Academic

The recent brouhaha sparked by Brian Tamanaha’s questioning whether interdisciplinary hiring is a good idea for 2-4 tier law schools, documented well here and here, has prompted Larry Solum to pen a very interesting (and long) take on the history of interdisciplinary scholarship in law schools. It focuses on the age old struggle regarding law schools’ place in academia - is it a trade/professional training center or is it part of the larger academy - can it be both? Here’s how he sums it up:

We live in interesting times–a blessing and a curse. I came of age as a legal academic in the 1980s. Critical Legal Studies rose and fell. Other critical perspectives began to emerge. Law and economics was on the cusp of its currently (and some would say dominant) position in the elite legal academy. Dworkin’s star was in the ascendency, and with it, there seemed to be great promise for philosophically rigorous approaches to normative legal theory. There was a time in the late 1980s when it seemed like a major new theoretical approach was appearing on a regular basis–a phenomenon that was mocked by the term “theory of the month club.” Sometimes, I hear my colleagues who were formed during this period express nostalgia for those more exciting times–and occasionally I find myself agreeing with them.

But in truth, I think the passage of times has made things more interesting and not less. I think that legal scholarship in 2007 is more vibrant than it was in 1987, and that there are more exciting young scholars today than ever before. These are interesting times, but with the intellectual ferment and strife comes uncertainty. How will the legal academy look in 2027? I don’t know, and although I am just foolish enough to guess, I won’t do that on this occasion. I will simply say this. I will be surprised if the typical entry-level professor at an elite law school in 2027 has the same profile as an entry-level professor today. It seems to me inevitable that something will be different.

Brian Leiter has some related thoughts here.