Part 6: Is There Too Much Legal Scholarship: The Research Impact Statement

 

 Is There a Way Out of Here? The Research Impact Statement

The short answer is that without of a complete restructuring of legal education along the lines discussed above, I doubt it.  This is especially true since law schools and law professors seem resistant to anything that smacks of cost benefit analysis and the concept of opportunity costs. These ideas are likely to be threatening because following their logic may mean upsetting the status quo.  Whether or not these concepts are employed, the reality is that though decisions about funding scholarship are made, the method of making those decisions seems untethered to any systematic analysis or specific goals. Perhaps all we can hope for is baby steps toward a more rational system.

Even baby steps need an objective and my choice would be to fund legal scholarship that has an actual, articulable, and rational  relationship to benefits of clients and consumers, broadly defined. Put in terms discussed above, there should be a justification based on attention to the demand side of the “market.”   Its impact can be  indirect but an article that does not start with an introduction that says, in effect,  “clients and others who rely on legal education or a system of laws will benefit by this effort because” is not worth the investment.  

So what steps could be taken? The first is to eliminate the assumption that all law professors are entitled to funding for research. The burden should be shifted to the professors themselves to make a case for funding. Thus, general rules that everyone receives a summer grant or has a lower teaching load to recognize their research obligations should be reversed. To use a common phrase --   research support should be a privilege not a right that automatically follows from being employed by a law school.

Each professor desiring to do legal research should submit a  “research impact statement” which notes the benefits, the research methodology, hypotheses to be tested, time schedule. The decision makers should view the process as a competitive one. This is not only competition with other professors but with other uses of the desired funding. The most obvious possibility is additional teaching obligations.

              Clearly this leads to the issue of how the decision to fund is made. Ideally it would be a committee composed of a law school dean or associate dean, a high ranking student, a member of the bar, and the faculty.  Proposals would be made to this group and viewed in the context of other possible uses of the professor’s time or other resources used to support his or her efforts. Returning to the market analogy noted above,  professors should be required to identify the demand (or need) even though it is not one actually expressed in the market.

In closing I concede that a limitation on this analysis is that  I have not addressed the problem of law reviews themselves. After all, law reviews are the most direct demanders of legal scholarship and the proliferation of reviews has just intensified demand. In theory, they should be viewed as and act as middle men. Their demand should be what economists call derived demand – it should be based on the demand by consumers and users of scholarship. There is little sign that this is the case.

In fact, as demanders of legal scholarship, law reviews exhibit a bias for institutional authority as opposed to reflecting the needs of readers and society more generally. Greater selectivity based on the actual needs of readers as opposed to what well credentialed authors choose to supply would be a more than a baby step. This does not, however, solve the problem of too great an investment in legal scholarship. In fact, the existing level of scholarship would likely redistributed from one review to another. On the other hand, knowledge that reviews are attentive to actual need could redirect resources for scholarship, much of which is just self-indulgent, into paths with greater value to readers.  

Part 5, Is There Too Much Legal Scholarship: What Accounts For Too Much of the Wrong Type of Scholarship

 

Part 5  Is There Too Much Legal Scholarship:  What Accounts for Too Much of the Wrong Type of Scholarship?

              A perfect academic storm has created this trouble state. Each facet is a necessary part. They are 1) the self-interest of administrators and professors, 2) the goals of law schools and law professors, 3) the narrow socioeconomic background of law professors and 4) the need to find some indicia of success. First, law professors are as self-interested as anyone else.  Many are ambitious and have the goal of being recognized, praised, and rising through the ranks of law schools. In terms of legal scholarship that means being published as much as possible in the highest ranked law review or by the most prestigious academic presses. It also requires picking the “right” kind of topic which nearly always means something theoretical or empirical. This is not only the way to “get ahead” for the professor,  it advances the reputation of the law school as well.

              Law school reputation is important not just to professors but perhaps more importantly to law school deans who are also self-interested and may define success as moving up through administrative ranks. This impact will be exacerbated by the inclusion of citation counts in U.S. News rankings.  The ranking of a law school is likely to be important to both University officials and law school students and graduates. Possibly the easiest to understand in this group are students and graduates. Employment opportunities and the value of a law degree in terms of earning power are likely to increase as a school moves up in the rankings. Finally, the students who select law review articles are likely to be interested in the ranking of the review which also influences article selection.

              It is interesting to focus for a moment on the role of institutions in encouraging (demanding) writing regardless of the topic or usefulness. This is actually rent-seeking behavior by institutions.  Rent is a term economists use to denote the payment for a resources above the least necessary to draw the resource into a specific type of production. In the case of monopolies. it can be profit. In fact, one of the costs of monopoly is the resources spent by parties vying to become the monopolist. This is rent seeking behavior. The defining characteristic of rent seeking is that welfare, profits, or some other benefit may change hands but the total does not increase. In legal education the competition is not for profits but for rankings. One school’s increase in the rankings means another school’s decline. In short, this competition between schools of which legal scholarship is a critical feature does not increase of overall welfare. Instead, the objective is recognition and any actual benefits are a fortunate coincidence.

There are two more elements of this perfect storm. The first is the socioeconomic background of those who become law professors. The second is a need for a method of comparison or ranking.  People who become law professors come disproportionately from a higher socioeconomic class than most others. They attended elite schools, clerked for judges and sometimes engaged in high level practice where clients are likely to be drawn from the wealthiest segments of society.   Unintentionally they are sheltered.  In simple terms, the universe of topics they are equipped to write about is a narrow one. This is further narrowed by lack of training in empirical analysis.  In one sense they are not well educated.  Articles on constitutional law or obscure contracts issues are far more in their wheel-house than articles on issues of poverty, class, prison conditions, and barriers to the poor.

The  final factor is that any meritocracy or pseudo meritocracy needs a way to determine merit.  The standard has to be something that those ranking can assess and which is viewed as difficult.  I am sure there is disagreement with this but I think it is safe to assume that law professors view theoretical work as more difficult or challenging than work with practical applications or even empirical work. Perhaps this is because of the unfortunate view of law school as comparable to graduate school and the perceived pressure to write at the lofty levels of those in conventional graduate programs.  In fact, a  more rational placement of what is now taught in law schools would be in the form of a jurisprudence department within a college of arts and sciences and a completely separate program dedicated to training those who want to practice law.  

Part 4: Is There Too Much Legal Scholarship? Justifications for Legal Scholarship

 Part 4: Is There Too Much Legal Scholarship?

 Justifications for Legal Scholarship

There are many arguments in response to the position that there is too much legal scholarship.  As noted above, one of those justifications is based on the public good character of legal scholarship. That argument falls short for the reasons discussed above. Other justifications are addressed here.   I think it is not controversial to say that any justification must, at its core, be an argument that the investment in legal scholarship creates more benefits (however measured or defined) than costs. None of the arguments addressed here seem to come close to that standard.

1. Faith Based

One argument  is what I would call “faith based.” It goes something like this. “Law review articles are important as a way of communicating with other professors and people outside the profession.”  (Robin West) A recent version of this plea is, “If we forgo this work, our worlds, not only the legal world, but our social and cultural and political worlds, will be the worse for it.” (Robin West)   Both arguments are hard to refute since both are non falsifiable.  They are also ironic.  The norm in legal scholarship is to cite authority for every declarative statement . These assertions, however, evidently need no support because they are just “truths.” No rational – a term I understand is disfavored by the “normative scholars” -- system of resource allocation would permit an expenditure as large as that devoted to legal scholarship without some requirement that the proponents produce proof of results.

2. Cherry Picking

Many people, when they hear an objection to the level of investment in legal scholarship, reel off the titles of five or six classic articles. I suppose the logic is that if  some articles are worth  $30,000 or more then all articles are worth $30,000. Of course, those who make this argument, and who should know better, fall into the fallacy of composition. There is no reason to suppose that because some of the articles are successful then they all must be. This is probably best known by all those who do laboratory research or prospect for minerals or energy sources. One successful experiment is unrelated to the success of others and one productive oil well does not mean all others are equally productive.

3. The Posner Argument

Citing a handful of articles for the proposition that the current level of investment in legal scholarship can make sense if there is a connectedness between those articles and total expenditures. Returning to the laboratory idea, the argument could be that each article is itself an experiment. We know ahead of time that they cannot all produce useful outcomes but we must do all of them in order to discover the important ones. This is essentially an argument made by Richard Posner who likens law review articles to salmon swimming upstream. Since we do not know ahead of time which ones are going to achieve their goals, we must let all of them try in order to ensure the strong ones do make it.

This is an appealing argument for salmon but not for law review articles. First, salmon swimming upstream do not ask to be subsidized by others.  The cost of their effort is entirely internalized by each one attempting the trip. This is hardly the case of any law professor. Second, there are few, if any, opportunity costs of allowing salmon to give it a try.  In the case of law review articles, something that constitutes a better use of the funding may be neglected.  Plus, the law review salmon are hardly trying to make it up the same stream. We know that, no matter how powerful their swimming is, professors at lower ranked schools with non elite credentials are unlikely to be cited in a meaningful way.  In fact, there are likely to be other indicia of articles that are unlikely to enhance social welfare. Unlike salmon, we can examine the project before it sets out on its journey and, in light of opportunity costs, we can determine that the expected value of some is not worth the sacrifice. Yes, it is true that this amounts to playing the probabilities and risking what might be called false negatives – published works that are not beneficial. Given the huge opportunity costs, not to weigh this possibility against the demonstrable instances of false positives seems irresponsible and quite different from allowing all salmon, who have nothing to lose, to attempt to make it upstream.

4. Academic Freedom

The argument can be made that limiting the support for legal scholarship interferes with academic freedom. Funding one project or even limiting funding limits a law professor’s “right” to express him or herself.  This confuses freedom of expression with funding. Law professors, especially those with tenure, generally have freedom to express themselves without fear of reprisal. This does not equal a right to have that speech subsidized. If that were the case, then it would be an attack on academic freedom not to excuse professors from meeting class, attending faculty meetings, and all other activities that limit the time available for “expression.”

This particular concern should not be completely discounted. Suppose there is limited funding available for summer grants. Grants are made on a competitive basis by a committee whose job it is to prioritize the proposed projects. They are prioritized based on “importance to society.” Many areas in which law professors write are controversial and political in nature. Thus, in the hypothetical, suppose the following proposals receive support: Up With Whales, Affirmative Action for All; Higher Wages for Women; Protecting our Children from Abuse. The project denied support is “Reviving Ojus.” (Ojus is a tiny town north of Miami.) Surely, the professor proposing the last project will feel he was discriminated against based on his topic.  In a sense, the argument could be made that there was a reprisal by virtue of unequal funding. This may or may not raise issues of academic freedom, but the notion that everything a law professor desires to write at a cost of $30,000 per article will be permitted hardly seems like a necessary cure. Just as schools have no obligation to offer courses for which few enroll, universities are similarly unlikely to be required to fund projects with little or no promise in terms of readership or usefulness. Even if the academic freedom argument has some purchase, a response superior to unlimited writing may be to redefine the contours of academic freedom.  

5. The Law Review Experience

              One explanation that has a cart before the horse or tail wagging the dog character is that legal scholarship exists so that students will have the valuable experience of operating a journal. They surely do get research and writing experience. Aside from ignoring opportunity costs, the argument falls short for other reasons. Precisely why is this experience reserved for students who have made high grades or survived a writing competition? In effect, it appears the experience is reserved for the student least likely to benefit from it. In fact, a sincere effort to improve research and writing skills would hardly involve producing a legal publication that entails many activities that are menial and hardly enriching.

Part 3: Is There Too Much Legal Scholarship: The Costs and Qualities of Legal Research

 Part 3: Is There Too Much Legal Scholarship: The Costs and Qualities of Legal Research

              Before examining arguments in support of legal research at current levels, it is important to be specific about what is being defended both in terms of costs and quality.

1. The Cost of Legal Scholarship

Legal research is expensive. One, probably conservative, estimate is that each article produced costs $30,000.  This figure is based on a series of assumptions. Readers are invited to alter these assumptions and determine their own average cost figure. Thirty thousand dollars is likely to be low because this estimate does not include law review publication costs, submission fees, secretarial expenses, or any allocation of fixed costs. In addition, it is based on the assumption that the 8000 law review articles published each year are the result of the efforts of law professors. If some of the 8000 are published by researchers who are not supported by law schools then the average cost for law professor produced articles increases. On the other hand, it could be lower. The 8000 articles does not account for books, casebooks, and refereed journals.

Costs may be better understood in terms of opportunity costs, real or hypothetical. For example, the average Habitat for Humanity house costs $85,000. In effect, three law review articles are more expensive to produce than a home for a low income family. Obviously there are commensurability issues with this idea – both in theory and in practice.   First, there is no way, as far as I know, to actually compare the value of housing with the value of law review articles. Second, even if we stopped funding legal scholarship today, housing may not be a realistic opportunity cost since funds, at least in the short run, would not be automatically shifted to increased housing for the poor. 

There is, perhaps, a comparison that we can relate to a little better.  The average law student graduates with about $140,000 in debt or, in scholarship currency, about 4.5 articles.   Based on that number, the investment in legal scholarship is the equivalent to 1700 students per year graduating without debt. So, is it worth it for a student be saddled a modest mortgage-sized debt so 4.5 more articles can be written?  That depends on the articles lost but as suggested below, the loss would not be noticeable.

Student debt is not disconnected from other issues. The need to pay student loans means that students are less likely to be able to afford the salaries of public interest work and low paying jobs that may serve the less affluent. Perhaps it is a leap, but the high cost of legal education, part of which is attributable to the scholarship requirement, may actually have an impact on those who need but cannot afford legal services. To some this may be strained reasoning but clearly it is no more strained than a topic discussed below that runs along the lines  of “we just know the investment in legal scholarship is worth it” or “we know it is worth it because Kingsley’s article on retribution had a major impact on punishment theories.”

2. The Character of Legal Research

The high cost of legal research would make sense if there were clear evidence that the level of investment was offset by the importance of what is written. The key notion is “importance,” which, for this analysis, is independent of the care or quality of effort that went into the production of the scholarship. Although this is impossible to determine with any level of certainty, there are general and empirically verified characteristics of legal scholarship that cut against its relevance, at least at current levels. Without conceding that citations are a measure of usefulness, it is not unreasonable to surmise that citations are at least a rough measure of exposure. What we know is that citations are correlated with the ranking of the law review in which the scholarship appears, the ranking of the school at which the author teaches, and the ranking of the school from which the author graduated. Unless one equates these indicators of institutional authority with the usefulness of a work and then equates usefulness with frequency of citation, there is little evidence that the current investment in legal research is warranted or that citation counts should have any bearing on law school rankings. In fact, it suggests that even the most important and useful articles may not be found and relied upon because they are buried in very low ranked reviews or secondary journals.

Even if one were willing to take these leaps of faith, there is another possibly more disconcerting problem: It does not appear that authors citing other authors are really responding to or elaborating on the ideas of the original author. In fact, the most frequent type of citation is one that cites a prior author for a factual assertion. This may be driven by the requirements of law review editors but still there are remarkably few citations in which one author considers, debates, or builds on the ideas of another.

Part 2: Is There Too Much Legal “Scholarship”?: A Quasi Economic Perspective The Author and the Audience: Supply, Demand, and Public Goods

 

 Part 2: Is There Too Much Legal “Scholarship”?: A Quasi Economic Perspective 

The Author and the Audience: Supply, Demand, and Public Goods

              One methodology for determining whether too much or too little is produced is to rely on supply and demand. For a number of reasons, a traditional economic approach is not appropriate for legal scholarship.  Still, there is a central aspect of supply and demand that is directly applicable. In a market in which supply and demand are operative, there is an interdependence. Suppliers are responsive to demand. In the context of legal scholarship, this leads to the question of to what legal scholars are responding.

              For the most part, legal scholars write (supply) because they want to be noticed, they have tenure requirements,  they have a sense of obligation to continue being productive, or they love the process and have a desire to express themselves. Legal scholarship may be a reaction to all of these factors at various times. What is remarkable is that none of them are driven by demand in the sense of the benefit to others. The notion of interdependence is lacking.   If fact, the “demand” for legal scholarship is based on the needs of suppliers – like General Motors demanding more Chevrolets.

 This  does not necessarily mean that there is a surplus of legal scholarship. It does indicate that supply is disconnected from any meaningful measure of the value or usefulness of what is produced. In fact, legal scholarship largely exists to satisfy the needs of the writers, regardless of the external  impact. In this sense law professors are both the audience and the actors similar to a company of actors that only perform plays for others in the company.

              There is an economically-based argument that may seem to respond to this analysis. It is based on the idea that legal scholarship is a public good.  Consequently, it will be undersupplied unless subsidized. Public goods are ones that can be used by others without payment to the producer.  In addition, they can be used without interfering with the use of others.   The argument for subsidization is based on the idea that producers of public goods are unable to internalize the benefits of their efforts and, even though there are benefits, suppliers will not  have incentives to produce. There is, however, an implicit interdependency. Public goods are produced because of a demand that does not manifest itself in the market.

When it comes to legal scholarship, arguments based on a public good rationale are weak and fall victim to faulty logic.  There is nothing about the classification of something as a public good that also means production must or should be subsidized. To understand this, consider that public goods include everything from a kindergartener’s  sketch to a poorly written screenplay and a truly evocative oil painting. The critical question before subsidization occurs is whether there is a latent demand for the good.  One has to reach outside the technical public good classification to justify the subsidization of legal scholarship at current levels. If the public good rationale were enough, we would, in fact, build highways for a handful of drivers.

Reliance on the public good rationale may be inapt for another reason.  The fact that  producers cannot internalize all the gains from their efforts does not mean a good will not be produced if enough of the benefits can be internalized to make the effort worthwhile.  The question, then, is whether some or even a great deal of research would take place even if not subsidized.  For example, in a billion dollar antitrust case or securities case, a law firm is not going to stand idly by in hopes a law professor will do the necessary research. In fact, the most useful legal research likely involves issues in which benefits cannot be monetized and the market is unlikely to produce the necessary research.

Is There Too Much Legal “Scholarship”?: A Quasi Economic Perspective

Is There Too Much Legal “Scholarship”?: A Quasi Economic Perspective 

PART 1 Introduction

Discussions about the value of legal scholarship lead to a cascading series of questions. These questions become more critical as the all important U.S. News and World Report law school ranking officials begin exploring ways to include scholarly impact in their calculations. First, what exactly is legal “scholarship” as opposed to other forms of writing by law professors?  Second, does the supply of legal scholarship exceed the demand?  Framing the question  this way will be unsettling to some but not if one thinks in terms of whether there is more “scholarship” than could possibly be useful. Third, what are the costs and qualities of legal scholarship? Fourth, what are the justifications for current levels of legal scholarship or writing generally?  Put differently, how do those who favor the current level of legal scholarship defend it against critics? Fifth, what accounts for the production of scholarship that, for the most part, does not increase overall welfare? Finally, is there a way out of that predicament? These questions are addressed below.  

A. Legal Scholarship and Legal Writing

              The unfortunate truth is that there is a shortage of legal scholarship but an overabundance of legal writing. Why is that? Law professors, as a general matter, are not trained to do scholarship and with a few exceptions, do not do it. Scholarship is characterized by research designed to discover answers no matter how inconvenient. Law professors tend to have a position and then write to promote it. This is sometimes characterized by the oxymoron “normative scholarship.” In short, they write to advocate positions. The critical distinction is this: The advocate knows the answer before starting to conduct research and write. The scholar does not know the answer and goes where the research takes him or her.

              This may seem like a slim distinction, but it is not. Writers of advocacy can be compared to expert witnesses who testify on one side or another of a case. Like expert witnesses, writers of “normative scholarship” offer opinions. Without getting into question of the ethics of expert witnesses, to some extent any expert witness bias is offset by cross-examination. Moreover, an opposing opinion is likely to be offered. In the case of law professors this is less likely to be true. The problem is compounded by the fact that advocacy, opinions, or normative scholarship by law professors is a form of subsidized speech and those who may hold opposing views are typically not beneficiaries of similar aid. In sum, in the case of legal scholarship there is less likely  to be the type of accountability that leads to rigor.

              This is not to say that all writing should be scholarship at the expense of all advocacy. In fact, it may be that true scholarship will lead to policy proposals that seem obvious. There is also a way for law schools and law reviews to overcome the anti-intellectualism of normative scholarship. Similar to the long gone Fairness Doctrine, law reviews that publish advocacy and law schools that sponsor advocacy speakers should go to whatever lengths are necessary to allow opposing viewpoints to be aired. The combination of the two viewpoints results in something comparable to what accomplished scholars should do. Instead, as currently conceived, it is difficult for two opposing normative views to be heard.  

              Another facet of the scholar/advocate distinction is that when people think of scholarship or advocacy they naturally think in terms of “producing” it. In other words, is there a written product? Scholarship does not require this outcome. Some of the most scholarly people do not write or, if they do, it is infrequent. Their scholarship may only be reflected in the quality of their teaching. Advocacy, unfortunately, may also be reflected in teaching but it can be likened to a form of exploiting the students. Those who confuse their own advocacy with scholarship seem likely to bring their own personal beliefs into the classroom because they confuse opinion with “truth.” Whether by their case selection, responses to questions, or observations by students, the advocacy mindset can mean that critical thinking and learning are discouraged.

              Before leaving the scholarship issue, one gap in the efforts of law professors is worth noting.  As far as I know the Journal of Legal Education is the only one devoted, at least in part, to teaching technique. Perhaps law professors read other journals or reviews that may carry an article from time to time about teaching. This has always struck me as a bit strange. Why is it that if you do well in law school you become qualified to teach? There are no courses on how to present material or on the reliability and validity of various testing techniques, yet law professors are quick to defend whatever they do with little or no support.  The issues range from the length of classes to different types of testing.  A number of factors affect teaching evaluations. What we do not know is whether high teaching evaluations are correlated with actual learning.   Perhaps these are not matters that law professors know how to address but that does not keep them from addressing virtually anything else and, to me, it is a sad commentary on the idea that scholarship should complement teaching when so little scholarship is devoted to teaching.

PART 2 The Author and the Audience: Supply, Demand, and Public Goods (coming soon).

Florida's Slide in the Rankings: Collateral Damage of the Rankings Obsession

 UF Law slide from 21 to 28 in the US News Law School Rankings. Twenty-eight is not so bad and it, at least, avoids the dreaded 30. (I don't mean to imply these rankings mean anything except to some University Presidents and law school deans on the make.)

So why the slip? It's actually pretty simple. US News began factoring in bar passage rate on which UF Law has historically done miserably given the caliber of students admitted. (Schools with nominally less capable students put UF to shame.)  The reasons UF underachieves is likely due to a number or reasons: a very high curve, students taking many hours of non graded courses often in tangential subjects, very few required bar courses and so on. 

Since passage has been a problem for decades, why wasn't it address before? That too has an easy answer. The ranking obsession of the Laura Rosenbury administration  and, I think, her chief benefactor Provost Glover,  did not deem it a pressing matter. Why? Because when only  rankings count and not whether graduating students can pass a bar exam, why worry about it. 

Don't get me wrong. I do not know if there is a correlation between passing the bar and succeeding as an attorney. I do know passing the bar is definitely correlated with being permitted to practice law and, there can be no "success" if you can't get through the door. 

So, UF is left with the collateral damage caused by a Dean who put self promotion ahead of duty to the students. In fact, I am told that that policy actually exasperated the bar passage issue. When confronted with "splitter students" -- those with high LSAT and not comparable GPAs, the policy was to give the nod to the high LSAT students.  Yes, those would be the very bright ones who are likely over confident and lack the work ethic to pass the bar. Seems like a dumb policy but not when you realized that UF thought it did better in the rankings with this policy -- that is, until bar passage counted.

Of course, there is no accountability. Rosenbury is off to Barnard where she continues a policy that personally served her interests at Florida of limiting free speech. If this does not ring a bell, check it out in the Times. Presumably, that policy is also because it pleases those who are higher up.

Class Bias and the Deanship of Laura Rosenbury

 

 Laura Rosenbury became the Dean of UF law after a failed search in which the central administration was pushing of all people, Alex Acosta. Why she was selected in the second search no one knew. Her faculty interviews were fine but not unusual. Now as everyone knows, she will be the President of Barnard. Quite a step up I would say and a little mysterious since she has had no experience with undergrads, has only a law degree, and writes for non referreed journals. 

Still, when she was hired the Law School was pretty much a wreck and, therefore, the Provost must have seen in her a grittiness that would lead to risk taking and major changes. He was right. The improvements she made cannot be underestimated. When she was hired the Law School was  an outlaw operation. It ignored University policy on most things and that was corrected. It had so-called centers  in specific areas of law that made no sense in terms of UF's mission and were out of compliance with what it meant to be a center according to University regulations. Most were abolished. 

When she arrived students wanting to be associated with a journal by writing on had to write on a different topic for each journal. It made no sense to put then through this torture. That changed. The primary law review advisor, a non scholar, had a vise like grip on the job. He was replaced by a scholar and some practices that I never quite understood were ended. 

The LLM in Tax was a sleepy little segment of the law school. It was highly ranked because there were so few LLMs in tax and had at times some big names in the area. When she arrived the applicant pool was poor, few people were regarded as nationally know tax scholars, and there was talk of disbanding it all together. One way or another (there is a whole story on this) the program came under intense scrutiny, Changes were made.

For the first time in 10 years committee assignment began to make sense. This too is a long story but I will cut it short by saying the former dean seemed to have a single objective -- to keep being dean. Consequently, committee assignments appeared to be driven by political considerations.

I am positive there are more things she accomplished and I cannot say what role any of these factors entered into her "promotion" to Barnard. Also these changes did not require an infusion of funds from the central administration.

So was there a down side? She was known to lose her temper sometimes and at others break out in tears when things did not go her  way. She vetoed faculty candidates, so I have been told, that did not attend the "right" schools.  I have heard of but was not witness to instances of abusive behavior toward staff -- only those beneath her, if course. As far as those above her he was the ultimate yes person. As an example, when here only a short time she was introduced to a group as young a vivacious, This was a big deal to her an she even wrote about it. But within a few years she was carrying out DeSantis' orders and labelling the new hand picked right wing President the "embodiment of   academic freedom."  Ambition breeds hypocrisy.

Her biggest public claim to fame came by raising the Law School ranking from the mid 40s in the USNews rankings to the high 20s. This is where class bias and ambition over all come in.  The large part of raising the ranking was to raise the average LSAT scores of the entering class in two steps. First, she lowered the size of the class. This does not mean she rejected unqualified candidates. Plenty of qualified candidates were rejected. "Qualified" took on a new definition. It was not longer qualified to successfully complete law school and become a productive attorney. No, qualified became who would make Laura Rosenbury look good. 

The second step, was to enter the market for high LSATs and GPAs. I mean literally buying students with high scores by paying them thousands of dollars in tuition waivers and stipends. I asked many of them why they chose Florida and the consistent answer was "it made me the best deal." 

What does this have to do with class bias? I know of no studies that do not show a positive correlation between socioeconomic class and standardize tests scores like the LSAT. I do not know you how GPA correlates with socioeconomic class but I suspect it is also positive.

 Where does the money come that is used to subsidize students who already have advantages over the less affluent. Quite honestly, I do not know. Clearly the Provost presented her with something like a blank check. But that does not really account for the source of the funding.  Maybe some comes from law students and others stuck with paying tuition and taking out loans to do so. Some from grants from alums and some from taxpayers. If it all comes from wealthy alums that is one thing although it still seems crazy to subsidize those who least need it. I doubt Rosenbury gave a damn where it came from. If any comes from taxpayers, no matter how laundered by the State or the University, then it becomes a redistribution from those in lower socioeconomic classes  to the relative well off. In short, as all elitists, Laura Rosenbury used those less well off to promote herself and, in some measure, catch the eye of Barnard. The elites always figure out a way to engage in a reverse Robin Hood scheme.

Ben Sasse and Paper Tigers in Academia

 This quote caught my eye in the Gainesville Sun today. It is about, Ben Sasse,  the likely new president of UF, and faculty opposition: "I think many of my colleagues feel that his  academic credentials are not where we would have wanted them to be."

I've deleted the name of the person quoted because that quote is representative of  law professors speak. They say things that mean nothing or, put differently, allow for total deniability while at the same time stirring the pot ever so gently.  It's the reason I was always an outsider in the Ivory Tower. 

 The statement, and that of law professors' generally, reminds of a something John Cage said, "I have nothing to say and I am saying it."

For example, note the speaker only "thinks" this could be the case. This leaves room to say, if asked to defend the statement, "It's only what I thought or the impression I had. I could be wrong."And then there is the word "many." What is "many?" Is it 12? Could be. Is it a majority? Maybe, maybe not. 

 This reminds me of what I call faculty trolling. For example, say you think someone up for tenure does not deserve it but you are too much of a wuss to say it. You go office to office and say, "I have heard that some people are concerned about Joe's (the candidate) scholarship." Not you, of course, unless the person you are talking to says someone like "Yes, I too was wondering about this." If that is the response, the troller has has hit pay dirt and gets a movement started without ever actually taking a position. If the answer is "I have not heard anything about that." The troller moves on to the next office.

And could someone tell me what "where we would have wanted them to be" means. How about, "are not satisfactory" What on earth does "where we would have wanted them to be" actually say. "We would have/" Would have what? In a different universe? On Mars?

But wait. In the same passage the writer does use the word "we" which includes "I." So it could say "I wish his credentials were better." The problem is nearly everyone wishes everything were better. I  wish my car got better mileage but what it gets is fine. I wish my dinner was better last night but it was fine. Wishing for better or wanting better is saying nothing. 

So what would my quote have been of the Sun had asked me? "I can't speak for everyone but his academic credentials make him unfit. In addition, he is obviously the product of a rigged search that was guaranteed to produce a candidate to the liking of our right wing, mean spirited Governor."

No Heroes at UF: The DeSantification of a University

 I cannot help but think of Joseph  Welch and his historic face off with Joseph McCarthy when he finally said, in effect, ENOUGH, "Have you no sense of decency." The answer was obvious, Joseph McCarthy had no such thing.

Nor does the despicable, demagogue  Ron DeSantis who will do anything to appeal to the worst values in people. Rather then lead people to embrace the moral high ground,  he encourages people to wallow in the mud of racism, homophobia, and xenophobia. Rather than ask people to be better he asks them to be worse, much worse.

And among his staunchest enforcers is the University of Florida particularly President Fuchs, Provost Glover, and Law School Dean Laura Rosenbury. With respect to the latter especially, one would expect some sense of decency, or at least the courage to resist what is clearly a case of moral lawlessness.  But no, in the Desantification of the University of Florida, rather then stand up against a bully, as did Joseph Welch, these so-called leaders cowered and when ask to jump simply asked "how high." Any one of them could have been a hero in the world of higher education if they had simply said I will resign before I follow the orders of a maniac.

So, at the height of the covid crisis faculty were allowed to teach remotely but only after weeks of in person teaching.  In the next year, while other schools required masks -- a small price to pay perhaps to save a few lives -- UF did not require masks.  Fuchs, Glover, and Rosenbury were just trying to keep Florida's McCarthy happy. And then, when professors were asked to testify as experts witnesses,  they all folded again and decided it would displease their master if a word were uttered to upset his seemingly fascist agenda. 

When the Desantis' bizarre choice for Surgeon General appears to have needed a little extra dough, he was appointed to UF Med School. Not sure if the opening was announced ahead of time or whether a search took place. But who cares when it is to please the Governor. What was Fuchs' response? Once again he simply said "how high."

And remember, this cowadise occurred in the context of administrators who all had a guarantee of life time employment. In fact, even their professional aspirations might have been enhanced if they stood up against a demagogue. In short, some show of courage would have been easy but, then again, there are no heroes at UF. 

NO, You Cannot be a Law Professor

                                                                     

About once a year a student comes to my office to ask about becoming a law professor. I have to tell him or her there is virtually no chance and that may be overly optimistic. The reason, of course, is that they are not attending one of a tiny handful  of -- mainly expensive private -- law schools that produce what people who went to those schools, and are in charge of hiring,  regard as good enough to be law professors. This always seemed odd to me since some of the smartest people I know went to mid level law schools and some of the dumbest and most narrowly educated  (including some law professors) went to the fancy schools.

Even if they apply to be a law professor they will be quickly vetoed -- without so much as a second look -- by someone who did go to one of those law schools. Strange isn't it. The privileged attend the fancy schools, get all puffed up about it but they actually do not think they are very good teachers. How do we know this? Because rarely, if ever, do they think they have been effective enough in class to elevate even the smartest student to be a potential law professor. They must be lousy teachers since they cannot even explain to others what they claimed to have learned in law school themselves.

So what is up with this. It's either about rankings or some delusional notion that you have to have gone to a fancy school to be an effective teacher and researcher. I've said enough in other blogs about how law schools will sacrifice everything to advance in the rankings. It is the least ethical conduct I have seen in legal education. And, I do not know whether going to a fancy school is correlated with good teaching and research. I once attempted an empirical study of this but could not find enough people who went to non fancy schools to make the study valid.

So what's is it really about? It's about status  and preserving status-- anyway you can. Think about it. You've spend a few hundred thousand to attend a fancy school and you are a law professor. (And you are sure to remind the students of your days at Harvard or Yale,)  Then someone is hired who did not go to a fancy school and is running circles around you both teaching-wise and research-wise. What does that mean about you? It may mean that you are not so hot after all since some poor schlub from the University of Florida is kicking your elitist ass.

So don't feel bad. It's just a way elitists ensure that the caste system is perpetuated. It has nothing to do with your merit and, most definitely, nothing to do with theirs.

Something is Wrong at UF LAW

 

The latest Bar exam results show that about 1 of 5 UF law grads fail the bar exam. Maybe that is not so bad but something is amiss.

First, remember that these students are hand picked because of their high LSAT scores and GPAs in order to raise the school's ranking. And it has worked. When last reported the School was ranking 21st.

But there is more. The school, in order to raise its ranking by also increasing bar passage, has an army of people working to make sure students prepare for the bar by pre testing and attending help sessions. But there is more. Students who are in jeopardy of failing are activity encouraged not to take the exam. Yes, if they fail he passing percentage will decline and the ranking might suffer so they are, in effect, urged to put their own goals aside because perusing them might reflect badly on the School,  the elitist, rankings-obsessed dean, the University, and even Desantis yes man, Fuchs. 

At this point in this little exercise I suppose I am supposed to say what I think is the problem. Frankly, I do not know. The smartest admitted class in the State, educated at a School ranked leaps and bounds above any other in the State, with extreme hand-holding when it comes to bar prep, and with a relentlessly elitist hiring policy still does so poorly. Actually, maybe I did just say what is wrong. You've got to wonder what is going on in the classroom. 

I Was Following the Fuhrer's Orders

 Just heard on the radio that Scott Strickland, UF athletic director (salary in excess of $1 million a year), announced no LSU like restrictions for admission to the Swamp.  In fact, no mask requirements as far as I can tell.  It's just going to be a total Covid-fest. I guess if you are in the hospital and on a ventilator you are invited too if you can find the right outlets to hook up to.  This follows along with Ken (No Spine) Fuchs' (million dollar salary too) refusal to buck Fuhrer Deathsantis and require masks while on UF campus much less so vaccinations like many other universities. 

On the other hand, there are several school boards in Florida that have decided that life is more important than pleasing the Fuhrer. Their salaries are on the range of $40-50K per year. They risk everything to save the lives of children. 

You have got to wonder, seriously, why some people have the courage to do the right thing even though it may hurt them individually in the long run. And others just follow orders. The distinction is everywhere. Take UF Law's elitist dean. She cuts off no less than 200 hard working, highly qualified, law school applicants because they might cause the US News  rankings to go down. Yes, you hear it correctly. It is not because they are not up to doing the work!  Oh,  and when hiring, if you did not go to a top ranked Ivy League School, so I have heard,  do not apply for a job. She will axe you with the same level of concern you might  apply  when  rejecting a rotten tomato in the produce section, I guess she would regard Deathsantis and Ted Cruz as highly qualified faculty if only their politics were more acceptable.

What is the common factor in all three cases -- Strickland, Fuchs, the law dean? They are just following orders, right. And that makes it OK? Not in my book. 

 You gotta wonder if there are any orders they would not follow. As for Strickland and Fuchs, they are clearly willing to carry out the orders of the Fuhrer when it comes to risking lives. The Law Dean, I think not. She just jeopardizes the careers of hard working students and the fortunes of their families and their families' families. 

I wish I could identify what the difference is between poorly paid school board members and highly paid, tenured school administrators. Was it their parenting? Is the blind ambition?   Is it because they always pleased those who could advance them personally that that got them where they are now? Hopefully, their cowardice will come back and bite all three of them in the ass. But I doubt it. There is always a market or toadies ("a person who behaves obsequiously to someone important."  

 

Structural Nepotism: On the Reluctance of Law Schools to Include Social Class Origins among their Faculty Diversity Goals

Excerpt for Ken Oldfield's,   "Structural Nepotism: On the Reluctance of Law Schools to Include Social Class Origins among their Faculty Diversity Goals"

VII. Confess’n the Blues 

Jeffrey Harrison was someone who saw beyond the cultural and social boundaries of his time. In 1992, nineteen years before Mertz et al. conducted their research, he published “Confess’n the Blues: Some Thoughts on Class Bias in Law School Hiring.”88 Harrison was a professor of law at the University of Florida College of Law when his paper appeared in a symposium issue of 86. Id. 87. Id. at 237, 238; see also Eric J. Segall & Adam Feldman, The Elite Teaching the Elite: Who Gets Hired by the Top Law Schools, 68 J. Legal Educ. 614 (2019). 88. Jeffrey L. Harrison, Confess'n the Blues: Some Thoughts on Class Bias in Law School Hiring, 42 J. Legal Educ. 119 (1992). 252 Journal of Legal Education the Journal of Legal Education. The theme of the law review edition was diversity.89 Harrison’s informal writing style illustrates how sometimes a work such as his can expose an issue or issues in a way data rarely can. Once these writings gain a wider audience, they can prompt reformers and their allies to rectify the problem that concerned the author or authors. Unfortunately, Harrison’s folksy piece never found the reception it deserved, given the issue bothering him. Perhaps there is good reason for this oversight. First, he directed a sharp pen at those colleagues he held responsible for the problem he thought deserving of a remedy. Second, he was contradicting the nation’s bootstraps folklore, the idea that the United States is a land where those born of the poorest of circumstances can be anything they choose if only they will work hard enough.

 Harrison began his piece by recounting a conversation he had had with a colleague about faculty hiring. He wrote, I telephoned an old friend the other day at another law school. “What’s up?” I asked. “Faculty retreat,” he replied. “Sorry to hear it. Any topic, or just a weekend of touchyfeely?” “Serious business,” he said. “The theme is ‘Recruiting for Diversity.’ One session on race, one on gender.” “What about class—you know, poor and working-class candidates?” “Are you kidding?” he responded. “Too important.”90 

Believing class origins should be weighed as a diversity criterion, Harrison said when he interviewed someone applying for a position in his program, he looked for signs the person likely grew up working class.91 (Apparently he did not feel comfortable asking for this information directly.) Harrison said he regarded a candidate’s class background as a worthwhile concern because faculty of humble origins can bring novel perspectives to the study and teaching of law.92 During his formal and informal interactions with every applicant, he looked for social class markers. He listed a few examples, such as 89. Mertz et al., supra note 78 (did not cite Confess'n the Blues: Some Thoughts on Class Bias in Law School Hiring in their study). 90. Harrison, supra note 88, at 119. 91. Id. at 120. 92. Id. Structural Nepotism 253 whether the person had a crooked or discolored tooth,93 had been an assistant manager at a fast-food restaurant,94 wondered out loud whether a relative is entitled to food stamps95 and if a nephew might be paroled soon.96 If he detected any signs the person had likely overcome long odds to earn a law degree, he considered this evidence the applicant had the qualities necessary to become a successful academic.97

 Harrison saw his thinking as synonymous with that of his colleagues, only upside down.98 He interpreted a candidate having grown up disadvantaged as evincing merit, while the others were relying on traditional indicators, such as a high GPA from a top law school or a clerkship.99 Drawing on his then fourteen years of teaching law, he argued that his colleagues favored the standard determinants of what it means to be qualified as nothing more than an excuse for hiring the people Mertz et al. depicted as coming from “educated and privileged backgrounds.”100 Harrison characterized the other faculty’s reasoning as little more than an “instance of self-referential wishful thinking,”101 or just another case of like hiring like.102 Harrison believed his approach mirrored that of his colleagues in the sense he and the others were playing the odds, only he was betting on a different set of odds. In his mind, he was willing to wager that his approach would yield a hire who could bring some long-underrepresented thinking to the profession. Harrison, like Bowen, Kurzweil, and Tobin, preferred to put a thumb, or a thumb and a half, on the scale in favor of what he called “blue-collar diversity.”103 

Harrison was not done. He went on to suggest why law schools, and so many people in the United States for that matter, are leery about questioning the effects of social class inequalities on various aspects of life. This reticence discourages most law school professors from weighing socioeconomic origins in faculty hiring. Harrison said this same hesitancy helps explain why workingclass people generally fail to see “themselves as victims of any sort.”104 They tend not to envision how “the opportunity deck” has been stacked against 93. Id. at 121. 94. Id. 95. Id. at 123. 96. Id. 97. Id. at 122. 98. Id. 99. Id. 100. Mertz et al., supra note 78, at 7. 101. Harrison, supra note 88, at 122 (citing Derrick Bell, Application of the "Tipping Point" Principle to Law Faculty Hiring Policies, 10 Nova L.J. 319 (1986)). 102. Schmidt, supra note 8, at 64; Michels, supra note 2, at 245. 103. Harrison, supra note 88, at 122. 104. Id. at 124. 254 Journal of Legal Education them.105 Instead, the American dream misleads them to believe they are fully responsible for their station in life. They are never urged to examine critically how structural classism, although he did not call it that, influences their mobility chances, versus those who inherit considerable sums of Bourdieu’s three elements of wealth. He reasoned that people born working class think if they exert enough effort, they will make it to the top or, if nothing else, get there by winning big money in the state lottery.106 Unlike other disadvantaged groups, working-class people have not established “consciousness-raising groups.”107 Failing to question the consequences of inherited advantages, versus inherited disadvantages, working-class people assume, according to Harrison, that without enough labor, they will not get a high-status job, or maybe become a law professor (if they even know about this possibility to begin with).108 Meanwhile, today’s law faculty “wallow in the benefits of [these] . . . misconception[s] and most know that it is in their interest to leave well enough alone.”109 This willingness to “leave well enough alone” is another example of Bachrach and Baratz’s second face of power: preventing an item from being considered.110

Legal Scholarship, Citations, and the Rankings Obsession

 

I have not thought much about legal scholarship lately but a few months ago my elitist and ratings-obsessed former dean send out a memo to the faculty promoting the idea of writing things that will be cited. The reason -- think about it. It is in the air that USNews rankings may soon use citations as one of the measures in determining rankings.

This brought to mind an empirical work my coauthor, Amy Mashburn, and I did a couple of years ago. Citations were correlated at statistically significant levels with the ranking of the school from which you graduated, the ranking of the school at which you teach, and the ranking of the law review where your article was published.  Why is this? Likely because law students making publication decisions know they do not know much about law and rely on institutional authority. In fact, it is a common practice when a manuscript arrives to check where the author has published before and their citations. 

This means that citations have almost nothing to do with the quality of the work. Yet, in the rankings-obsessed world of my former dean, (who I am told also vetoes any entry level candidate who does not come from a ivy league school) quality is irrelevant. 

But maybe it does not matter that quality is all but irrelevant because law professors rarely engage in scholarship. By that I mean actually trying to discover something that advances our understand of anything. Instead they write OP-ED pieces or legal briefs that are devoted to one side of the story. That is what they were trained to do in law school.

But the whole citation based on where you went to school or are teaching gets worse -- much worse. When Mashburn and I did our study we examined what a citation really meant. Did it mean that the cite work was thought provoking, engaging, controversial, or whatever. No. Citations were almost always just for some fact the cited work cited mentioned whether or not the cited work was also just citing another work that had cited another work, none of which had actually done any legitimate research. In other words, rarely did one law professor give a hoot about what another one said. 

What this means is that professors at less than top 20 schools should probably be devoting more time to teaching and less to writing. It also means, when and if USNews starts counting citations, the ranking will not change. But, don't be surprised if raises and promotions for  law professors become dependent on number of citations. 

As an aside, Malcolm Gladwell, in his series of podcasts now has 2 devoted to the rankings. He notes that in the 70s when there was a battle between Time, Newsweek, and US News which US News was losing badly, the whole ranking thing that new rules higher education was a marking gimmick. 

Excerpt from "In the Company of Thieves": Cutting In Line for Faculty Appointments

 

Cutting in Line

You might think that law professors are sticklers for following the rules. In fact, the opposite is true. They do not regard rules, and especially University Regulations as applying to them. I have seen this applied to tenure standards and the composition of committees. I’d have to say in fairness to  law professors, it is clear that Universities ignore their own rules and even state law when it suits them.

There are many example, but one that stands out is hiring spouses. Under state and federal law as well as university regulation when a position is open it must be publicly advertised. This is in part to make sure there is no favoritism and so that people of all genders and races have a chance to apply.

The usual hiring season takes place in the fall and winter. So it was with some surprise that Dean Bob came to the faculty with a candidate for an environmental law position in the Spring. He said the University President wanted us to hire her. She  had not gone through the usual recruitment process, we did not need a teacher in the area, and we had not given public notice of the availability of a position. The faculty resisted so to some extent and the Dean explained that the medical school wanted to hire her husband and part of the deal was that we hire his wife. When asked what the consequences were if we did not hire her his answer was “catastrophic.” The faculty voted to make an offer although no one knew what catastrophic meant. She accepted the offer, basically saying to other would be applicants "Get the fuck out of my way? Don't you know who I sleep with?" and  with the understanding most or all of her salary would be paid by the central administration and the med school. In effect, a job for her was part of the salary of the hot shot med school hire. No way around this. 

After she was hired, in order to “comply” with State, federal and university regulations, a public notice of the job was issued. Twenty people applied. What they did  not know is that the School had violated the law and already hired someone for the job opening they were just hearing about. I raised the issue with several people in an effort to determine who had made the decision to violate the law and the response was dead silence. Law schools are experts at the "coverup." But this story has an even less happy ending. Within two years the hot shot med school hired decided he hated it at the med school and  the school was left with someone who would not have been hired teaching in an area that was already covered. The last I heard she had moved to who knows where with her husband but was still on the faculty teaching remotely or occasionally. 

When the rules are bent to allow spouses to cut in line one question that comes up is what to do if the couple splits up. Actually there is answer to that – you do nothing. So, in many instances, the spouse cuts in line through some unlawful act of the university or law school, is hired and then stays even though the rationale for hiring him or her has long since disappeared. Remember that the trailing spouse’s job was a form of income the person who was sought after. Evidently, that income is retained even who the sought after person is divorced, quits, or dies.

            Often when the spouse is hired he or she is in a different department. This raises the question of what happens of one spouse gets tenure and the other one does not. If one department really wants to retain the performing spouse, then the standards have be lowered for the other one.

            Maybe the most unusual spouse issue I have seen involved a professor who was hired on the merits.  His wife was hired to take the position as a legal writing instructor which is lower paying job with no promise of eventual tenure. The wife and husband desperately wanted for the wife to be elevated to a regular faculty position. She wrote articles and applied through the normal process. The husband was a decent teacher and good scholar but a bit of a jerk so there was not going to be a free pass.  After going through the process and being interviewed, she was not made an offer. It is entirely possibly that the collective hope was that if she were rejected maybe the husband would leave. The problem was his jerkiness was pretty widely known and he was not likely to be recruited. Personally, I liked him because, in his own way, he too was an outsider and spoke truths no one wanted to hear.

            It is an understatement to say they were bitter. It was a great example of the sense of entitlement of people who graduate from elite schools have. She was very upset about being a lowly writing instruction although their combined income was quite high. For some reason and  am not sure why, their bitterness became aimed at each other. Their divorce would make most messy divorces seem amicable. She eventually did get a regular teaching position at a 
low ranking school.

            Remember those articles she wrote while hoping for a job at her ex husbands school?

Well shortly after the breakup he began listing them as having been “ghost written” or ghost co-authored by himself. In short, he was now claimed that they had dishonestly represented as her work he had done as her work. The raised a bit of an ethical question. Were they both lying or just him when he claimed to have written he article with her name on them. Always wishing to make a bad situation worse, the battle between exes took to the internet when he sent an email with the subject “ungrateful bitches.” That pretty much put an end to any chance he had to move up through the law school ranks. In fact, when this all happened it was rumored that he had a visiting offer from Harvard. That was withdrawn.

Excerpt from In The Company of Thieves: Conferences and Vacation: Confercationing

 

        

    Confercationing is  when law professors claim to be going to a conference on the law school’s dime but are really on a one to 5 day vacation. The biggest on of these for law professors takes place in early January when the Association of American Legal Schools  meet. Not as big but easily a bigger boondoggle is the Southeastern Association of Law Teachers Conference which conveniently takes place in the summer in a family friendly location. Palm Beach is a favorite destination as is Orlando. Since Universities pay for transportation, meals, and lodging for faculty, the only cost to the vacationer and his or her family is transportation for the partner and kids and their meals. Pretty good deal for a week in Florida. I will say this about this meeting. There is very little hypocrisy. No one attending pretends to be doing anything other than vacationing on the school's dime. 

            Three things characterize these meetings. Since law professors are, by nature, climbers whenever you are talking to someone at these meetings they are always looking over your shoulder to see if there is someone more important in the room they could attempt to smooze with. The second is a contest over who know the best ethic restaurant in town. So people with gather in hyped up groups decided were to go eat. The discussion invariable comes down to who know the hippest place to go that no one else has discovered. Third, at these conferences members of a  panel present papers to groups ranging from 0 to 50.  After the presentation people can ask questions The questions rarely indicate something the questioner wants to know but is for the questioner to impress the rest of the audience with how much they should be reckoned with. It's actually pretty easy to seem impressive because the papers are almost always duds. The papers  drawn from already published articles or recycled from previous talks. The main idea is be able to put on your resume that you presented a paper at such and such a meeting.

            These conferences are pretty much a waste in terms of producing anything for the money spend but there is a even bigger sham than these two main conferences. These are the manufactured conferences, Someone gets the idea to have a conference on British contract law or South American Comparative. The law school provides a grant that could be used for almost anything else that would be more  useful. The conferences always take place in exotic places; not some small retreat where there is little to do but actually confer but in Rio, London, Amsterdam, Geneva, Paris, etc.

Here is an example of one of these manufactured conferences:

International Conference on Latin American Issues

Rio de Janerio

June 10, 2015

Friday June 10

8:30 AM Coffee and Pastries in the Lobby

9:30-10.30 AM Session 1. Evolution of the Peruvian Constitution, Room 23

Co Chairs: Eve St. John, Berta Hurns, Georgio Penata, Julio Peso, J.J. Fields

Presenters:

Coby Claster: Early Peru

Sylvia Macado: Peru After the Early Years

Paco Smith: Peru in the 1930s: Penises

Joan Streeter: Peru and Constitutional Reform

Miquel Mendoza: Consolidation

 Audience comments and questions

 

10:40 – 11:40  Session 2. Brazilian International Policy, Room 56

 Co Chairs: Zeke Palmer, Ted Crammer, Luigi Longo, Roberto Santos, Carmen Zips

Presenters:

Lonnie Funk: Brazil and Slavery

Festus Johan: Brazil and Argentina: History and Perspectives.

Chester Bores: Brazil and Acai: The Importance of the Smoothy

Constance Vaya: Brazil in 2024

Pepe Vargus: Looking Forward

 Audience Comments

 

11:40 - 1:00 Lunch: Box Lunches Provided in the Lobby 

 

[there are also two afternoon sessions, a time for a reception and then dinner at a posh restaurant]

 

 

            This looks pretty good, right? Maybe even interesting. But let’s take a closer look. Notice the location. Rio! Who does not want to go to Rio. Since the airfare is the same if you stay one day or two weeks, no one in his right mind would only be going to the conference. So this has convercationing all over it.

            You may also notice the number of co chairs of each session. A Chair is someone who contacts and schedules the panels. Having 5 co chairs is a sure sign of a boondoggle. Each co chair can list on his or her resume that they were a co chair without revealing that they did next to nothing and also justify the law school footing the bill. Perhaps their duties involved making one phone call to ask something else if he or she too could be a co chair.

            Now look at each session. They have 5 speakers. The session is an hour long. Take some time for introductions and then some time for audience questions and the speakers are left with about 40 minutes to present their “papers.” That’s 8 minutes each. So let’s say the airfare is about $1200. Two nights at a Rio hotel is $400 and meals, say, $100 a day. Is an 8 minute talk or listening to other 8 minute talks worth $1700. Put it another way. Each session has a total of 10 people involved and there are 4 sessions for the one day conference. That comes out to 40 people at $1700 each or $108,000 for participants costs only not counting any charge for the rooms and meals. There actually may also be a fee to attend.

            You will notice that there is time for audience participation. What audience? There is actually  no audience other than the people who are participating on other sessions who may or may not show up for anything other than their own 8 minutes, It’s not like a show for the purpose of advancing the understanding of anything by anybody. In fact, I personally have been a panelists when there was no audience at all. But the school still paid for my confercation. Thanks, taxpayers!