Law Professors, Law Schools

What Law Professors Need To Know About Faculty Meetings

In the world of academia, meetings are often held for terrible, very bad, no good reasons. These are the characters you'll meet in these unproductive meetings.

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Meetings are a necessary evil of all work life.  If used properly, they can be efficient, reducing the transaction costs involved in communication, eliminating billions of e-mails (I might be exaggerating here — it just seems like billions). However, I live in the world of academia, where meetings are often held for terrible, very bad, no good reasons. Here are some of them:

  1. Providing information. If you are the chair of a committee, strongly consider providing the information in an e-mail. E-mails are perfect for unilateral communication. Or host a lecture.
  2. Holding court. “BEHOLD! I am chair of a committee. All come before me and listen to me speak for an hour or two.” This motive is often under the guise of “providing information.”
  3. Checking in on deadlines. Usually, I try to kill a meeting the sole purpose of which is to determine if I’m doing my job. An e-mail stating, “Let’s get together to determine status,” should be followed by am e-mail saying, “Here’s my status. No need to meet.”  No one likes to be micro-managed, particularly by a colleague.
  4. Regularly scheduled. A regularly scheduled meeting is a meeting without purpose. It’s the Groundhog Day of meetings.
  5. The no-agenda meeting. Let’s show up and just wander aimlessly for an hour or two. Sounds fun!
  6. The hidden agenda meeting. Let’s show up and watch you herd cats for an hour or two while we try to guess what your motive is.

In other words, a lot of meetings are held for the wrong reason. If you’re holding these kinds of meetings, you are likely wasting valuable time.

Meetings are not just wasteful merely because of the time spent in them. If I have a meeting at 9:00 a.m., you’re killing my most productive part of the day. Thanks. If you hold it at 10:00 a.m. and I have another at 2 p.m., you can kill my entire day. Plus, there’s the time I’ll have to spend preparing for the meeting, going to the meeting, and feeling tired and frustrated after the meeting.

Most people have meetings other than the ones you’re scheduling for them. Imagine a world in which you go to meetings all the time, and then have no time to get anything else done. I call that world “academia.” Oops, I mean, “hell.”

Before you schedule a meeting, ask yourself:

  1. What is the point of this meeting? There could be several legitimate reasons for a meeting:
    1. To inform a decision-maker.   If a dean or associate dean requires information to make a decision, it might be important to inform the dean about key points. This requires: 1. The person seeking the information to listen and 2. The person providing the information to know the purpose of the information in advance of the meeting.
    2. Launch of the Committee. It might be good to get people in a room to devise a uniform plan to attack a problem.
    3. To generate ideas. Depending on the committee, bouncing ideas off of one another could be useful.
  2. Can I write that point down? If so, call that “the agenda.” Do not deviate from this agenda. If you can’t articulate it, no point in meeting.
  3. Is a meeting the most efficient means of furthering “the agenda”? If not, think about an e-mail or a phone call.

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Next, think about the characters you’ll meet in your meeting, and whether that combination of people is going to be productive. Under no circumstances should you read the literature about how non-diverse groups reach worse decisions. It will only depress you, because you’re in a law school, a non-diverse group.

As for personality types, I’ve posted these types elsewhere, but here are ones that are the key players in your meeting’s downfall:

Echo. After someone has made a compelling statement, Professor X might be inclined to say roughly the same thing. This might be because Professor X didn’t hear the first statement, heard it but wanted to expand on the idea, is miffed that the first speaker stole his or her thunder and wants credit, or because Professor X didn’t like the foundational theme of the first speaker’s assertion and wishes to supplant it with his or her own. Echoing causes longer meetings.

Santayana. If what is being proposed was tried in the 1970s, this professor will remind you of that. For example, a proposal to put Wifi throughout the building might draw this reply: “We tried that in 1970. I was all for it, but it turned out to be a nightmare. Turns out there was no such thing as Wifi! Therefore, we shouldn’t do it now.” Yes, even though much has happened since the 1970s, if it didn’t work once, it won’t work now. I read a book about this once I looked up using a card catalog….

Logical Fallacy Prof! This superhero of the faculty meeting will defend his or her point of view using every non-academic technique possible. Call someone stupid? Why not! Appeal to authority? Sure! Or why not combine them to really provide an aromatic flavor? “I have done this for 70 years, and I know I am right. You’d be crazy not to agree.” Appeal to authority (himself) coupled with ad hominem.

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Hamlet. If you have a colleague prone to soliloquy, your faculty meeting may be prolonged. Frequently it is the chair of the meeting.

Cheerleader. “Give me an A! Give me an N! Give me another N! Give me an O! Give me a Y! Give me an I! Give me an N! Give me a G! YAYYY!!!”

To those, I add:

Professor Disorganized. “When’s the meeting? Why didn’t I receive notice? When did we decide this? Oh, at the meeting I missed. Got it. I’m against it, so we should rethink that.” Feel free to tell Professor Disorganized the wrong day and time for the meeting.

Professor Cerberus. This prof is there to make sure you don’t enter Hades. Cerberus will do everything in his or her power to delay or destroy your agenda. If you’re having a meeting with Cerberus (unless it is just you two), then realize your meeting is a waste of time. Cerberus’s intentions may be good (like thinking your plan will kill the school), but once his or her mind is set, you are doomed to battle and/or failure.

Chairmageddon (CMG). This is the chair that seeks ideas, but dominates the meeting by talking 90% of the time. CMG refuses to listen, then takes every idea and crushes it, unless it is Professor Echo rephrasing CMG’s own thoughts. This person doesn’t realize the meeting is a waste of time, but will continue to call for them.

Don’t be CMG. Think before you meet.

LawProfBlawg is an anonymous professor at a top 100 law school. You can see more of his musings here and on Twitter (@lawprofblawg). Email him at [email protected].

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