THE REQUIREMENT OF FULL-TIME FACULTY IN AMERICAN LEGAL EDUCATION: RESPONSIBILITIES AND EXPECTATIONS

Mary Kay Kane, University of California, Hastings, United States

 

 

 

 

            One characteristic of American legal education is that United States law schools are required to utilize a sufficient number of full-time faculty members to ensure the quality of their educational programs. This requirement is found in both the ABA Standards for Accreditation^[1] and the Bylaws of the Association of American Law Schools.^[2]   The theory underlying these requirements is that it is important to the quality of the education that the program of instruction be constructed and governed by individuals whose primary, if not sole, focus is on the education of the students in the law school and on helping to promote the development of the law though their scholarly efforts.^[3]    Members of the practicing bar and the judiciary commonly also are part of the teaching faculty of most American law schools, bringing specialized expertise to the classroom that the pure academic may not possess.  Nonetheless, it is believed that the other professional demands in their careers generally prevent part-time faculty members from devoting substantial attention to meeting with students outside the classroom, and to participating in the development of the curriculum and other matters typically governed by the faculty, as well as in completing serious scholarly agendas to advance the law.  Hence, the emphasis on full-time faculty as an important quality control measure.

 

            There are certain general responsibilities imposed on all full-time faculty members. They fall into thee categories: teaching, scholarship, and public service.

 

            First, as to teaching, although there are some variations between law schools, commonly each faculty member is required to teach a certain minimum number of courses each year, typically between thee or four. These courses may be large courses taught either in lecture or Socratic method format, smaller specialized seminars in which students develop research papers under the direction of the faculty member, or other skills training courses in which students work on problems either of live or hypothetical clients and learn how to develop a case and present it for resolution though that experience.  In each of these settings the faculty member is expected (1) to select the materials for the students to study and to develop a plan of how to present that material; (2) to write and grade any examination or seminar paper that is involved and to provide a final evaluation of each student’s performance at the conclusion; (3) to be available to students outside of the classroom for questions and consultation; and (4) to be available to students to explain the basis of any grade they receive.

 

            Full-time faculty members also have an obligation to produce legal scholarship.  Although there is considerable debate in the academy and in the legal profession generally about what constitutes legal scholarship, and, more particularly, excellent or useful scholarship, the role of faculty members researching and writing in ways that advance the law or our understanding of the law, legal institutions, and the profession is deemed an important contribution of legal education to the profession. The obligation to make that contribution falls on full-time faculty because they are deemed both by inclination (having selected an academic career) and by the time afforded to them by the law school to be in the best position to fulfill that role.

 

            Finally, full-time faculty members are required to devote some of their time and attention to public service. This may take several forms.  It usually includes service to the law school itself on Various internal faculty committees that work on matters dealing with the development of the law school, such as the curriculum, faculty appointments, and law school admission, or on similar committees within the university generally.  It may involve service in other professional organizations, such as the major legal education organizations represented at this conference (the Association of American Law Schools, the ABA Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, or the Law School Admissions Council), or in local or state bar associations.  Providing pro bono services to other community-based organizations also may satisfy the requirement.  Faculty members in each of these settings are not paid for their work, but contribute their time and skill to the particular endeavor to help foster the organization involved.

 

            It generally is accepted in American legal education that law schools have an obligation to provide a wide range of institutional support for their full-time faculty members in order to allow them to fulfill these thee responsibilities.  This support takes several forms, including a reasonable salary, the opportunity for sabbatical or other paid research leaves, the provision of funds for student research assistants and travel to various professional meetings, and access to computers and library resources.  More generally, it is expected that the assignment of teaching and internal committee responsibilities will be done in a way that helps each faculty member maximize his or her potential and expertise, while still fulfilling the school’s needs.  Obviously, the level of resources devoted to these matters, and the relative flexibility in teaching or other law school assignments varies between institutions.  But each of these support items can be found in all law schools in differing degrees.  Finally, in most institutions it is accepted that a faculty member who fulfills all of the required duties competently during the first several years in teaching (anywhere from 3-7) will receive tenure, guaranteeing a life-time appointment unless financial emergencies at the institution or the individual’s later misconduct results in dismissal.

 

            This general description of the responsibilities and expectations of a full-time faculty would not be complete without acknowledging that there are some serious challenges in the United States today to this traditional model.  At one extreme, recognizing that there are large institutional costs related to providing the necessary support for full-time faculty, some urge that greater access to a legal education at a reduced cost would be achieved by abandoning the requirement altogether.  Questions also have been raised regarding the need or propriety of providing lifetime tenure.  Technological developments that suggest the possibility of providing long-distance legal education delivered though the internet also present challenges to the traditional model of classroom instruction and the duties associated with it.  For law schools based on the full-time faculty model, finding the necessary resources to support the faculty adequately poses some serious problems.  In an era of rising living costs and fast-growing salaries for practicing lawyers in the private sector, concerns are raised about the failure of the law schools to provide sufficient faculty compensation.  As a result, many faculty members are devoting significant time serving as paid consultants to lawyers or for corporations, reducing their formerly exclusive commitment to teaching, scholarship and public service.  At present there are no answers to these tensions; they are mentioned simply to acknowledge that the full­time faculty model, while offering many benefits, brings with it some inherent problems.