Law Schools

On-Campus With Elie: How Law Professors Can Help Failing Schools

Can't a law professor pick up a shovel.

By Elie Mystal on December 04, 2014 6:52 pm

So, the New York Times kicked off this week in law schools with one of their awesome trend pieces about some issue everybody who has been paying attention already knows about. Law schools are in trouble, don’t ya know? If students don’t come to law school, it makes the law school deans feel ouchy in the part of their pants where their wallets live.

This inspired Slate’s Jordan Weissmann to predict that some law schools will actually close. He even made a bet that at least one ABA accredited law school will close by 2018.

I think if law schools continue to stubbornly operate the same way they always have, sure, some of them will close. In other news, if your boat keeps filling up with water, eventually it’s going to sink.

But there are going to be some opportunities for law schools to change course, and this week an idea came out that I think creative law deans with shrinking budgets will certainly take a look at: make professors take out the trash.

It’s happening at West Virginia. From Inside Higher Ed:

Perks are fewer and farther between for faculty members these days, especially those teaching at public institutions. But they can still expect the basics, such as somebody else emptying their trash cans at the end of the day, right? Not any more, at least not at West Virginia University. The institution recently announced that faculty members must begin taking out their own garbage, in order to encourage recycling. But some professors object to the measure and its premise, saying that the move is more about conserving the bottom line than the environment, and that the new policy comes at the expense of faculty morale.

I love this plan. Why shouldn’t law schools do this?

And no, I’m not being facetious. Look, most articles about law school economics, including the ones in the Times, almost exclusively focus on law school revenue streams. The talk about tuition from students, federal dollars, and donations from alumni when the first two streams run dry.

I’m no money scientist, but Ec-10 taught me that there was another side to the ledger. You’ve got revenue and you’ve got costs. The costs for law schools are almost entirely wrapped up in their faculties and admins. The don’t need lab equipment or cadavers or special textbooks like a medical school. The cost of the law school is the cost of the people you pay to teach there.

Now, I could argue that law schools should just start slashing faculty and admin salaries and the professors who don’t like it are welcome to get jobs as practicing attorneys. But if I say that, teacher’s union organizers will ruin my permanent record and send me to detention. I don’t know why law schools can’t slash faculty salaries, but I’ve been repeatedly told that they can’t. So… fine.

But taking out the trash? That’s something law professors can do. Also, they can teach more than one class a semester. And they can pick up a shovel and help out in the winter. I’m sure some of them can cook. And couldn’t the Associate Dean of Planning and Strategy do… anything.

The current system of legal education places law professors in the position where they profit, in terms of salary and a comfy home for their scholarship, off of the bad financial choices of their students. Now, an increasing number of students aren’t falling for the trick. The ones that do are left indebted and sad. And even the universities aren’t making as much money off of their law schools as they did during the cash-cow days.

With all this suffering going around, one expects that eventually the sword will swing towards professors. Layoffs are hard. Salary cuts are even harder. But expanding the role of law professors is something that we should be able to get done.

Water keeps leaking into the boat. Eventually law professors are going to be asked to start bailing.