Osler's Razor

Periodically, I will get emails from people wondering how to become a law professor. It's a tough question. Different schools look for different things, and timing matters a lot. That said, here are some things that (too) many law schools look for:

1) Advanced degrees besides a JD
2) Federal judicial clerkships, the more prestigious the better
3) Class rank and law review membership
4) Published scholarship (yes, before you become a professor)
5) The law school you attended

By these common measures, a Stanford grad who clerked for Scalia, was at the top of her class and on law review, who published an article her first year out of school, and has a Ph.D. in economics is going to get a LOT of interviews.

What's wrong with that picture, though? First, none of those things in any way indicates that she will be a good teacher. Second, this list of attributes does not include experience practicing law, which is the enterprise she will be training people for.

Many people with this background turn out to be great teachers and scholars, in the end. Others do not. The problem, more than anything, is that what some schools look for is the ability to produce scholarship to the exclusion of all else, including the ability to teach or to actually create change through scholarship.