Title: Rankings, Economic Challenge, and the Future of Legal Education
Abstract: I was asked, some months back, to speak to the assembled law school deans about the future of legal education—particularly in the crush of economic challenge.1 At one level, I was surprised by the invitation, since this was one of the few times, in the last two decades, that I was neither a dean nor university president. So I was an unlikely choice to address those still bold or foolish enough to remain in the saddle. But it occurred to me that the conference organizers might have had other motives. Perhaps this was a “leadership protection effort” on the part of the Association of American Law Schools. I had been a law dean for many years. Like a lot of my colleagues, I’d been recruited off and on for various university presidencies. But until four or five years ago, I had consistently said no— explaining I was reasonably certain that being a law school dean was, all told, a better job than being president. Then, inexplicably, I succumbed and moved to that other level. Given the modestly public challenges of my controversial tenure at the College of William & Mary, perhaps the AALS planners thought I was living testament to the accuracy of my initial assessment. How better to demonstrate, than by bruising example, the wisdom of staying put? If so, there were risks, still, in the strategy. After a year as a regular faculty member—teaching thrillingly large classes, running engaging seminars, studying only what you choose, setting your own schedule, seeing your wife, enjoying your kids—I could also report to my former colleagues, first hand, that there is indeed a reason we all came into this line of work in the first place. It is, lo and behold, still available. And the luxury of being able to say exactly what you want, in exactly the way you want to say it—without worrying what some spewing, flat-earth legislator or boorish, bullying, billionaire might think—these are sweet pleasures too delicious to surrender. If you can resist the temptation to run the shop, happiness protrudes at every turn.
Publication Year: 2012
Publication Date: 2012-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
Access and Citation
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot