Thursday, July 02, 2009

It Takes a Worried Man

Most law professors are worried people and worried people are not much in the sense of humor department. Crack a joke and the first reaction is "is this a joke? what does this really mean? is it OK to laugh? what are the political and social implications of laughing? If the humor is on the irreverent side you are better off saving your breath.

That all makes them pretty easy targets. Easy targets or not, a recent article by Ezra Rosser, On Becoming 'Professor': A Semi-Serious Look in the Mirror" 36 Florida State Law Review 215, is a wonderful, dead on, and hilarious take down of professordom. There are too many zingers here for me to summarize only a few so just read and enjoy. If you are worried, because it is funny, do it secretly. Close your door and look in the mirror. And one more thing. Thank goodness for the group of editors at the FSU law review who elected to published it.

I do not know if any reviews rejected it but if it had been rejected by all it could have been submitted to the new review just starting up, The Review of Unpublished Law Review Articles. This is a very slim new journal because with over 7200 articles published, there are precious few left for the R.Unp.L.R.A. This is not to be confused with its sister (or is it brother) review, The Review of Unpublishable Law Review Articles which is, obviously, peer reviewed.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

http://www.elsblog.org/the_empirical_legal_studi/2009/07/are-law-schools-part-of-problem-or-the-solution.html

I thought this post might interest you Professor.

"According to Paul, it is not that we are working on irrelevant stuff. It is worse than that: we are enjoying a comfortable living while loading our students up with debt and having a low opinion of practicing lawyers and the clients they service. Paul recounts a recent meeting with law school deans in which he "asked the question, 'If you decided the purpose of law school was to maximize the comfort and income of the faculty, what would you do differently?' The answer: 'Nothing.'""