I wrote a post about temps entitled Attorneys Suitable for Everyday Use. It was one of the posts I was particularly pleased with at the time--and I was pleased to receive a very interesting comment on that post earlier this week. The full comment is as follows. My comments are interposed in brackets.

Begin Comment:

I quit my associate job a few years ago and have been temping ever since.

I love it and hope the pattern continues.

I work 3-4 months out of the year and then spend the rest of the time out of the US (where the local wage is much lower -- preferably by a factor of 3 or 4 times cheaper) doing what I want to do (e.g., ski instructor, language study, intensive yoga retreats in India, or hanging out on a beach enjoying life. [I had a number of friends in Europe who lived like this and loved it. Their philosophy was, "why work like a dog to retire early in your 50s and live on the beach, when you can do it right now? You might be dead before 50 for all you know.] In effect, legal temping has allowed me to do now what the average associate is planning to do when they retire at 40 or 50. [News flash: No one retires from law practice at 40. You may change careers, but you don't retire. And virtually no one retires at 50--and certainly no one I know.]

Moreover, every time I come back the temp salaries are higher and the market becomes more specialized. This is great for me, now I can make more money in a shorter period of time. [Law temping is certainly more lucrative than the teaching and table-waiting jobs my Eurofriends did in between their stints leaving in cheaper locales.] Additionally, the firms generally offer full time positions (litigation assistants) to temp attorneys who perform well. So, when I decide to go back to a career, I can get a job as a litigation assistant and then after a year or so, get an associate position at a mid-sized firm. Or, if I decide to go [and] open a law firm with a partner, temping allows one of the partners to work and fund the firm while the other one takes care of the clients. [The only downside with this approach to going back to a firm is that it is harder to get into blue-chip law firms from temping positions--although I have in fact seen it done. But if you don't want to do that to begin with, that's not really a downside, is it?]

Also, even though the salaries are lower than what an associate would make, you have to figure the associate is paying huge amount of taxes. By temping 3-4 months out of the year, I pay a lot less in taxes. [This point actually does not make much sense to me--you're still keeping more of the money, right? But I suppose the point is valid from a Laffer Curve perspective.]

I'm very happy as a temp attorney and hope the legal temping trend will continue. [I love happy endings, especially when they concern legal careers. Too often we end up griping about law careers--me included. It's nice to hear a happy story from a satisfied and fulfilled attorney. Thanks for sharing your story.]

The timeworn saying is that "Truth is stranger than fiction." That's certainly true in the case of this house, which I drive past every day on my (wonderfully short) commute from my house to Mississippi College School of Law, where I teach. There it is, a house divided: one side painted blue, the other side painted red. What a wonderful image! It represents our national state of affairs quite nicely. I wonder what Abe Lincoln would think of it.

It gets better, too. The house is not painted just any shade of blue and red. It sports a very untraditional (shall we say liberal?) shade of electric blue, and a rather staid and conservative shade of brick red.

And, of course, the red side of the house is on the right.

I absolutely love this house. I keep waiting for someone to figure all of this out and paint the whole duplex some bland shade of brown. I sure hope that never happens.

And it gets even better: the cars in the carports match the house. Not in color, but rather in make and model. In the blue/left/liberal carport (which you can see in the picture), a Mercedes sedan is parked. In the red/right/conservative carport (which is obscured by the tree trunk), a Ford Escort is parked. I am not kidding or making this up. The cars are there every day.

So this little duplex is our nation in a nutshell. Which makes me wonder: if we did paint the house the same color, or at least colors that coordinate better than electric blue and brick red, would we get along better as a nation? It would be nice to think so--and as much as I love this house, I'd paint it in a heartbeat for a little more political conciliation and cooperation between Democrats and Republicans, and between red states and blue states.

So after a very busy April and de facto blog holiday (blogiday?), I'm back to posting. Among other things, I will be taking a group of law students to Seoul, Korea to study this summer. That will be a lot of fun and the source of posts over the summer. But today's topic is something I have posted on in the past: law school debt and the College.

In September 2007 I blogged about the College Cost Reduction and Access Act (CCRA), which has been hailed in many quarters as "the single largest investment in higher education since the GI Bill." There's been a lot written about it; a good place to start, I suppose, is my September post, which gives a summary and links to some other very useful information online.

And then there's the recent post on the CCRA by nonprofit lawyer and blogger Fannie, who runs the blog Fannie's Room. Her comments on the CCRA are great (and more than a little frustrating. Anyone interested in the CCRA and student debt loads definitely needs to check it out.

Last time I posted about the U.S. News & World Report rankings for law schools. Paul Caron at TaxProf Blog has posted a complete list of schools ranked only by their academic peer reputation. The results--located here--are extremely interesting, since rankings by peer reputation vary (sometimes significantly) from overall rankings. Remember that peer reputation is one of the most heavily weighted factors in the U.S. News rankings, so this particular variable matters a great deal.

In particular, check out the comments to Caron's post. A difference of one-tenth of a point can mean a huge move up or down with respect to ranking within this variable.

U.S. News & World Report has published its annual rankings of law schools, but the ABA Journal reports that bloggers (again) beat U.S. News to the punch with leaked rankings. The U.S. News rankings can be linked to here; an ABA Journal article on the rankings (and links to the leakers) is online here.

Much is made annually of the rankings. Many observers are critical, and some say they do not matter. But for better or worse, they do, since many current and potential students, current and potential faculty members, and current and potential donors pay attention to them.

My view is that the rankings can matter far less at the top than they do at the bottom. Harvard is not #1. Does that deter people from going to Harvard? No. NYU and Columbia traded places this year. So what? They are in the top of the top. A slip from the top 10 to the top 30 can be a crisis, but that happens not too often, I think. And as Theodore Seto has pointed out in his article Understanding the U.S. News Law School Rankings (available on SSRN here--I highly recommend it), much of what affects a law school's rankings is outside that school's control.

I also think that what matters more than year-to-year shifts are mid- or long-term trends. A school may misreport and fall from tier 2 to tier 3, or may have a temporary spike due to a new building, or some such thing that has a short-term impact for good or ill. But what really matters is a school's position over a period of years. It's like global warming in that sense. What matters is not the weather in any given year. What matters is climate change over a period of years. "Climate" can be defined as the "average of weather." Perhaps a law school's "real" ranking for U.S. News purposes can be defined as its average ranking over a period of years. So that in any given year, a school like George Mason's rise in the rankings might not mean much--but its climb in the rankings over the past decade and more is decidedly significant.

There's one other thing about these U.S. News rankings that is extremely interesting compared to years past: the online version can be used to rank schools in ALL tiers. In years past the 3rd and 4th tiers were listed alphabetically only. But now, schools in the lower tiers apparently can be ranked. And in my opinion that is where the rankings can really matter, and perhaps be the difference between life and death of a school, or good fundraising versus tuition-dependence, or strong recruiting versus weak recruiting (of both faculty and students). If you are #1, or #3, or #9, yes, that matters. But it matters much more, I think, whether your school is in the 3rd or 4th tier--and where in that tier. If you are in the 4th tier, you'd much, much prefer to be at the top than at the bottom. At the top, you can claim to be "on the cusp" of a move up. But at the bottom, or in the middle, that's a much harder argument to make.

My friend and soon-to-be ex-Mississippian Paul Secunda has written an excellent article on negotiating the vagaries (treacheries?) of the law school lateral hiring market. The article is available on SSRN here. I highly recommend it as general reading for pretty much anyone interested in how law schools work--students, professor wannabees, current profs, and so on.

As Paul points out in the article, there has been a good deal of commentary on the entry-level hiring market for law faculty, but there is a paucity of literature on the lateral hiring market (the market for law profs who move from one school to another). So Paul, who is in the process of moving from the University of Mississippi School of Law to Marquette University Law School, has bravely set out to rectify that.

Personally, I think the article is great for a number of reasons. First, as already stated, it is a great resource. Second, it is an easy and fun read--not a common characteristic of scholarly writing. Third, while the advice is focused specifically on the law school lateral hiring market, some of the advice translates well to any interviewing scenario. Especially helpful, I think, is Paul's point that many of the variables in the hiring process are beyond the interviewee's control. Understand that, accept it, and focus instead on the factors you can control. That likely will increase your chances of success, and it certainly will reduce your stress level a good bit.

And finally, the article is a perfect example of how blogging can directly promote scholarship: parts of the article appeared as a series of blog posts by Paul on Concurring Opinions (see his first of eleven posts here). After all, novels by Dickens first appeared in serialized form, so why not law review articles? Dickens might even have been a blogger were he alive today--although perhaps not a law prof.

Obviously it has been a while since I have posted on this blog. Why is that? I suppose it is because I have accomplished much of what I wanted to with Law Career Blog as a solo blog. I felt I had important things to say on teaching and classroom etiquette; on law career decisions; on law firm practice; on mentoring, and more. And I have said many of them, so there you have it.

I am very pleased, though, that my posts continue to draw strong traffic month after month, year after year. What I have said here remains relevant, I think--but that does not mean I need to always rehash the same ground, all in the name of having new posts just for the sake of it.

So for now, my existing posts stand for what they are, and I am proud of them. Call me the Antiblogger, I suppose: I am blogging by not blogging.

In any event, the following is a list of posts that have generated the most interest from readers, some posts on subjects I think are particularly important, and some that are just fun. Enjoy!

Posts on Law School in General:

In a series of posts, I argued that if we want law schools to truly provide the academic and practical education that students (and employers) expect and demand, we should consider adding a fourth year to the law school curriculum. Not surprisingly, my proposal was universally condemned. Check out the comments.

See Is the Third Year of Law School a Waste of Time and Money? and Is Law School Itself a Waste of Time?

I think that too often, law students don't step back and think about law school and their future careers in a broader perspective. That's understandable given the workload in law school, but it's still unfortunate. My friend and colleague Gene Theroux visited Mississippi College School of Law once to speak to students about his storied career--he opened the first western law firm offices in China and the Soviet Union--and he had wonderful advice for them. Ostensibly the talk was about globalization, but the heart of his message was to follow your heart and practice law the right way and for the right reasons. Sometimes we need to put our cynicism aside and hear things like what he said that day.

See Theroux Part Deux

Posts on LL.M. Degrees:

This trilogy of posts is perhaps the most popular series of posts on this blog--which proves that good things really do come in threes. Lots of discussion in the comments. See The Pros and Cons of LL.M.s, LL.M. Redux and LL.M.s Part 3.

Posts on Law School Exams, Teaching, and Class Strategies

Bainbridge v. Bowman. I wrote a law review article entitled The Comparative and Absolute Advantages of Junior Law Faculty: Implications for Teaching and the Future of American Law Schools--a piece I am quite proud of. In it, I use traditional neoclassical trade theory to analyze the advantages of junior and senior law faculty and make some recommendations regarding law school teaching. Professor Stephen Bainbridge of UCLA saw it, and he absolutely hated it. This posts includes our dialogue.

How to Improve your Law School Exams Grades. This wasn't a terribly controversial post--or so I thought until I received scathing comments two years after I posted it. Some fun back and forth on that one. Maybe I should've retitled the post Bowman v. Someone Very Angry.

Law School Orientation Advice. Pretty self-explanatory. My own favorite piece of advice: Don't spill a plate of food on your law school dean at the welcome reception. I actually did that--but lucky for me, I still graduated.

Computer-Free Week and Computer-Free Week, Part 2. There is a good deal of concern in the legal academy about computer use in the classroom. Is it beneficial? Is it harmful or disruptive? So one time I asked students not to use computers for one week to see what would happen. The results were pretty interesting, and as a teacher I found the feedback via the comments very useful. Perhaps the most interesting result was that student comments revealed just how prevalent the consumer mentality is among students--namely, I paid my tuition, so I can do what I want in class.

The Dilbertic Method. I definitely like this post about parallels between Dilbert's boss and the Socratic method. If you want to see the Dilbert cartoon I am talking about, you have to click the link in the article and then enter in the cartoon's run date on the Dilbert site.

Posts on Law Firms:

Much of the attraction to, and frustration with, big law firms has to do with the money they pay their associates. So I wrote some pieces on that subject--something I have firsthand knowledge about.

See Of Law Firm Culture and Compensation Schemes, The Problem of Law Firm Salary Distributions, and Big Firm Economics 101.

In another post, I wrote about associate pay and stress levels. In light of the recent savage downturn in the employment market, this post is perhaps more relevant than ever. See Why Associates Have More Stress than Partners.

Last week was my first week of classes for the 2008-2009 academic year, and I was all ready to write a post called "The Most Important Day of Class." The whole premise was that the first day of class is the most important day of class for the whole term. But I didn't write that post, because I decided I was wrong.

The first day of class is not the most important day of class. The second day is.

Here's what I mean. The first day is important, because on that day the prof is likely to explain what the course is intended to be like. You're also likely to be treated to a lecture on why the course is the most important course you will ever take in law school, and perhaps your whole life. I'm exaggerating, but not overly so. This is called selling the course--and it happens not only in electives, but also in mandatory courses. I certainly do it. I think it helps students see where the course fits in the grand scheme of things, and it gives them a sense of what I think of the subject and why I am teaching it. And I do hope it generates a little excitement to get us all through the drier parts of the course. (And if you are in law school, you know some of it is dry.)

But that first class is often an anomoly. It's on the second day that students are more likely to get their first glimpse of a more average class--no calling of the roll, no grand views of the law. Instead, it's on to theory, doctrine, and the briefing of cases.

So for those of you in law school, pay close attention in those early days. And mark your calendars for class #2.

There was an interesting post on the Law Librarian Blog this week concerning the benefits of senior, junior, and adjunct faculty in the classroom. The post can be linked to here. This is a subject that interests me greatly, and readers will remember that I recently wrote a law review article (in the BYU Education and Law Journal) about junior faculty teaching. You can link to my full article here, and to my previous blog posts on the article here and here. The latter post includes an exchange with UCLA law professor Stephen Bainbridge.

The long and short of it is that this Law Librarian Blog post reviews some of the current scholarship on law faculty teaching by senior, junior, and adjunct professors and provides some interesting commentary on this scholarship. Most interesting, perhaps, is the blog's observation that there seems to be little academic literature on the benefits of senior faculty teaching. Personally, I think this is because the common wisdom in the legal academy is that senior faculty are better teachers all around, so why write about it? I disagree with this view, however--and if you are interested in seeing why, look at my BYU article.

Today's post is about the blog That's What She Said, on which blogger and attorney Julie Elgar discusses legal/HR issues raised by episodes of the US TV show The Office. Specifically, Elgar assigns a litigation value to various actions that occur on the show. I blogged about her blog briefly in a previous post.

Tonight (9/27/07) was the season premiere, which means that tomorrow morning (Friday) Elgar will post a blog entry about the episode. It's very interesting to see the show dissected for legal liability purposes. And the truth is that there are a lot of idiot bosses out there, so it's not a hypothetical exercise. One boss I know ordered his employees not to conjugate in the hallways. Seriously. In the same office, an internal office memo from the boss explained that security was being improved at the front door by installing a "security intercom buzzard." Again, no joke. Dilbert bosses are alive and well. So the idea of treating the scenarios on The Office as if they were real is a legitimate exercise. And fun, which is the most important thing.

I have added That's What She Said to my blogroll for those who are interested in checking it out on a regular basis.

On September 27, 2007, President Bush signed the College Cost Reduction and Access Act into law. I previously blogged about this very significant piece of legislation here and here. Several additional points come to mind about this legislation, so I am setting them out here.

First, the act does seem to address the problem of spiraling higher education costs in a fairly head-on manner. I should note that as Kiplinger's Personal Magazine reported in an article on 9/28/07, the act is being funded, at least in part, by reductions in federal subsidies to student loan companies. So that puts some of the bill sponsors' statements about this being "no-cost" legislation in better (and somewhat more accurate) perspective. (See my previous posts for more regarding that point.)

Second, while I think this act is a welcome development, it is worth pointing out that being in favor of education is sort of like being in favor of Mom and apple pie. People generally are not against education per se. So that explains much about the bill: popular subject + big problem = grand legislative solution. That's not a criticism; it's just an observation. Hopefully the impact of this new law will be positive and it will help many in need of student debt assistance. An Associated Press article that ran nationwide on 9/30/07 highlights the problem quite well.

Third, as astonishing as it may seem to people outside academia, tuition costs at most universities do not cover the cost of education. Does that help explain the rapidly rising cost of higher education in recent years? I think in large part it does. True, state colleges and universities receive state subsidies--but in many cases those subsidies have been reduced in recent years. Also, both private and public universities look to private donors for donations to build up their endowments, and those monies are used to fund school programs. And, of course, colleges and universities also obtain state and federal grant money for many of their programs.

But the fact remains that tuition increases are sometimes hard to resist. For example, what happens when a school has little endowment--or even rich endowments but still needs more capital? Neither situation is uncommon. If students are willing to pay more, and if the school is able to charge more (many states limit or cap public institution tuition rates by statute), then there is strong temptation for schools to raise tuition rates or tack on special fees. And it's a really tough choice, I think, because the students pay either way: either schools raise tuition, and students bear the brunt of it, or schools do not, and therefore cannot fund many much-needed educational programs. To give just one example, higher educational literature puts a great deal of focus on the importance of "active" learning (as opposed to passive lectures in big halls)--but active learning is often more expensive. So sometimes the choice might boil down to providing better and more costly education versus controlling costs at the expense of educational quality. Again, either way, it's the students who pay.

I fully realize, of course, that more money does not in all cases equal better education. Yet sometimes it does. And as schools offer more innovative programs like clinics and externships, focus on reducing faculty-student ratios, and invest in technology to make the classroom more interactive, someone has to foot the bill. The College Cost Reduction and Access Act hopefully means that students will foot less of it over time. But if it does not completely solve the problem--and I don't think it will--then we are back to the question of who pays. If rich donors come forth voluntarily, that's great, but there will be some institutions left out in the cold. If we decide to federally subsidize higher education that might be great too, but it also likely would be fraught with problems.

Like any good (bad?) law professor, I am doing a far better job of posing questions and framing issues than I am of offering answers. For me, at least right now, the answers are unclear. What is clear, however, is that in today's information economy, education is of paramount importance for the nation's economic well-being. Reducing the debt burden of students is an investment worth making.

PS: Education is a service, and I blogged about the rapidly rising cost of services last year in two posts on the subject of Baumol's Cost Disease (here and here). Those discussions are relevant to this topic too for those who are interested. The gist of Baumol's Cost Disease is that the cost of services often rises faster than the overall rate of inflation, because while we can automate many processes or make them more efficient--and thus hold the price (and rate of inflation) down--it's harder to automate certain services like teaching. Which from a purely self-interested point of view is not necessarily a bad thing.

Self-promotion is not something that always comes naturally to me, and this post smacks of patting my own back. But it involves something I am very pleased about, so bear with me.

One of the blogs on my blogroll is Adams Drafting, on which Ken Adams blogs about "modern and effective contract drafting." I teach Contracts, and I think his blog is a very good source of practical advice on recent developments in contract law. It also has a strong intellectual edge, and I like that.

On October 7, 2007, Ken wrote a post entitled My, Uh, Nine Favorite Law Blogs. (Kudos to him for resisting the round number of ten.) I'm very happy to say that Law Career Blog made the list. Ken explained that he reads my blog because he is "acutely aware of the difficulties that junior associates face when it comes to contract drafting. Perhaps as a result, I’ll happily read thoughtful discussion of issues facing law students and junior associates generally. And that’s what [Law Career Blog] offers."

I must say that I am quite flattered to be on his list. My target audience for Law Career Blog consists of law students, people thinking about attending law school, junior practitioners and people thinking about law career changes, and anyone generally concerned about any of these groups. So to my way of thinking, my inclusion on this list suggests that Law Career Blog is hitting its target audience, or at least not missing it entirely. And that is a victory worth celebrating.

In other news related to contracts, I have declared a "computer-free week" in my Contracts class--something I have blogged about previously and considered doing. I plan to post tomorrow on that subject.

This past week was an interesting one for me--a study in contrasts. In my 1L class we had a computer-free week, which was something different (and not necessarily popular--more on that in my next post). Outside the classroom, I participated in two very different events that struck deep chords in me, and they are the subjects of this post.

The first event took place the evening of Thursday, October 11, 2007, at the Loyola University New Orleans College of Law. I spoke there as part of a panel of international law and international trade practitioners and scholars. The panel addressed the subject of international law career options. Other members of the panel included Loyola NO alumns and other practitioners, including Tom Morante of Jones Walker in Miami, as well as Professor Günther Handl of Tulane University Law School and Professor Larry Catá Backer of Penn State's Dickinson School of Law (currently visiting at Tulane). (Check out Professor Catá Backer's excellent blog, Law at the End of the Day, and his "About Me" page.) This panel, entitled Jus Gentium ("the law of nations"), was hosted by Loyola NO's newly re-formed student International Law Society (the society fell by the wayside after Hurricane Katrina).

As I listened to questions posed by the very diverse and accomplished students in the audience, and to the answers and comments from other members of the panel, I was struck by how extraordinarily complex, nuanced and rich the field of international law practice is. I know this, of course, and yet I still find myself moved by it. The feeling flashed me back to occasions in my law practice when I would be struck unexpectedly--and quite hard--by how rarified the intellectual atmosphere was where I worked.

The second event took place the very next night in Jackson, Mississippi. It was the Mississippi Center for Justice's 2007 Champions of Justice Dinner, and I was in attendance as the faculty adviser for Mississippi College School of Law's student Public Interest Law Group. The dinner drew public interest attorneys and supporters from all over Mississippi, and indeed the nation; from public interest organizations involved in Mississippi (much of it being post-Katrina relief work); from law schools (including Mississippi College School of Law and the University of Mississippi School of Law); and from law firms. The dinner was in honor of two strong contributors to public interest and social justice in Mississippi:

Professor Deborah H. Bell of the University of Mississippi School of Law, who runs that school's well-respected Civil Legal Clinic. The clinic has been particularly active since Hurricane Katrina, and Professor Bell was honored for her many contributions to public interest law in the state.

Hon. Rueben V. Anderson, who was the first African-American to graduate from the University of Mississippi School of Law and was Mississippi's first African-American Supreme Court justice. The program for the dinner aptly noted that while Justice Anderson "has been called a witness to history, [ ] his true role has been as a maker of history."

The dinner also featured an excellent slide show on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the many legal and personal challenges faced by the storm's survivors on the coast and elsewhere.

I think the Champions of Justice Dinner was moving for everyone, but for me the contrast between the themes of this event and the Loyola NO forum could not have been starker. On Thursday, I was discussing the richness and complexity of international legal practice. On Friday I was talking about people who need help getting legal representation to obtain enough food stamps. Quite the contrast.

Obviously, the contrast between these two events is a good reminder of why it is so important for lawyers to do some public service work, no matter what they do in practice. It keeps us grounded, and it gives us better perspective on the law and our legal practices. But it also served to remind me, again, of the importance of doing things in your career that you believe in.

I believe in the richness and the potential of international law. Globalization has its perils, but it also has its enormous upsides, and we are in need of responsible, dedicated lawyers who believe in what they are doing, and why. It's global service, if you will, and if that sounds quixotic or overly idealistic, so be it.

I also believe in the importance of local service. There are many, many people who need our help as lawyers, and there are many ways to get involved. And even for overly busy people, it is quite possible that taking on even more obligations of this sort can be a way to soothe the soul, not aggravate it. A way to meaningfully give back of our talents.

So for me, the global and local activities I am involved in are the best of two very different worlds. They are a study in contrasts, but when juxtaposed as they were last week, they fit together quite well.

I have received some very interesting comments in response to my recent Computer-Free Week post. (Look for them at the end of that post.) The general gist of most of the comments is that some people find it disconcerting not to be able to take notes by computer in class. Some are not used to writing by hand in class and feel lost without their computers. So they think computer bans generally are a bad idea.

I sympathize with that view. A lot, actually—notwithstanding that I am the one who did not allow computers in class last week. Which is why this week in my class we will start with a recap of last week’s materials.

I also have sympathy for (and agree with, in many ways) the libertarian view of computers in the classroom—that what a student wants to do is largely the student’s decision, and if the decision hurts that student’s performance and/or grade, then that is that student’s problem. Yet I do not agree when such libertarianism interferes with other students’ learning by distracting them, or by reducing the quality of classroom discussion (which is part of the educational process). And I believe both sorts of interference occur regularly.

But let's sidestep that issue for a moment and just talk about computer use that does not interfere with others’ learning. In other words, let's assume, for sake of argument, that computer use only hurts (or helps) those who engage in it, without harming others in the class. What then?

One of the commenters to my previous post made the very astute observation that professors sometimes have an “I must save them from themselves” attitude toward their students, especially in 1L classes. This is often characterized as misguided paternalism, and things like computer bans and other rules are derided as autocratic. I concede that this may well be the case, but I also think that sometimes such guidance, paternalistic though it may be, is justified and even desirable.

Think of it this way: the professors are there to teach, and even the most junior professors have more practical and academic experience in the law than their students. Maybe, just maybe, some of the paternalism is warranted. Maybe sometimes students do need to be "saved from themselves," as negative as the connotation of that phrase may be. And if I have a choice between erring on the side of being too blunt (or even paternalistic) in the classroom versus not making a very important point, I'll choose the former error over the latter.

That same commenter also made the following very interesting statement that is worth discussing further:

“If I am made to come to class by the ABA (and subsequently the school) and choose to spend my time unproductively, my $2300 per class buys me that right. If I don't want to participate or think "fantasy" football statistics are more interesting, the only person hurt in the long run is me. And that is what most would call an adult decision.”

Hmm. On the one hand, I do understand and to an extent sympathize with this statement. And let me very clearly state (at the risk of sounding paternalistic, I suppose) that I very much appreciate both the substantive nature and professional tone of that comment. Seriously--read the whole comment at the end of my previous post. This blog is, after all, a dialogue, and I appreciate well-drafted and well thought-through input. I learn from it. But on the other hand I disagree with this statement fairly strongly, and from a number of angles. Here's why.

Neither the ABA nor your law school makes you come to law school. Yes, there are ground rules if you choose to attend a law school and be a lawyer, and class attendance is generally one of them. But law school is not junior high; you are not legally obligated to be there.

Law school is not a consumer product. There is a “consumerist” mentality common amongst current higher education students, and it is troubling to many in the teaching profession. Having said that, many in higher education also take this view--and schools certainly compete for students--but that is problematic too (and a good subject for a future post).

According to the consumerist student view, colleges and universities are largely institutions of credentialization, not of learning. I think many students subconsciously buy into this presumption without thinking too much about it, because in a way it is very attractive. A consumerist student naturally seeks to do the minimum necessary to obtain the degree. While I think efficiency is valuable—and I think the workload in law school helps teach efficiency to an extent—if a student is only (or primarily) looking for a degree, that serves to disengage the student from the educational process. A student might say, Well, I will come to class because I am required to, but I am not going to pay much attention if it does not engage me more than the Internet. But of course, the Internet is always going to be more interesting than, say, subject matter jurisdiction, or expectancy interest, or proximate cause.

The result is less attention paid, and less learned, and a lesser lawyer on the outflow end of the educational pipe. On the one hand, what was not deeply learned may have no negative impact. On the other hand, you never know when knowledge will come in handy. I was constantly amazed in practice by how arcane points from class ended up being a relevant way to make myself stand out from the pack—be it in researching an issue, writing a memo, or talking with clients at a cocktail party. Arcane knowledge can be a great conversation piece; you never know what people are going to be interested in.

Law school is not primarily entertainment. This is closely related to the previous point. Material that is technical, and sometimes boring—like economics, or accounting, or contract law—does not compete well with other distractions, as I already have said. The appropriate standard for deciding whether to pay attention in class is not necessarily whether the material is more interesting than your e-mail account, fantasy football, online shopping, or a crossword puzzle. I am not saying that teachers have a license to be boring; indeed, they have an obligation to teaching engagingly. I am also not suggesting that teachers should ban computers because the class material is hard. What I am saying is that “Class v. Internet” is a comparison of apples to oranges. And while it may seem objective on the surface, the result is preordained.

Your tuition buys you the right to do whatever you want in class, at least as long as you don’t distract others. I have a strong libertarian bent, and generally speaking I agree that if someone chooses not to pay attention in my class that is less of a concern than if she or he is distracting others. But the proper characterization is that this student has the power to do what she or he wants, not the right. Your qualifications and tuition dollars buy you the privilege of attending law school to obtain an education and a degree—which is a very different thing than buying the right to come to class and discretely do whatever you like.

Plus, in my class the syllabus expressly prohibits non-class use of computers in class. So it's part of the contract you have agreed to, if you will. So in that sense too, it's a power, not a right.

I will end with two observations. First, current educational research suggests that there is a difference between multitaskers in class (with computers) and those without computers. Repetitive tasks and memorization can be accomplished well when multitasking. But deep cognitive thinking appears to be hampered by computerized multitasking. A student surfing the web during class may simultaneously win the online fantasy football league and memorize the basics of restitution in contract law, but that student is less likely to see and grasp the subtle connections between, say, expectation damages, specific performance, and service contracts. Not that this alone justifies a computer ban in class. But it does suggest that the libertarian computer user in class is taking a greater risk than might be supposed.

Second, my week-long computer holiday in class was an experiment that I think was useful on several levels, notwithstanding that it probably cost me some popularity or goodwill points with some students. For any readers in my class—any readers anywhere, for that matter—bear in mind that teaching is a creative process. (And not a popularity contest.) If there is no experimentation, teaching is stagnant and does not grow or improve. There will be people who think the ban was helpful, some who think the ban was not, and others who are indifferent. That’s fine, and in fact good—there should be dialogue on these subjects, because there is no easy or absolute answer. But there are multiple viewpoints to be considered and weighed.

Just like in my classes. And just like on this blog, as the comments to my posts so helpfully show.

Yesterday I promised I would post about my "Computer-Free Week" experiment in my 1L Contracts class. The week is not over, so perhaps I am a bit premature in posting on this subject--but on the other hand I am not reporting final results, only first impressions and links to other information on the subject.

Links to Other Information

The Association of American Law Schools' (AALS) Section on Teaching Methods is sponsoring a discussion panel at the AALS Annual Meeting in January 2008 entitled "Laptops in the Classroom: Attractions or Distractions?". Which, of course, ties in directly to my Contracts laptop holiday. I will be at the conference and plan on attending that session.

Other, current discussion of the issue is available online. Here are a few good sources. Thanks to Professor James B. Levy of the Nova Southeastern University's Shepard Broad Law Center for bringing these to my attention.

1. An interview in October 2007 on National Public Radio with Professor Daniel T. Coyne of the Chicago-Kent College of Law, in which Professor Coyne argues in favor of laptop bans.

You would think this sort of position would make him highly unpopular with students--but in 2007 he was named "Faculty Member of the Year" by the Chicago-Kent Student Bar Association.

2. An April 2007 Washington Post op ed by Professor David D. Cole of the Georgetown University Law Center, entitled "Laptops vs. Learning" (great title).

Very interestingly, Cole banned laptops in his 1L class, and then took an anonymous survey of his students to get their views on the ban. 80% said they were more engaged in a no-laptop class, and 70% said they supported the ban. That's very interesting--and it makes me wonder what the results of such a survey might be in my class if I were to implement a long-term ban. I strong recommend his piece; he lays out very well the primary criticisms of computer bans and why he largely rejects these criticisms. These criticisms are, in fact, the very types of arguments that have been made in comments to my previous blog posts on this subject, which are as follows:

Computers in Class
Computer Bans
More on Computer Bans
Multitasking in the Classroom
Multicommenting on Multitasking
Computer Bans Hitting the Mainstream?

3. A similar interview by Professor Cole on NPR in April 2007, in which he basically takes the same line.

This interview goes into greater detail on this same subject. There are also comments from callers that are interesting. One particularly relevant point Cole makes (concedes?) in response to one caller is that not all classes are alike. Cole is largely concerned with how computers might impair classroom discussion--but in a lecture class, that's not an issue. So in some classes, computers might not be liabilities. And I suppose that computers might actually be beneficial in some classes, depending on what the class is and how it is structured (say, a seminar on "Technology and the Law").

My Impressions Regarding My Computer-Free Week

It's too early to tell, really. One class does not a trend make. But class was awfully quiet earlier this week. Perhaps exhaustion and burnout are starting to set in. Perhaps it's because the class material is getting harder (which it is). Perhaps a laptop ban would make no difference. I do not know. What does seem clear is that a longer experiment than one week would be needed to get a feel for a ban's impact. And frankly, in the first semester of law school, and with a generation of computer-wired students, I'm reluctant to ban computers for the sake of an experiment.

Of course, if people are using their computers for non-class activities and distracting other students, that is another story entirely . . . .

Following up on my post yesterday, here is a link to an article in the Jackson Clarion-Ledger about last night's Mississippi Innocence Project fundraiser. The article provides additional information about the dinner and the Innocence Project, and it reports that John Grisham and Scott Turow will be speaking on Wednesday, October 24, at my alma mater, Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago. (See link to event notice here.) It's also worth noting that my former Professor Larry Marshall, now at Stanford, was also involved (along with Scott Turow) in the Jeanine Nicarico case (see my previous post). Marshall served as counsel for defendant Rolando Cruz.

With high profile scholars, practitioners and celebrities involved in the Innocence Project nationwide, and with dedicated personnel and supporters on the ground here in Mississippi, I sincerely hope that leverage can be brought to bear in Mississippi on the subject of wrongful convictions. Historically, the subject has not been a high profile issue here.

For a striking recent image from Mississippi's sole maximum security prison, Parchman Penitentiary, see this link. For more information about Parchman, which is a work farm, see here. Parchman is where wrongfully convicted Cedric Willis (see my last post) served time.

Tonight I attended the inaugural fundraising dinner for the newly-established Mississippi Innocence Project. Originally a branch of the Innocence Project in New Orleans, the MIP is now housed at the University of Mississippi School of Law in Oxford, Mississippi. (The national Innocence Project's website is located here.) I have not had much time to reflect on the event as of yet, so this post is essentially a recounting of my observations from the evening. Not a news report per se, but also not an opinion piece. Something in between, I suppose.

I attended the dinner for two reasons. First, as I have stated before on this blog, I am the faculty adviser for the Mississippi College School of Law's student-run Public Interest Law Group (PILG). Second, I attended because Mississippi is badly in need of public interest law support. It's a poor state with a relatively high crime rate and a wide gulf between the haves and the have-nots. So organizations like the MIP need support and assistance from entities like PILG and my law school.

Tonight's keynote speakers were Mississippi author John Grisham and Chicago author Scott Turow. They were eloquent, witty and passionate, which is no surprise--but the evening's most moving speakers were Dennis Fritz of Oklahoma and Cedric Willis of Mississippi, two men wrongfully convicted of separate crimes. Fritz and Willis each served 12 years in prison before being exonerated and released. Willis's mother also was there, sitting at a table near me.

Grisham and Turow related how they became involved in Innocence Project activities--Grisham through his writing and Turow through his law practice. Grisham's 2004 nonfiction book The Innocent Man details the story of one man's wrongful conviction. Turow, who continues to practice with the Chicago law firm of Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal, represented defendant Alejandro Hernandez in the infamous Jeanine Nicarico case. Grisham and Turow spoke of wrongful convictions and the dangers of certain types of scientific evidence (junk science), eyewitness testimony, and use of informants for testimony. Nothing new there, perhaps, but after all the purpose of the evening was not to present cutting-edge testimony, but rather to raise money and garner support for the cause. And given that there was a crowd of about 500 paying guests, that goal was accomplished. Not bad for an organization that is only 2 months old.

I was particularly struck by the contrast between Willis and Fritz. Willis, who is now about 32, was 19 when he was arrested and convicted. His overwhelming emotion on display was joy--joy at being free, at being proven right, at seeing something like the Innocence Project take hold in his home state. Fritz was a more conflicted figure, with compassion, anger, and sorrow on display, sometimes all at once. And who could blame him, really. It does make you ask yourself how you might react to--and indeed how you might survive--12 years of incarceration. It is one thing to hear about wrongful convictions, or to concede the logic that a system based on reasonable doubt can make egregrious errors. It is quite another to meet people who have been wrongfully convicted and hear their stories.

For me, one occurrence put tonight's event in perfect perspective: I said hello to Scott Turow and had no idea who he was. Didn't recognize him. Now, I know what Scott Turow looks like. I've seen the man before, and I have seen his picture scores of times. And I went to law school in Chicago, where he is a bit of a celebrity. To be fair, he had a beard tonight, which he did not use to have. (Check out his website, on which he is cleanshaven.) But still. There I am, holding the door for famous author Scott Turow, and instead of introducing myself and trying to make a connection I just say, "Hey, how's it going?"

So much for my big moment. And so much for eyewitness testimony.

I'm in the midst of a series of posts on the movie Michael Clayton (here and here), but two news items from the ABA Journal warrant a detour.

Item #1: Professor Kibosh and the Evil Laptop. First, on the ever-popular (or not) subject of laptop bans in classrooms, there is an article in the ABA Journal concerning the increasing popularity of laptop bans in law school classrooms. I've blogged about the subject numerous times; look for my posts labeled by the "computer" category. And of course every time I suggest that a ban might be justified in some circumstances, I get angry reader comments.

I am undecided on the subject, and my current position on the matter is that if I can't decide whether a ban is desirable or not, then I should just leave matters be. Perhaps I should let students vote on the matter? I don't know. But this article points out yet more perils of laptop use: IM harassment in class and obscene videos.

Virtual Law Practice. This article really, really interests me. Apparently at least one law firm is setting up shop in the online 3D gaming world of "Second Life." As Craig Jones of the UK's Simpson Millar explains, "Many of our clients have injuries which can make it difficult for them to meet us at our offices. Others are too busy. Second Life is a way of 'seeing' your legal representative and receiving advice without coming to our office."

So in other words, this is real legal advice, provided in avatar-to-avatar format. How very fascinating, and it raises interesting questions. In a very large sense, this is no different, substantively, from communicating with clients by e-mail or phone. But what if avatars can one day be programmed to provide advice independently (provided, of course, that a fee is paid)? Is that different somehow than having general legal memos available for download for a fee? Is it different from the practice of having canned legal advice that is modified, around the edges, for a client, and then charging the client for it? Could a law firm establish a subsidiary company to provide general "legal" (and perhaps strategic) player advice pertaining solely within the Second Life world? Law firms set up subsidiaries quite often to provide business and personal services-related advice, so why not in this context?

Also, what if a law school set up shop in Second Life? Is this a viable means for long distance (or e-commuting) education? Would this run into trouble with the ABA? Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig and Judge Richard Posner have in fact made appearances on Second Life, so the intersection of legal academia and the online world is not farfetched by any means. I don't play Second Life right now (but boy, it intrigues me), so for all I know there is already a law school in the game.

And perhaps most interestingly, what if an avatar-professor decided to prohibit her avatar-students from using simulated laptops in her Second Life classroom?

Makes my (non-simulated) brain hurt.

**Photo credit: Steve Garfield**

The Socratic Method takes a lot of flak from law students and lawyers, many of whom regard it as some form of hazing/hiding the ball/rite of passage. Those are not entirely inaccurate criticisms--by which I mean to say that while I think the method has its place, I never much enjoyed it as a student. For that reason--and for the more important reason that mixing up teaching methods helps (I hope) keep class more interesting and is more conducive to learning--I do not rely on the Socratic Method all that heavily.

I am writing about the Socratic Method because of today's Dilbert comic strip. It was, yet again, about the pointy-haired boss. When I read today's strip (11/25/07, which is available in the Dilbert archives here), my first thought was, "Wow, I used to have a boss just like that." (And no, I am not telling you who it was.)

And then I started thinking about this Dilbert strip in the context of the law school classroom, and it got even better. And funnier. First you need to read the strip. And then you need to read on.

When Dilbert's boss says "I need you to do something, but I don't have time to explain it," that's akin to the feeling law students sometimes get when called on in class under the Socratic Method. That is, you read the cases, think you know where the material is going--and then you go to class, and BOOM, you have no idea what is going on. All kinds of ideas are being extrapolated from the text by the professor. And then you get called on socratically. You hear the words, but what do they mean? What's the answer? In fact, what's the question?

Then the professor asks some sort of leading question, which is intended to facilitate class discussion and critical thinking, but it smells and feels like a trap. Which is sort of like Dilbert's boss saying, "I'll give you just enough information to send you down the wrong path." Like I said, a trap.

Then the professor asks a follow-up question that reveals a potential flaw in your answer or argument. Like I said, a trap, and you have to think your way out of it, shooting from the hip all the while. Which is like Dilbert's boss then saying, "After you do it wrong I'll treat you like you're some sort of idiot . . . [and] then I'll put you through the embarrassment of undoing everything you did." You are faced with revising your answer, in front of the whole class. Not a lot of fun. It's a good skill, mind you--lawyers need to be able to think on their feet and argue their points (we are advocates, after all)--but it is often not fun.

And of course, the ultimate judgment on what students say and think is--grades. It is a common feeling for students to think that a course has been one big game of "hide the ball," and that final exams, especially in the first year, are a crapshoot. Only after you have taken them do you get the chance to figure out if you guessed right or not.

So, Dilbert is funny. Ha ha. But law school is serious business. A lot of what this strip suggests, in the Socratic context, is that law school classes would be better with less hiding of the ball, more engaging teaching, more frequent testing (whether actually for grades or mock exams,) and a lot of other changes. I've actually written an article about it, which I will be posting about soon. In the meantime, we can learn how to improve law schools from Dilbert.

I heard a story on NPR's Morning Edition today that has to be blogged about. Boston University Law Professor Mark Pettit sings in his Contracts class. What's more, his songs are parodies of pop songs, and they are about the cases he teaches in Contracts. I suppose the experience of being in his class, when he sings, must be like learning the law from Weird Al Yankovic.

There is a good bit of scholarly literature on the subject of humor in education, and how humor improves learning. For a list of some scholarly articles on the subject (all of which are presumably not funny), see here.

Pettit is admirably shameless. People remember something when they laugh about it, and words set to music or in poetry are easier to remember. And as the NPR piece demonstrates, Pettit has engaged students both in and outside the classroom: they pay attention in class, they think about the subject of Contracts outside of class, and they write lyrics for Pettit to perform. That's what's called active learning, and it improves the quality of education. And it makes the experience more fun.

Maybe I should have a Contracts lymerick contest next semester. Or for that matter, why not now? So here are are two lymericks-in-progress for my next class, on the subjects of (a) Leonard v. Pepsico (the video referred to in the case is located here) and (b) Empro Manufacturing Co. v. Ball-Co Manufacturing, Inc., 870 F.2d 423 (7th Cir. 1989) (I can't find a free link to the case). Those who have nothing better to do--and those who do have something better to do but would rather do this--can complete the lymericks and post as comments. Feel free, of course, to revise the lymericks as needed. And it goes without saying, but I will say it anyway: keep it clean!

Re PepsiCo:

Pepsi Co did firmly reject

Leonard's claim for a Harrier Jet

[Fill in the rest?]

Re Empro:

When its letter of intent was rejected

Empro said "contracts must be respected"

[Fill in the rest?]

Amazing though it may seem, at law schools around the country it is final exam time. With that in mind, I thought I would post some exam-taking advice. The exercise is largely the same each year, however, so rather than re-inventing the wheel, here are links to some previous advice on the subject.

Perhaps the place to start is with my post entitled Reflections on Law School Exams. It includes general advice and links to some of my prior exam-related posts. Another useful post on this blog is on The Pros and Cons of Exam Typing. Students--and professors--sometimes assume that typing an exam is always better than writing one. I don't agree--even though typed exams are by definition more legible (something I of course appreciate).

There is a lot of exam advice in the blogosphere, and it's easy to get overwhelmed by the sometimes conflicting advice given. But two additional sources (not from this blog) that I strongly recommend are the following:

Law School Exam-Taking Tips. This excellent post on Concurring Opinions by Professor Daniel Solove at George Washington University Law School covers a lot of useful ground. 1Ls (and 2Ls and 3Ls, for that matter) should take his advice to heart.

Bad Answers, Good Answers, and Terrific Answers. This very useful post on the Volokh Conspiracy is by Professor Orin Kerr, who is also at George Washington University Law School.

Law School Exam Advice from Pitt's Jurist website. The University of Pittsburgh's excellent Jurist website lists excellent links to information on taking law school exams. There's a lot of useful information here.

Good luck studying, and good luck on exams!

Time sure flies. It's hard to believe it has been over two weeks since my last post, which is unusual. The reason, as anyone who is in or has been to law school might suspect, is that I have been neck-deep in final exams to grade. 278 essay questions from two classes, to be exact. But who's counting? Not me, since I just finished them.

At the end of every semester, I remember the adage that we professors teach for free, but get paid to grade. Grading is not fun. But it is, of course, very important. And it is, of course, my job. People's grades--and to some extent their professional futures--depend on my grading. So I take the task extremely seriously.

Yet I would be lying if I said that reading answers to the same essay questions over and over and over again is scintillating, because it's not. Still, the exercise holds its own sort of twisted appeal. For one thing, no two answers are exactly alike. The organization is different, the discussion is different, and the conclusions reached are different. That's no surprise, perhaps--and yet I am always struck by it. I tell my classes that often in the law the answer to a question is "It depends"--which gets a few chuckles and, I am afraid, a little eye-rolling too. People prefer clarity, and the study of law often does not provide that. There is rarely a clear-cut, unequivocal answer in the law, and there are always arguments to the contrary that can be made. Lawyers are advocates, after all.

What really strikes me during grading season, though, is that once in a while a student comes up with something unexpected in answering an essay question, and it works really well. The majority of the time, this sort of reaching is just that: reaching. It doesn't get a lot of points, since it typically veers the answer off target. (In economic terms, it's an opportunity cost.) Yet sometimes, an insight is made that is truly clever, and it demonstrates that the student understands the material at a deeper level. Reading answers like that are some of my favorite moments in teaching.

I should put a caveat here. I am NOT encouraging students to be wildly inventive in their exam answers. No, no, and no. The professor is not always trying to trick you. Identify the issues, summarize and apply the law, and reach your conclusion. You will always get more points for this than for answers that stray into wild flights of fancy. (Unless the class is a "Law and Creative Fiction" seminar, I suppose. It depends, right?) But if something strikes you as a point worth making that is not an obvious one, and you have time, then make it. It may be the nuanced observation that makes the difference between an A and a B. I had several such episodes during my exams in law school, and I got an A every time. If only it had happened on every exam . . . .

This post is about another interesting new blog on the subject of alternative career options for lawyers. Making the Jump is a blog run by recent law school graduate Karen Eaton, and it is devoted to the subject of law career changes. So it is definitely up my alley, and so far Eaton has written some interesting posts. It's a blog I'll be keeping my eye on, and I have added it to my blog.