Law Schools

Law Professors And The ‘Party’

Things are changings for legal academia. And that means things are changing for the AALS.

By LawProfBlawg on January 29, 2019 4:16 pm

I love the Association of American of Law Schools (AALS).  Sure, I get turned down for panels every year.  Sure, the registration fee seems high (unless you go to ABA events).  Sure, there is a bit of elitism that strains through the conference as law professors look at your badge and then look for a better one.

So, when I wrote my four-part series about AALS two years ago, it was out of love.  You can read them here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.  Upon reflection, I think a lot of the problems I attribute to the conference are merely problems in legal academia as a whole.

Things are changings for legal academia.  And that means things are changing for the AALS.  Today, I’m going to talk about the big thing that the AALS does: The Annual Meeting.

The Annual Meeting is a conference at the beginning of January where, after hopefully everyone has finished grading, law professors gather to hear panels and presentations, to catch up with old friends, make new ones, and basically network.

I love to go.  I love seeing old friends, and meeting new ones.  I love listening to interesting panels.  I love talking to the vendors, some of whom I have befriended over the years.  I love that I can people (okay, professor) watch.  It’s sometimes like an anthropology experiment.  I love tweeting about the conference using the hashtag (#AALS2019).  And yes, I love the receptions.

But things are changing for legal academia.  And that means things are changing for AALS.  With respect to the Annual Meeting alone, there are some issues that AALS will likely have to face:

  1. Deans are increasingly less likely to pay travel for conferences if the professor is not speaking. That means if there are multiple repeat players (more than one panel), then each additional panel precludes an additional registrant.  So, you might expect to see dwindling registration as this becomes a thing.
  2. Other conferences provide different services to entry candidates. For example, aspiring law professors at SEALS have an opportunity to engage in CV review, mock interviews, mock job talks, and otherwise get prepared for the big show.  I think the AALS would do well to compete in this market.
  3. Conference and travel budgets are shrinking, and some professors are using their smaller pot of funds to go to niche conferences in their area, whether it be underwater basket-weaving law or something truly irrelevant such as U.S. antitrust law.

So, if you’ll permit me, AALS, can I offer you some friendly advice?  Keep in mind my advice is out of love, and I’m just trying to help.

  1. Your committees should put a limit on how many panels people are on. I don’t have data yet, but it’s not hard to spot some “frequent fliers.” Give new voices an opportunity to speak.  (Oh, and maybe not have some of those new voices in topic A be the same new voices as in topic B).
  2. Experiment a little. Panels are fine, but they aren’t the only mode of communication.  For example, there is much more audience engagement at Clinical AALS.
  3. Be more transparent. We pay a $500 registration fee, and see the donors prominently listed on the first page of the meeting brochure.  So I’ve heard gripes that you must be getting rich off of this or something.  I don’t think that’s true, because having put together a few programs I can’t imagine anyone getting rich off of that.  It would be helpful for professors to know a bit more.  I realize some will continue to complain.  But more information is better than less.
  4. Be less humble. Yeah, I know this sounds weird in the realm of legal academia, but I don’t think a lot of us know what you all do with how little staff you do it.  Your entire staff is listed on page ix of the Annual Meeting Program.  It’s not a large staff.  It is a hard-working staff.
  5. Can I run your Twitter account for the annual meeting? Okay, let’s just stick with 1-4. I had to ask.

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].