Academic Careers and Law School

Law school is half-way finished for me now, though it does not feel like it. This semester will be more academically challenging than the last one, and the Florida Bar Exam awaits me as soon as I earn my degree.

After completing a year and a half of law school, I still think I made the right choice. I am pleased with the number of opportunities which will be available to me.

One career path that is probably off limits to me now, though, is that of law school professor. I never had a particular desire to teach law, but upon enrolling at FSU College of Law, who knew what possibilities might exist for me or what might strike my interest?

After a year and a half, though, I've learned that the job of law school professor is probably one of the most coveted in all of academia. The group of tenured professors here at Florida State Law is easily the brightest collection of individuals I have ever met in my life.

During a brief stint as a newspaper reporter, I had to laugh when one of my news editors made a comment about college professors. "Academia," he said, "is a zoo for the eccentrics who can't make it in the outside world." I was a history major in college. While I loved my professors and they were also some of the smartest people I have ever met, I could see where my editor was coming from. The eccentricities of my history professors made them endearing. They had earned their insulated places in ivory towers, and I would be quite happy if I had the intelligence to join their ranks.

My editor's quote is not true of law school professors, though. One of the reasons that their job is so desired is that, in addition to all the benefits included in being a university professor, they are very well compensated. You can expect to earn a six figure income as a law school professor at a school like Florida State. Law professors are paid better than faculty in other disciplines because law professors could easily leave academia and pick up the same type of salary working for a Fortune 500 company.

Coming into law school, I did not know my potential. Learning what I am capable of is part of the competitive jockeying that goes on throughout law school, but most intensely during your first year. I have hit a ceiling, along with 99% of all other law school students, if I want to teach law.

I think it is fair to say that there is a gap in intelligence between the average law school student like myself and the average person on the street. Hopefully, I do not sound arrogant with that statement. I make it only to say as well that there is probably just as large if not a larger gap between my intelligence and the intelligence of the tenured professors here at the College of Law. In some classes, particularly those dealing with business transactions, they can run circles around me and make me wonder if I deserve to be in this law school. I hope that they are not privately wondering the same thing about me.

To put it even more succinctly- I am not smart enough to be a law school professor, or at least not a law school professor here. There are those in my class who are, though. In fact, an FSU College of Law alumnus is one of the tenured faculty here.

But if you desire to go to law school and eventually teach law, it seems to me there are three things you must do to achieve success:

First, go to the absolutely best law school you can get into, with no exceptions. It is extremely difficult for someone who graduates from FSU College of Law (currently ranked the 52nd best law school in the country) to land a faculty position at one of the Ivy League schools. Most of the professors who teach at FSU earned their degrees from one of the Ivy League schools or other top private law schools in the country.

Second, once you are in law school, make the law review. This is the most prestigious organization in law school, and it will open many doors for you.

Third, publish as much legal writing as you can, both while in law school and after you graduate. When FSU loses one of its law professors, it is usually because that professor has been publishing, made a name for himself or herself in some area of the law, and has been asked to join the faculty of a more prestigious school. Professors from lower-tiered law schools move up to earn teaching positions at FSU this way as well.

This is my take on academic careers and law school. I am certainly not an authority in the area, but I appreciate the opportunity to be around very intelligent people and to learn from them.

Universal Health Care Now,

Nathan Marshburn