'Nuf Said

Based on data provided to the faculty and my far from always accurate calculations, The University of Florida hiring committee interviewed 31 people in Washington. Here are their law schools:
Harvard – 8
Yale -7
Columbia – 4
NYU - 2
Stanford -2
Chicago -2
Vand. - 1
Penn. – 1
Mich.-1
Virginia -1
UCLA -1
Case Western – 1 (this candidate also has a tax LLM from NYU)

Nine of the schools listed, accounting for 28 of the candidates, are what would be regarded as elite schools. Yes, UF missed by only three people of having an elitist only interview line up. Only 3 candidates came from public schools and two of those are regarded as elite law schools.

The nine schools responsible for 28 candidates were included in a study I made of scholarly productivity of faculty found at 4 Law Schools that are at the bottom of top tier of law schools. I compared the productivity of graduates from those elite schools who end up at the bottom of the top tier with productivity of faculty from all other schools. My results indicate that there was no correlation between level of School and scholarship. There was, however, anecdotal evidence that level of school was correlated with high levels of self promotion and resume building for the same of resume building.

I suspect that the list looks a great deal like that at other schools and that it is roughly like the lists for all schools for many years.

At this point in one of my posts I might attempt to explain why legal education needs another elitist education professor like it needs a lobotomy which is, by the way, what this type of hiring has done for many law schools. But, when you think about it, the burden should be the other way around. In the absence of any evidence of people from these schools make better law professors, why persist. We know why: they look, talk like and have experiences like the people hiring them. But I am asking why they would be the exclusive focus of hiring efforts if one had the best interests of the students and stakeholders in mind.