I traveled across the country (and traversed hierarchical norms) to visit with “clinical faculty” at the American Association of Law Schools Clinical Program in Chicago last week. The theme was “Gathering Momentum: Learning from the Past, Responding to the Now, Planning for the Future.”
The name the clinical faculty gives to traditional tenured professors are “podium professors.” That is an infinitely better name than the names podium profs give to clinical faculty: Non-tenure track, non-traditional, the “others.” Non, non, non… It’s as if the default is that with which we are familiar and everything else is unimportant. At least that’s what I tell all my non-lawyer friends.
I was invited to go check things out, and, of course, to tweet. The funny thing is that traditional faculty members who knew I was going were deeply confused as to why I would be going. My response: To learn and listen. I left thinking: I need to listen more. And I’m not the only one.
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Hence my column today: Clinical profs, what should you teach podium faculty? Why? And, most importantly, will we listen? What follows is my advice and insights into the mind of podium faculty, for the benefit of clinical faculty.
The reason the burden is on you and not the podium profs is because of the extent that we run things — and sometimes we do so in a complete vacuum. Deans come and go, but those podium faculty members are there for eons (sometimes longer). And many of us become associate deans. Better you have good rapport with us before it gets to that point.
1. Tell us what you do. Most of us have no clue what you do. None. We do what we do, which is go to class, teach a nice modified Socratic method, and then go off and write articles with deep thoughts. We have done what we always do, and quite frankly, don’t know what you do. Some of us are very insecure about ourselves, so we seek to make others inferior via invidious distinctions like “clinical” faculty versus “scholarly faculty.” We value what we do (how can we not?) and do not value that which we don’t know.
We don’t see you. So we don’t know you. Sometimes that is literally the case, as when podium faculty members breeze by you in the hall thinking you are a student who has never enrolled in their class. But, to the extent we know you personally, we think that when you’re not in your office, you’re at home sleeping. That’s different from when we’re not in our offices and, you know, writing or something. Yes, I know that you’re really off supervising students or taking over their cases between semesters, but most regular faculty have no clue.
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Thus, you need to be your own self-promoter in every way possible. I don’t mean in the podium faculty way where we advertise any time we use the restroom facilities. I mean that you ought to market your achievements. That means every time your students have a major success, or you data as to overall successes, it needs to be communicated. In other words, view required reports, administrative work, and faculty meetings as marketing time. They are investments.
2. Explain how your clinic helps the larger law school community. The degree to which you serve underserved communities and your community at large plays an important role in terms of the greater reputation of the law school. It helps attract students in the local population and builds goodwill (and sometimes not-so goodwill) with government powers that be. Of course, you are also helping students build skills they may not have achieved elsewhere. That should go into the calculus as well.
Podium faculty can be deeply fearful creatures. Rightly so. Faculty can be paranoid about attempts to strip away tenure and rank, or of that one dean who will attempt to change things abruptly and make the law school a clinical laboratory. The downside of this is that, unless you find those gems among the faculty who truly get it, you may get them to understand what you do, but they won’t value it to the same degree as they value what they do.
3. Reevaluate your allies. You might already have allies on the podium faculty. They may go to bat for you and be great advocates. Or they may not be. Podium faculty members are quirky in the sense that the message will be shot if the messenger is the wrong one. Did your ally commit some transgression against an influential faculty member back in 1972 by not saying hello such that the other faculty member holds a grudge? If so, your message may suffer for reasons that have nothing to do with you. So, you might need more (and stronger) allies.
4. Don’t expect external validation. You might be looking for a pat on the back from your podium colleagues. But, unless your podium faculty members are woke, as a group they probably aren’t going to give it to you to any deep or meaningful degree. Hell, we often don’t give our fellow podium colleagues accolades for all that we do, and that is more within our realm of understanding than what you do. Regardless, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t market what you do to podium faculty. I’m saying that you should have your ego firmly derived from the amazing work you do and the students learning, not from your colleagues.
5. See the road ahead while watching your back. Often times, attempts to build clinical programs sufficiently to scale involve criticisms of empire building. This concern, when articulated from a paranoid faculty member who believes you plan on taking over the world, might create barriers that would not otherwise exist. Thus, again, groundwork must be laid before attempting to “increase momentum.”
Worse, the thing that might be holding you back might be the director of another clinic. This is particularly true at times of scarce resources. That might be another good reason to start planting the seeds of communication now: Because it’s hard to use dissent to knock down an institution once that foundation is secure.
The beauty of clinical faculty is that they are constantly interacting with students, demonstrating skills, and having a great deal of face time with diverse communities. That is all incredibly good for the law school and for the communities they serve. But, my dear clinical faculty friends, don’t forget to teach the most difficult students of all. Teach your podium peers about all the amazing things you do.
LawProfBlawg is an anonymous professor at a top-100 law school. You can see more of his musings here. He is way funnier on social media, he claims. Please follow him on Twitter (@lawprofblawg) or Facebook. Email him at [email protected].