Practice Experience: A New Facet of Faculty Diversity?

With a new faculty hiring season approaching (presumably . . . hopefully), I want to discuss the value of significant practice experience for tenure track ("TT") law professors. 

My thoughts on this topic are ultimately self-serving and informed by my own experience as I practiced for 11.5 years before becoming a full-time professor.  I was unpleasantly surprised by the prevailing wisdom regarding practice experience when I went to the meat market in 2010.  Back then the conventional wisdom seemed to be as follows:  Ideal:  zero to 3 years of practice; Acceptable: 3-5 years of practice; Potentially Disqualiying: more than 5 years of practice up to 10 years of practice; Disqualifying: more than 10 years of practice.  [Of course, the conventional wisdom does not hold at all schools and for all candidates -- I got a job; Jeff Lipshaw practiced for 25 years; many others in the academy have significant practice experience.  However, if you read through the comments on the linked post above, profs from the T14 to the fourth tier made similar comments and acknowledged the prevailing view.]   

The primary justifications I have heard for disfavoring those with significant practice experience are (1) that there are often questions regarding the motives for leaving practice (i.e., couldn't cut it, looking to "retire and teach" [HA!], etc.); (2) that "practice rots the brain" (HA! again); (3) that practitioners will not be able to produce "valuable" scholarship (which reflects the perceived bias against doctrinal scholarship in the academy); and (4) that a practitioner will just tell a bunch of war stories in the classroom and not actually teach.  I think each of these justifications reflects a broad, unfair, and inaccurate stereotype of experienced practitioners.  

This issue has taken on added relevance over the last year or more given the changes taking place in legal education and in the larger legal economy.  (See, for example, this post from PrawfsBlawg, and this one and this one from Conglomerate, this one and this one from ProfessorBainbridge, and, of course, a vast number of message board comments [including some on the foregoing posts]).  There is a greater focus on the need for experiential education for all law students (due to ABA mandates and otherwise) and on the aspiration that law schools produce something close to "practice ready" lawyers.   

Yet, despite these changes, many schools seem to remain hesitant to hire experienced practitioners (see the various hiring reports on Prawfs for details), although there were a number of hires last year of folks who were 10 to 20 years out of law school.  [Prawfs does not track practice experience per se, just year of initial law school graduation.]  Yet, in the last cycle, 51% of the self-reported hires had advanced degrees and 84% did at least one fellowship, neither of which may be an option for an experience practitioner (I, for example, went on the market with 4 kids, a mortgage + other debt, and was looking at a $50k to $60k paycut to move to a TT position [which would have been a $110k+ paycut to take a fellowship]).  

While the hiring of 17 or so new profs who were 10-20 years out of school shows some positive movement, there can be little dispute that over the last decade (or more?), the dominant trend has been to hire primarily folks with minimal practice experience (a year or 2 post-clerkship in a BigLaw firm) for tenure track positions, often with a preference for those with PhDs in other disciplines. 

There is absolutely nothing inherently wrong with hiring folks who fit the paradigm above.  Hundreds of law professors with minimal practice experience and/or PhDs are wonderful teachers, scholars, and colleagues who have provided significant value to their schools and their students.  Such folks should unquestionably continue to be a large part of the legal academy.  But should most law school faculties be made up primarily of such folks?  Given the current environment, my answer is no. 

Ultimately, I see this as an issue of faculty diversity.  Few would dispute that there should be a mix of races and genders on any law faculty, because of the variety of life experiences and perspectives that will exist in any heterogenous group.  [I am also a believer in diversity of political, philosophical and other viewpoints as well.] 

Likewise, there should be diversity of legal backgrounds -- Ph.Ds, "traditional" academics, and experienced practitioners -- in the tenured/TT ranks of EVERY law faculty (with the possible exception of Harvard, Yale, Stanford, etc.). 

Each will bring a different point of view to the classroom, the faculty lounge, and the faculty workshop. They may produce different types of scholarship with (potentially) different audiences.  They may collaborate in new and exciting ways.  Provided there is mutual respect among those of different backgrounds, each can inform the teaching and scholarship of the other.  Further, a diversity of backgrounds allows a diversity of perspectives for counseling and advising and supporting students.  All of this seems highly desirable to me, especially in the current environment.

Bottom line, diversity on any given law faculty should encompass not just race, sex, national origin, etc., but should also embrace differences in experience in the law.  There is certainly room for this type of diversity in the legal academy (and without creating second class citizens among the legal professoriate).

[Just FYI, I will moderate the comments so keep them on point.]

Comments

[anon]

I would always combine the adjective "meaningful" with the word "experience."

This qualification allows for some flexibility. Certainly, the experience of most new hires these days in practice has not be "meaningful."

We can see this in the need to ask. If one needs to ask whether the experience of a person with two years in BigLaw was "meaningful" one demonstrates ignorance. It would take too long to explain here: it's like trying to tell a stranger about rock and roll, if you can relate to that old line.

Herein, we see the problem. Most hiring committees are not even equipped to ask about the meaningfulness of the experience of a candidate because they have no reference points and, on the whole, don't care to know because of a disdain for the practitioners in general.

[CHS]

Anon, I expect that "Meaningful" would be a much debated/discussed term. Were you in BigLaw? If so, for how long? How long have you been on a faculty?

[anon]

CHS

Good questions!

Irrelevant to the merits of any issue and completely irrelevant to my last comment, if you read it.

But, good questions if one wants to personalize the debate and attack the speaker (which, unfortunately, seems to be the mo of many both in legal academia and out of it).

Hence, the anonymous nature of most comments here in the FL, including yours.

[CHS]

Wait a second. Personalize?

"We can see this in the need to ask. If one needs to ask whether the experience of a person with two years in BigLaw was "meaningful" one demonstrates ignorance. It would take too long to explain here: it's like trying to tell a stranger about rock and roll, if you can relate to that old line."

Was that you, anon?

And it is relevant.

[CHS]

In any event, I think I have the answer. I was mistaken in my original assumption. I should not have engaged. Over and out.

[anon]

CHS

"We can see this in the need to ask. If one needs to ask whether the experience of a person with two years in BigLaw was "meaningful" one demonstrates ignorance."

I'll stand by that.

I dont' recall CHS asking or stating whether two years experience in BigLaw would be considered "meaningful" so, the reference was to any one, not that to any particular anonymous commenter.

CHS asked repeatedly in this thread "how much" experience is "experience" and as stated above, my answer to that question was to "always combine the adjective 'meaningful' with the word 'experience.' This qualification allows for some flexibility. Certainly, the experience of most new hires these days in practice has not be "meaningful."

Because the average time in practice for new hires is now typically hovering at around two years in BigLaw (as I recall the stats cited here in the FL), it seemed fair to use that as a benchmark for discussion.

As for the "answers" to which CHS refers, that sounds sort of dodgy. Certainly not the answers mentioned above.

CHS: do you have answers to these questions: "Were you in BigLaw? If so, for how long? How long have you been on a faculty?"

[Paul Gowder]

Just a note: practice experience and phd/fellowship are not inconsistent. When I was on the market a few years ago I did it at the end of the phd and w/ 4 years of practice experience, which, not a ton, but more than many (and in public interest, which means actual responsibility from day 1, with clients and solo court appearances rather than doc review and writing endless memos).

How was that financially possible? See above, re public interest: leaving practice to do grad school barely hurt my finances at all.

What about public interest practice experience, anyway? Law schools have some reason to hire from big law whether 1 or 10 years of experience (knowledge of corporate law and deal making, possible contacts to get students jobs), but it seems to me that former public interest lawyers have some things to teach about things like, e.g., managing clients that few big law types will have.

[Orin Kerr]

Paul, fair point, although your experience is a bit unusual, I think. Also, if my memory is right, you graduated from law school at an unusually young age, which may have made that post-JD combo at least a little bit easier.