Age Discrimination in Law School Hiring

[Douglas Laycock]

  This might indeed be age discrimination.  But I suspect it is that
much better known failing of too many legal academics -- contempt for
the practice of law.   Too many voting members of faculties believe
that after 25 years in the practice, you have formed a different set
of mental habits, and have focused on different kinds of questions,
from those that lead to success in academia.  Some of them would
concede that probably some people can make the switch, but they would
say it is very difficult to identify those few exceptions and that the
odds are much against anyone who tries, and why should they spend a
scarce appointment in such a risky way. 

  This reluctance to hire practitioners may have made a little more
sense when people could be hired before they published.  It makes
less sense now that even entry level hires must have substantial
publications.  But that change coincides with the shift to
interdisciplinary work and the loss of confidence in law as a
discipline.  Those law professors who disdain the study of law even
in an academic environment are quite unlikely to have any respect for
the practice of law or any interest in hiring a lawyer who has made a
career in the practice. 

  I can't think of a way to connect this up to con law.

  Quoting XGreencard at aol.com:

> Some of you may have read the Nov. 28, 2005 posting at Virginia Law
School
> entitled, "Law Schools Could Face Age Discrimination Suits Over 
> Faculty Hiring,
> Panelists Say." America's law schools are vulnerable to age
discrimination
> lawsuits, according to Douglas Richmond and Ethan Burger, the
co-authors of a
> forthcoming article on this topic in the Virginia Journal of Social
Policy
> and  Law.
>
> I practiced law for 25 years and had a distinguished career in my
field. I
> hold an LL.M. from a top 10 school. I had prior publications but
this
> spring/summer produced two articles both of which have been
accepted
> for  publication
> in law reviews. I am currently a Ph.D. student at an Ivy League 
School.
>
> I registered for the AALS faculty recruitment conference in August
for the
> upcoming meeting Nov. 2-4. In addition, I wrote directly 15 schools
to whom I
> was particularly interested. I have not received one call, or one
interview.
> It  is so obvious that this is pure and simple age discrimination.
>
> I am outraged by this BS and am assembling my legal arsenal as we
speak.
> Stay tuned, you may be seeing the next Grutz v. Bollinger.
>
> Potential Plaintiff.
>

Douglas Laycock
Yale Kamisar Collegiate Professor of Law
University of Michigan Law School
625 S. State St.
Ann Arbor, MI  48109-1215
  734-647-9713
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