October 11, 2007
40 Ways to Build a Law School
Legal scholars have been lining up to offer their two cents to Erwin Chemerinsky, who was recently hired, fired, and then re-hired as dean of the new law school at the University of California at Irvine.
Paul Caron, who teaches law at the University of Cincinnati, recently asked readers of his blog, TaxProf, to share their wisdom with Chemerinsky. Forty people answered the call.
The advice runs the gamut:
Two scholars, including Caron himself, urge the abolition of faculty tenure. “To attract and retain faculty,” Caron writes, “UC Irvine should pay a significant salary premium over comparable schools . . . and offer faculty-wide bonuses for student successes (e.g., bar passage, job placement).”
NYU’s Derrick Bell, who once relinquished his own teaching position as a protest against the lack of women of color on the faculty of Harvard Law School, where he was then teaching, urges Chemerinsky not to be too hopeful about the legal system’s ability to promote an egalitarian society.
A few scholars, including Ilya Somin of George Mason University, plead with Chemerinsky to ensure that the faculty includes conservatives and libertarians. (Somin, by the way, has been commenting extensively at the Volokh Conspiracy about Neil Gross and Solon Simmons’s new study of faculty political beliefs, which The Chronicle covered earlier this week.)
John Mayer, of the Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction, advises UC Irvine to offer frequent feedback to students, rather than grading them only once per semester. He writes: “Imagine if you took a job where you were paid at the end of 15 weeks based on your performance . . . but you weren’t told how well you were doing until the end of the 15 weeks. That’s law school.”
Dave Hoffman of Temple Law School suggests that no law school, including UC Irvine, will be able to innovate much unless the American Bar Association relinquishes its role as an accrediting body. (We also glanced at Hoffman’s ABA skepticism on this blog a few weeks ago.)
Last week a prominent L.A. trial lawyer pledged $1-million to the fledgling law school, saying that the money could be spent at Chemerinsky’s discretion. In the unlikely event that Chemerinsky wants to use the money to reward these 40 advice-givers for their blog posts, they would each get a $25,000 share.
(Photo by Flickr user laughlin.)
David Glenn | Posted on Thursday October 11, 2007 | PermalinkComments
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A new law school having been born only five or six years ago, The Charleston (SC) College of Law is now accredited and is attracting the best of bachelor degree holders by emphasizing that pro bono law for both faculty and students is for the greater good.
— Ross in Pawleys Oct 11, 04:24 PM #