Academic

In the seemingly never ending discussion of the utility and appropriateness of hiring  interdisciplinary scholars for 3-4 tier law schools Alfred Brophy offers a fresh perspective that gets to the bottom line. First, no one has offered any systematic evidence that interdisciplinary scholars are better or worse law teachers than non-interdisciplinary scholars - when I see such evidence, then we can begin discussing its accuracy and insightfulness. Until then, Brophy does a wonderful job of stating the obvious - and I mean this in a non-sarcastic way - hard to believe, but true. The real question here is about law faculty publishing vs. law faculty teaching in tier 3-4 schools. In most of these schools, the non-law faculty have anywhere from a 3-2 teaching load to a 4-4 teaching load. The expectations for these professors regarding research are certainly lower than their counterparts at 2-2 load schools.  Brody sets forth an example of the potential savings to a law school and its students if such a teaching load.

So, take a hypothetical fourth tier law school with 21 faculty. Each faculty members costs $110,000 per year and teach 12 hours a year. Then increase their teaching load to 18 hours a year (a three-three load.) That increase by 50% in the teaching load would allow us to reduce the faculty to 14, for a savings of $770,000 per year. If all of that savings were passed on to student body of 630, that’s a savings of $1222 per student. That is perhaps not the earth-shaking transformation in legal education (or the cost of it) that we might hope for. Yet, this might very well be something some schools want to do and it’s a choice some students might opt for as well.

Brophy sets this forth as an all or nothing idea - abandon the writing requirement and have law faculty teach a 3-3 course load. I don’t think that most political science departments with a 3-3 load allow their faculty to do away with the writing component of their jobs - it’s less than what one finds at a 2-2 load school, but there are still requirements to publish. I know of a good number of people at 3-3 load schools who actively publish and do it well (and teach well). So, I am wondering what the new publishing standard for tenure and promotion in law schools might be with, say, a 3-3 or 4-4 teaching load.  Brophy wonders about why such teaching load adjustments haven’t already occurred:

Perhaps there is more of it already going on than I’m familiar with–but for the moment let’s assume that increases in teaching loads beyond 12 hours/year are rare even at fourth tier schools. Why we’re not seeing more of this? It would seem to me that there are sufficient opportunities for fourth tier schools to innovate in this direction, if there is a need for this and if it makes sense. In short, I’m wondering, if dropping scholarship is such a great idea, why hasn’t it happened yet? I wouldn’t imagine that the ABA’s accreditation standards (particularly 402) would prevent this change.

I have a tentative answer to Alfred’s question “why hasn’t it happened yet?” Some faculty at 2-2 load schools who loudly protest that we should emphasize teaching more and research less may not actually want to teach more classes - they may simply want more credit for teaching the 4 classes per year that they already teach.

So, again, I ask - what would be the proposed publication standard for tenure at a law school with a 3-3 load? A 4-4 load? A 2-2 load for that matter? I recognize that it’s hard to state such things specifically, but we’re looking for a ballpark figure here? 8 articles? A book and 3 articles? 7 articles? Placement and impact considerations? Teaching performance considerations? Other factors?