'The justices had very little good to say about articles published in law reviews. 'What the academy is doing, as far as I can tell,' Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said, 'is largely of no use or interest to people who actually practice law.'"
There is an interesting series of comments to the post above.
Is that just Roberts' contempt for the liberalism that is believed to dominate the legal academy? I don't know. My law review articles have been cited by courts - but only one of them seems to really represent impact. But I can definitely say that I had an impact as a practicing lawyer. The evidence is in a series of precedent setting opinions in cases that we won.
My general impulse is to start muttering under my breath when a law professor says he is setting out to "reconceptualize" some aspect of the law. If you want to have an impact on the law, it is best to engage in the practice of law - which encourages an incremental approach. But in today's academy most have little experience of practice. What you don't know you don't value.
The structure of the academy institutionalizes it: clinical professors work on long term contracts. Academic professors have tenure and a vote.
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