Legal Research

Path to Legal Academia

By jlutz99

This is a good review of a Harvard lunch time presentation by Prof. Daryl Levinson to students interested in entering legal academia.  An excerpt:

Instead of fancy grades, clerkships, and practical experience, the modern credential of choice for law school hiring committees is a graduate degree in an allied field such as economics, political science, and even English or psychology. Approximately twenty-five percent of entry-level professors hired last year had Ph.D.'s, and a large number had Master's degrees. While this is the biggest credential a candidate can have, don't despair if you haven't found the spare five to ten years to earn a terminal degree in molecular biophysics to help you compete for that intellectual property professorship you have your eye on. Levinson reassured the attendees that fewer than half of last year's hires had any graduate training. Law schools value Ph.D.'s because they indicate that candidates have certain qualities. If a candidate lacks the credential, he or she can still present those qualities independently.

Read the whole article here.

Posted by Jon Lutz

Full post as published by FSU College of Law Library Blog on October 22, 2007 (boomark / email).