A Livable Calling

January 7th, 2013 / By Deborah J. Merritt

The Presidential Program at this year’s AALS Annual Meeting featured a discussion of “Law Schools and Their Critics.” As part of that discussion, Gene Nichol offered a compelling challenge to law faculty.

Paralleling a paper published earlier this year, Nichol suggested that law schools have pushed tuition past the breaking point “without dramatically improving, or perhaps even paying close attention to, the actual learning experience of our students.” How can schools cut costs now that the crisis has arrived?

Nichol’s primary suggestion: Aim solutions at the central cost driver, tenure-track faculty salaries. To do that, Nichol suggested four mechanisms: (a) Return teaching loads to 12 credits per year. (b) Cut back overly generous policies for research leaves and sabbaticals. (c) Require faculty to teach more courses that students need for successful careers. (d) Reduce salaries to more realistic levels.

These are provocative proposals, at least for some faculty. And I offer an immediate caveat that Nichol did not have time in his short presentation to explain how he recommends implementing some of these steps. My imminent airline departure also prevented me from hearing the Q&A portion of this panel. Would Nichol trim salaries over time by cutting at corners (e.g., fewer summer research grants), freezing salaries (perhaps at the highest levels, where some of us have already attained so much), and attrition? Or would he recommend more dramatic steps? I will invite Gene to offer more details here at the Cafe if he’s willing to do so.

Meanwhile, there were three points embedded in Gene’s presentation that deserve particular mention. First, as noted above, he stressed the need to aim solutions at the problem. If high tuition is a problem, and if the high cost of tenure-track faculty lies behind that problem, then we need to address those costs. Making other reforms won’t cure the problem.

Second, Gene gently warned law schools that if we do not cure the problem of high tuition ourselves, then a combination of market and regulatory forces will solve the problem for us–perhaps in ways that are even less palatable to faculty or less supportive of legal education’s mission.

Finally, Gene suggested a silver lining in the cloud of faculty belt tightening. Most of us became teachers and scholars because it was our calling. We wanted to educate new lawyers and help the legal system gain new insights. Most of us, even 25 to 30 years ago, were delighted to learn that being a law professor was a “livable calling.” We would not have to make as many financial sacrifices as our friends who taught history, who became journalists, or who pursued careers in the arts. We could follow our passion, do what we believed in, and have an impact on the next generation, while still living comfortably.

Isn’t it possible, Gene asked, for law faculty to return to a livable calling? Do we need all of the extras that we awarded ourselves over the last few decades?