right that those of us on law faculties below the "Top Fifteen" can do things that have a big impact. But he's only half right, because he's only talking about the impact we can have on each other (and on our citation practices).
All of us can use our faculty positions to have a big impact in some little (or big) piece of the world, and the first place we can do it is right in our own backyards -- in the work we do with and for our students. And that's to say nothing of the work we can do with local, regional, and national advocacy groups, with pro bono projects, with bar groups and judges' organizations, with schools ... the list goes on and on. Heck, we can volunteer to talk about what we know about at the local public library, or at a retirement home.
All of it's important. All of it can help you find meaning in what you do. And for just about all of the stuff on my list, it doesn't matter whether you're the Chief Justice John Marshall Distinguished Professor at Yale or the Peter Schickele Extinguished Professor at the University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople.
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