Paula Monopoli On The Future Of Law Schools Within Universities

You know, I think I disagree with just about every single point she makes in this piece. The upshot of her analysis seems to be that the "legal academy" isn't sufficiently divorced from teaching students how to practice law and that legal scholarship should become more like, say, sociological scholarship. That's about 180 degrees wrong as far as I'm concerned.

I'm glad someone from within the legal academy wrote this. Right now its not uncommon for law professors to make 1.5-4 times what science/engineering professors make. Which is nuts when you consider that science/engineering professors have to reel in their own funding and subject their work to peer review.

Governments and corporations deem academic research in the sciences to be worth supporting financially. Are there any entities that deem legal research worth supporting? And yet, law professors are compensated handsomely in comparison.

Science/engineering professors probably aren't helped by the fact that people with undergraduate degrees in these fields have actual career options at graduation. If schools asked engineers to pay full freight for graduate school they'd be laughed out of the room. As long as our universities are churning out unmarketable undergraduate degrees and law schools have no reason to maintain admissions standards, demand for legal education should keep the salaries of law professors at their inflated levels.

I think its abominable to ask the rest of the university, which is subject to higher standards of scholarship, to subsidize a unit that pay itself considerably more while having lower scholarship requirements to meet.

Contrary to Nathan A's point, faculty compensation reflects, in part, the opportunity cost of not being an attorney in private or government practice (e.g. many firms at which faculty worked pay partners easily in excess of $500k base annually before bonuses). As tenure and the other advantages of being a faculty member (not having clients, etc) are important non-monetary forms of compensation, faculty salaries are less than what they could command in private practice. This is also why business school programs often have very well compensated faculty. Few PhDs in mechanical engineering can say they similarly passed up such handsome financial salaries.

That said, I too am sympathetic with Professor Monopoli's proposal on other grounds. Too many law faculty have retired in place and consume without producing — no scholarship, little to no service to the institution or beyond, and sub par teaching. It's hard to defend the academic freedom justification offered for tenure when the faculty are not using their academic freedom to write, engage in service, or teaching beyond showing up for class.

If the tenure "for cause" termination clause isn't going to have any teeth, there needs to be some other incentive to get faculty to produce. "Eating what you kill" via grant funding or other activity seems to be one way to advance that goal.

TS: I am so tired of hearing that law profs passed up high six-figure salaries to teach. What nonsense to apply this to EVERY law professor at EVERY school as a means to justify their high salaries. Very few profs can demonstrate that they actually sacrificed financially to teach.

For the rest, it is nothing but speculation since many entered the legal academy directly after clerking, other government service, a few years in private practice with no assurance that they would make partner at a Biglaw firm. Just because other attorneys at their former firms make in excess of $500K, doesn't mean they would have done so.

Law faculty make what they make because the money was there and law deans had autonomy to pay what they could to keep faculty quiet and happy and off their backs.

Most law profs I know admit to having hated private practice — that is why they left. They did not sacrifice millions of dollars in lifetime compensation for the good of the profession or their students. They tend to be a self-interested bunch.

Exactly, Ellen. Any hypothetical projected partner-level income has to be severely discounted to reflect the fact that the majority of biglaw lawyers leave biglaw by 5 years. For some reason law professors refuse to engage this point no matter how often it's raised.

Ellen and ZDT: do you have any evidence for any of your claims? Of course not. Let me offer some.

I left Biglaw before 5 years for academia. I've stayed in touch with many of my fellow lawyers from that time and from my law school class (a top law school). Most did leave the big law firms within five years. Twenty years on, most of them earn salaries in the half-million to million range, some with other big firms, some with smaller firms, boutiques and the like. Had I stayed, I would presumably have done the same, or made partner at the firm I was at. I took an immediate paycut to enter law teaching, though not as significant a paycut as I would have taken had I left to enter teaching elsewhere in the university. The nonmonetary benefits are significant enough I would have made the change anyway, though at some level of salary, I would have just stayed in practice. This is typical for almost everyone I know in academia. (One fellow associate, who did become a partner at the big law firm, and now earns at least 1.5 million was the only other person at my firm who could have had a shot at academia, but he never had any interest.)

"Contrary to Nathan A's point, faculty compensation reflects, in part, the opportunity cost of not being an attorney in private or government practice (e.g. many firms at which faculty worked pay partners easily in excess of $500k base annually before bonuses). As tenure and the other advantages of being a faculty member (not having clients, etc) are important non-monetary forms of compensation, faculty salaries are less than what they could command in private practice. This is also why business school programs often have very well compensated faculty. Few PhDs in mechanical engineering can say they similarly passed up such handsome financial salaries."

Dear TS,

There's some truth to this. But seriously, what percentage of the legal faculty are truly partnership material? Let's not pretend that in an alternate universe where law faculty salaries only grew at the rate of inflation since the 90s that most current law professors would be partners at V100 fims. Now that might be true of some star faulty, but you could make the same case of star faculty in engineering. As tenure and the other advantages of being a faculty member (not commercializing your technology) are important non-monetary forms of compensation, faculty salaries are less than what they could command in private sector.

But I'll concede the point that on average compensation for well-credentialed lawyers beats that of well-credentialed engineers/scientists. However, that compensation isn't 3-4 times greater.

I'd love to see how compensation of law faculty would play in a world without unlimited student loans from the federal government. In theory, people would still be giving up the same rewards from private practice. But even with lower compensation, I'm pretty sure we'd see the same people choosing to enter academia. I don't remember law schools having trouble reeling in talent in the late 90s and early 2000s when compensation levels were a lot more reasonable.

More fighting about how much faculty could have earned had they stayed in practice? That whole argument is speculative anecdote v. speculative anecdote, and neither side is ever going to convince the other.

How about we consider this question instead: is there any chance that new law faculty salaries will continue to match those of the past given the decline in enrollment and income? I don't see how it can, even if some faculty (a) produce "better scholarship" and (b) the best potential faculty are driven to stay in practice at a particular price point.

Does anyone know of any data on what impact, if any, the changing market for law schools has had on new faculty compensation?

A few points in reply to above:

"I'd love to see how compensation of law faculty would play in a world without unlimited students loans from the federal government."

Excuse me, but STEM programs also receive federal government loans. If you want to make that argument, at least make it a fair comparison. I grant that the availability of federal financial aid inflates tuition, but that benefits ALL the programs at a university.

"Very few profs can demonstrate that they actually sacrificed financially to teach. "

Uh, excuse me, but GS 15, step 10 pay is in excess of what many law professors at my level of experience are paid. That is lock step. Most of us, graduating from top law schools, with elite clerkships, elite firm experience, in major markets did work and could have continued to work, at a minimum for that pay. In the DC market (where I worked), GS 15 step 10 is currently above my salary at $157,100. And this was federal GOVERNMENT practice, not private practice. I had already advanced to GS 14 step something or another when I started teaching.

"Excuse me, but STEM programs also receive federal government loans. If you want to make that argument, at least make it a fair comparison. I grant that the availability of federal financial aid inflates tuition, but that benefits ALL the programs at a university."

Dear TS,

This is true but misses the point that student loans disproportionally benefit programs that don't have a paid apprenticeship component. A minority of STEM graduate student take on loan debt and the median debt for those that do is in the $50k range (I don't know how, but apparently there are some diploma mills in the sciences too). The picture of law student loan debt looks markedly different.

To be clear, I don't think salaries in the $100k-$200k range are really anything to gripe about. There is a real opportunity cost to entering academia. But the $200k+ plus salaries are a little bit ridiculous. At those salaries, it seems outrageous to ask students to subsidize scholarship that no else seems willing to subsidize.

A response to TS:

1) I remember getting a nice raise going from DOJ to an entry-level teaching position when I started teaching, and I was a GS-15 when I left DOJ. It wold have been different if I had been a GS-15 Step 10, I suppose, but how many young lawyers are Step 10s?

2) If you're going to compare law teaching and private sector salaries, don't you also have to consider the additional income many lawprofs continue to make outside their academic positions, such as from consulting?

TS,

"Excuse me, but STEM programs also receive federal government loans."

That is because the American public believes that STEM research is an important public good. They do not feel the same way about legal academic research. Federal student loans are designed to provide students with access to education without being gauged by private banks. It is not designed as a subsidy for your unimportant work, despite the fact that you make it so.

"Most of us, graduating from top law schools, with elite clerkships, elite firm experience, in major markets did work and could have continued to work, at a minimum for that pay."

THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE DONE THAT. You lost your market power when you left the actual practice of law. It is gone. Don't believe me, try sending out your resume for kicks and see if you get an interview. You will hear nothing. Your students are right to treat you as though you have no options, because a) it is true, and b) Lord knows that is how everyone treats them.

"THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE DONE THAT. You lost your market power when you left the actual practice of law. It is gone. Don't believe me, try sending out your resume for kicks and see if you get an interview. You will hear nothing. Your students are right to treat you as though you have no options, because a) it is true, and b) Lord knows that is how everyone treats them."

JM,

You realize you just made a very strong argument for giving faculty lifetime job security, right?

The post above concerned scholarship, but quickly evolved into some law faculty whining about how much money they "could be" making.

For most law faculty, that is a fantasy that no one who understands the legal market is willing to accept as reality.

Perhaps the reason for incessant whining in legal academia is that so many law faculty realize that their teaching is not exceptional, and that they have produced little or no scholarship of any import. In other words, the vast majority of these "super stars" who could command "million dollar salaries" but for their "sacrifice" in joining legal academia are actually mediocre performers at best. And, unfortunately, there are no market forces to compel a turn to the contrary in legal academia.

This mediocrity (and this is true, btw, of some of the supposedly "prominent" members in legal academia) leads to guilt and self-doubt, from there, on to a sense of entitlement to overcome the self-doubt, and then on, from entitlement to whining about never having enough.

Read some of the comments above, and you will see this, plainly and clearly on display.

Nathaniel A, you said. . .

"You realize you just made a very strong argument for giving faculty lifetime job security, right?"

What, you're saying that lifetime job security is the only way to get decent applicants? I call BS. Well under 100 new faculty hires were made last year. Each year alone there are 300+ grads that were on law review at HYS, not to mention many other highly qualified candidates from other top 10 schools. Many if not the majority cannot stomach the idea of working in private practice for more than 5 years, nevermind a lifetime. Not to mention, a number of them don't have the particular skill set for generating business. It's a crazy buyers market for entry level law faculty, and schools can and should REDUCE compensation packages and committments to new hires.

Edit that last post. More like 100 law review grads on HYS, but still probably 300-500 very qualified candidates for entry level faculty hires overall.

anon: "I left Biglaw before 5 years for academia. I've stayed in touch with many of my fellow lawyers from that time and from my law school class (a top law school). Most did leave the big law firms within five years. Twenty years on, most of them earn salaries in the half-million to million range, some with other big firms, some with smaller firms, boutiques and the like. Had I stayed, I would presumably have done the same, or made partner at the firm I was at."

What's the percentage who make partner? 10-15%?

"You realize you just made a very strong argument for giving faculty lifetime job security, right?"

No, TS didn't make any such argument. The situation of a faculty member who has been out of practice for long enough to lose all market power is essentially the same as many other "JD advantage" jobs. Someone who leaves Biglaw to become a reporter or business exec. etc. also isn't going to find a job in practice at a certain distance out. That loss is an opportunity cost associated with making a life choice to pursue a particular calling. In any other area, a high opportunity cost is not an argument for life tenure and it's not a legitimate one in academia either.

Now, a prudent future academic may want to demand such security and a school might in a particular case want to offer that level of job security as an offset for compensation to attract a particularly desirable candidate, just as a corporation might offer an employment contract with a huge severance bonus, but that is a far cry from saying as a general proposition that a school should offer all faculty or all faculty of a particular level of seniority such security.

I'm not saying there aren't good arguments for giving all faculty who have reached a particular level of seniority lifetime job security. There are. Diminution of the faculty job prospects outside the academy over time just isn't one of those arguments.

Law faculty are my favorite type of special snowflake. They are so delusional that they don't even engage in sour grapes rationalization. Rather, it's an infuriating pseudo-martyrism, "I'm sure the grapes are quite sweet, but I passed on them because of my commitment to scholarship and the public interest. As I've already sacrificed millions of dollars from not obtaining my sure thing biglaw partnership, the least I'm entitled to is to be among the top paid members of the university until I'm appointed to the Supreme Court."

Why don't we test these theories? Let's offer an entry-level faculty position paying $40,000 from a mid-range law school, ask for stellar qualifications, and see how many people apply. If the professors above are correct, then qualified applicants will be hesitant to give up their chances at the brass ring for such a paltry sum. If the other posters are correct, then the job would receive hundreds of qualified applications.

SF lawyer, isn't the issue what counts as "qualified"?

SF lawyer, obviously you aren't going to get any qualified applicants @ $40k. But I think $80k-110k would make for an interesting experiment.

SF Lawyer

I think that we are going to start seeing something in the neighborhood of what you suggest in the next five years or so. I doubt we will see a starting salary for a tenure-track position start that low—I'd think more around 60k—and I think mid-level schools will wait a bit longer than lower ranked stand-alone schools. Let's not forget that at many lower ranked schools clinical, visiting, and legal writing professors are already making far lower salaries than tenured and tenure-track folks.

SF Lawyer

Let's make that a bit sweeter. The job offer is from an unranked law school.

Take any of the bottom quartile of law schools. Listen to the faculty at these schools pontificate about the millions they gave up to "sacrifice" to teach at a law school.

Read the "scholarship" they have produced (IF ANY, especially post tenure, which at many schools is almost routine). Evaluate their teaching – not only based on their generally mediocre at best student evals, but also upon the only real proof of the actual knowledge garnered by their students – based on the subject matter knowledge reflected on essay exams (one realizes the latter review, the only true test of teaching effectiveness that isn't a personality quiz, is rarely if ever performed; and that peer to peer teaching evals are also plagued by politics).

When law faculty preen and post about their monetary value in the legal market, one wonders just how sheltered they must be; the howls of laughter provoked almost everywhere in the legal community is apparently entirely unheard.

As with most things, there is a bit of truth on either side. In my opinion, law schools would have no problem finding plenty of qualified lawyers to teach for $50K/year. Those lawyers may not want to do much or any scholarship and may not have been on the law journal at Yale, but I imagine they would be as good teachers and would be smart, successful individuals. I am really surprised that no law school has tried this and tried to be a cost leader. Perhaps it would be difficult with the ABA; I don't know enough about their rules.

Most of the law professors I know were qualified for BigLaw, but many did not have the personality to become a rain-making partner. Obviously, there are some exceptions. Most law professors are whip smart and talented enough to make more money elsewhere, in something like a service partner role, but it is hard to beat the quality of life of a law professor. Most law professors do not make $200K+. Some of us make under $100K, especially at small, private law schools. I am not complaining.

"Why don't we test these theories? Let's offer an entry-level faculty position paying $40,000 from a mid-range law school, ask for stellar qualifications, and see how many people apply." We already see fulltime faculty work for about $40K. It is called a visiting assistant professor position. Of course, the hope is that they turn that into an entry level position, but that is becoming more of a risk. The VAP positions come with almost no security, however, which is worse than most entry level positions that, until recently, were very safe and are still relatively safe at most places. Would love to see the data on people who leave firm life for VAPs and strike out on the faculty market. My guess is that they have a relatively tough time breaking back into practice at a level similar to when they left, unless they have solid connections to help them.

All of that said, I think a school should try the 40K (or 50K) experiment and charge $10K a year in tuition and see what happens.

"All of that said, I think a school should try the 40K (or 50K) experiment and charge $10K a year in tuition and see what happens."

While I agree, we won't see this absent it being part of a new law school. The ABA requirements essentially make already employed professor salaries a fixed cost and no faculty will vote to reduce its pay that far. Without the cost reduction, no existent school currently charging 30-40k (most of them that aren't state supported) can afford to drop tuition that low.

Agreed. I think a new law school should try this and drive some of the bottom feeders out of business. Just think about the hundreds of attorneys who would like to teach who were unable to find a position over the past few years. Also, some of those lawyers might really buy into a school that had a purpose of keeping tuition very low. Indiana Tech had a chance to go this way, but refused. A school focused on the future of law, with affordable tuition would go far.

Mr. Kerr raises an excellent question, which is what counts as "qualified"? In my opinion, it does not take a superstar to teach a typical 1L contracts course. Insistence that students be taught by the very top candidates is misguided. Even if it's well-intentioned, it results in more harm than good. Students can be taught about contract formation and unconscionability at a fraction of the price by someone who never clerked for the Supreme Court. No one has ever explained to me why someone needs stellar academic qualifications to teach basic legal concepts. If there is a good explanation, I am willing to listen.

However, I still believe that even academic superstars can and will be persuaded in sufficient numbers to leave or forego large firm employment and join the academia if they are offered $60k to start, and a career high of $120k. Private practice at a large law firm is very stressful, and the practitioner is under constant pressure to sell. It takes a very specific type of personality to survive and thrive in this environment. Most are not cut out for it.

"Would love to see the data on people who leave firm life for VAPs and strike out on the faculty market. My guess is that they have a relatively tough time breaking back into practice at a level similar to when they left, unless they have solid connections to help them."

This has been discussed extensively, both on here and Prawfs. The general experience seems to be that it's doable but difficult, and a lot of VAPs ended up unemployed.

SF Lawyer: As everyone here knows, law schools do not hire SCOTUS clerks, or ivy league PhD/JDs because they are the only people qualified to teach. They hire these people to impress other law school faculties. It's all about keeping up with the Joneses and it has been going on before US News, so don't blame them.

Prospective students do not study the bios/C.V.s/publications lists of a law schools faculty before applying. It's all about impressing the law schools down the street or on the other side of town.

Faculties seek to hire these elites because it makes them feel superior when they have them as "colleagues."

Many full-time faculty members have utter distain for adjuncts because they know that many adjuncts teach as well (if not better) then they do, that many students enjoy being taught by adjunct/practitioners and that in the current environment, the adjuncts may pose a real threat to them.

S.F. wrote "However, I still believe that even academic superstars can and will be persuaded in sufficient numbers to leave or forego large firm employment and join the academia if they are offered $60k to start, and a career high of $120k. Private practice at a large law firm is very stressful, and the practitioner is under constant pressure to sell. It takes a very specific type of personality to survive and thrive in this environment. Most are not cut out for it."

Boy, are you right about that and no academic who bemoans the millions he/she gave up to teach seems to recognize this. Or will admit it. Most academics would not have been as successful in practice as they keep telling themselves.

Ellen

and the truth is: most weren't on track to be successful in practice.

This is the dirty little secret of legal academia.

As anyone who has taught at an elite law school knows, especially one who has taught first year classes – an elite education does NOT a successful legal practitioner produce. The factors that combine to produce a person who can practice law effectively are too numerous to describe here: suffice it to say that pitifully few persons in legal academia demonstrate these characteristics; this is often demonstrated by the arguments propounded right here in the faculty lounge.

An elite law school background with a reasonable personality in an interview might have landed a "BigLaw" position, especially when hiring was not a tight as it is at present. But that experience, especially for so brief a time, is a completely meaningless credential and proof of nothing in terms of predicting future success in practice.

The truth is that the vast majority of persons in legal academia are delusional if they claim to have made any "sacrifice" whatsoever to join legal academia, leaving aside the patently bizarre claim some make to have "sacrificed" multi million dollar salaries in private practice.

By all means, let's start imposing standards on law faculties: tenured or not. Start with the production of credible scholarship (by whatever measure: placement, citations, peer review, etc.). Add a minimum competency in teaching (by whatever measure: peer review, student evaluations, actual review of student work product, etc.) Add to these requirements, demonstrable public service. Do not allow ANY time spent in faculty meetings to count toward this service, but require regular attendance and participation in several faculty committees. Monitor office hours, and time on campus, and impose minimums here as well. Require summer work on campus with students needing help, or time in the clinics assisting there.

Of course, these requirements would be just a beginning.

"Prospective students do not study the bios/C.V.s/publications lists of a law schools faculty before applying."

Sometimes they do. I looked for the contributors to the law commentaries in my state when picking schools, only to discover upon matriculating that the professor (still listed on the website) had retired and no one very familiar with the law of the state had been hired to replace them.

The opportunity cost argument is silly. Maybe that tenured liberal arts professor making half of what law professors make and teaching twice as much would have had the same opportunities if they'd decided to go to business or law school.

The truth is that law schools simply need to pay professors less so they can lower tuition to get applicants to come back to law school. If that means their candidates clerked for judges in D. Montana instead of the SDNY, or worked at a midlaw firm instead of for Davis Polk, I really do not see what the problem is or what the profession is losing. Guys like Rob Illig are of course welcome to go back to those seven figure salaries they so nobly gave up.

The Task Force report was right – the legal academy needs to get over its juvenile obsession with prestige. Big firms can be obsessed with it because they're paid by IBM and GM. You're getting paid by broke 22 year olds.

Bored JD

Broke 22 year olds, yes, but they are just pawns.

The money is taxpayer money. Legal academia showed its unbridled greed when it hiked tuition rates mercilessly to funnel these funds thru students.

The money was spent on buildings, yes, but also to indulge the egos of JDs who fancifully have believed they can credibly pose as economists, philosophers, historians, etc. without going thru the rigor required by the relevant departments of the university.

Part of the reason "legal" scholarship is so often dismissed as irrelevant is that it does not concern "law" at all but rather the work product of untrained, inexperienced JDs pretending to be qualified to write about subjects in which they possess little or no talent or expertise.

Equally problematic are those persons who possess such expertise in some field other than law who pretend that their field is relevant somehow to a legal education because it "intersects" with law: as all subjects under the sun do.

Higher education is "monetizing" the cognitive biases and access to credit of young people.

At its most cynical, where I'm at after the drubbing I took, students at every law school below. . . lets say Fordham, the school that didn't let me in, are little more than a conduit for federal student loan monies with the smallest fig leaf of an educational experience.

Sympathy for law schools and professors? I have none.

My $0.02 "This has been discussed extensively, both on here and Prawfs. The general experience seems to be that it's doable but difficult, and a lot of VAPs ended up unemployed."

The consensus that I heard on various blogs was that 'difficult' meant 'really, really hard', since they had taken a few years out of the business, and clearly wanted out.

Terry,

I don't think that it's fair to paint all of the lower ranked schools with the same brush. Certainly, there are more than a few programs that operate exactly as you suggest. For example, I find the very notion of a for-profit law school abhorrent and antithetical to the purpose of a legitimate educational institution.

But there are some smaller, low ranked that schools have been around for a very long time and which produce attorneys to serve a particular market. Those schools have a cohort of professors who were either in practice for a meaningful length of time or who are legitimate experts in their state's law. Those types of schools aren't entirely blameless, most have raised tuition to unacceptable levels and occasionally made silly prestige hires, but students who go there do have an opportunity for a solid legal education including some practical training through clinics and externships. Whether those students choose take advantage of the opportunity by taking the good and usually harder classes rather than the easy B+ "write a college paper" seminars is a different matter.

Generally agreed, former editor.

I'm a little too Madame Defarge when it comes to law schools in general.

However, I think those victimized by law schools and higher education are too dazed and ashamed by their experience to express their righteous anger.

I'm angry. A law school took advantage of me and my peers. My anger isn't going to change a whole hell of a lot, but I'm not going to be silent.

My school will keep fleecing its students. But I've expressed my strong displeasure with my Dean in a public forum, and will do so whenever I have the opportunity. I'll also tell every person thinking of law school the truth.

Even if I can't change a thing, my dean can't say no-one told him what he was doing was wrong.

"Ellen and ZDT: do you have any evidence for any of your claims? Of course not. Let me offer some."

Said by 'anon'.

"I left Biglaw before 5 years for academia. "

Which means that the prior probability of you making partner was low to very low.

In addition, you *chose* to leave.

"I've stayed in touch with many of my fellow lawyers from that time and from my law school class (a top law school). Most did leave the big law firms within five years. Twenty years on, most of them earn salaries in the half-million to million range, some with other big firms, some with smaller firms, boutiques and the like."

'Many' 'Most' 'a top law school'.

" Had I stayed, I would presumably have done the same, or made partner at the firm I was at. "

Here's thing, 'anon' – we know the odds. We know that you probably would not have made partner. We also know that if you did make partner, you could have still tried to get into academia (seven years in rather than five – what difference?)

"I took an immediate paycut to enter law teaching, though not as significant a paycut as I would have taken had I left to enter teaching elsewhere in the university."

You also took a radical reduction in hours, and a incredibly massive reduction in stress. Depending on the tenure track odds at that time, you very likely gained in likely job security.

"The consensus that I heard on various blogs was that 'difficult' meant 'really, really hard', since they had taken a few years out of the business, and clearly wanted out."

Honestly, it was about 50-50 from the people I know. I know a couple who were able to go back to their pre-VAP firms, and one who did a VAP from government who went to a firm. I also know several who are now solos — not sure if that means unemployed or not, but suspect it does.

One piece of the puzzle from this most recent thread left out of this equation is the disdain that the fancy law professors who teach doctrinal courses show for legal writing faculty. LW faculty rarely have the option of tenure, rarely get paid what the fancy doctrinal professors get paid, and yet–dare I say it—actually teach the one skill students need to practice law! Start asking your alums who have jobs what really mattered in law school, and I doubt it will be one of the doctrinal subjects. And one final jab–LW faculty do have opportunities outside of academia. We've had LW visitors, not adjuncts, at our school who have been out of legal practice and in the academy for two, three, even four years return quite successfully to much higher paying jobs in legal practice. Hmm…