Thread by @lawprofblawg

Okay, Bigelow v. Legal Writing Professor (LW) Applicants for tenure track, part II. Let's explore with our labor econ hats!

#lawtwitter #Econtwitter

@AdamSFeldman and others can correct my errors as I put on the labor economist hat.

Disclaimers:

1. I'm not saying that Bigelow fellows do not deserve jobs.

2. I'm not saying "get a Bigelow" is bad advice. Overall, data shows it is good advice, given how the market "functions."

3. I'm not saying Bigelows don't work hard. It is possible to work hard, deserve jobs, and still have a tremendous advantage over a similarly situated person who publishes, works hard, and deserves jobs.

I felt the need to make those points given the last few times I've called out elitism in academia. It brings out all the feels.

Also, I hope no one is going to question that Bigelows do get jobs at high rates. If you think that is wrong, please let me know so I can let Chicago know. They have data.

law.uchicago.edu/bigelow/howtoa…

One way to compare Bigelows with Legal Writing Professors switching to tenure track is to look at FAR, only looking at comparable Bigelow, LW candidates. Then, we could compare overall success rates. Wonder which would be higher. @AALS, help us out? Can we get a grant, too?

We could look at applicant pools at each university via some open records means. Problem: That doesn't include who does NOT get interviewed. We know who gets hired, however: Many schools send me e-brochures and tweets. But again, hard to actually compare candidates that way.

Anecdotal evidence, without some adjustment, doesn't help. Qualitative researchers might note bias in investment in the process. Or in my case, with all the stories I've been told, bias against believing it is a fair system.

I could look at who is on the faculty, and their origin stories. Doing that, LW is a low number. Some will immediately say, "well, that makes sense because generally LW Profs don't publish or don't want to..."

That makes me want to do a survey. But of what?

@meeradeo, help!

One other thought: Since 80% of law professors hail from the same few schools, maybe those schools would happily share who entered the LW market and then we could trace their careers? Not complete information, but I'm just spitballin'.

But wait! There's more. The Tenure track market is not homogenous. So we would need to see along the different bands of the hierarchy about placement/interview rates. See above for the Bigelow data.

Ultimately, I suppose I get frustrated because this is a subtle burden shift. It is incumbent upon some of us to prove that LW faculty are discriminated against in quests for TT. It is somehow NOT incumbent upon the academy to empirically prove they aren't.

That's why word of mouth is insufficient. If a few profs tell me that their hiring don't work to bias LW, I have to believe them (because they are honorable people).

But then LW faculty tell me how f*cking hard it is to get those gigs. They are honorable people, too.

Also, I would be remiss if I didn't not that within the LW community, there is a LOT of literature on this. Good stuff about how such hierarchies feed other bands of discrimination. Too much to mention here. But please feel free to reply here with that literature!

Finally: Apologies to @CBHessick, @espinsegall, @lee_kovarsky, and @ProfMarkovic for starting a new thread. It's early and I just had coffee: It's just easier to thread here than reply with 1/N).

This concludes my early morning spitballin'.

And also finally: While this thread was inspired by a discussion with @CBHessick, @lee_kovarsky, @ProfMarkovic, and @espinsegall, it in NO WAY implicates their views in my labor market spitballing. I'm just trying to get at how to answer the question.
I read a lot on twitter.

@CBHessick @espinsegall @lee_kovarsky @ProfMarkovic I know, from times where people have accused me of disingenuous use of data, that is not a good feeling.

So again, my apologies for the wrongful implication. I hope my tweet corrected that.

@PeterOrlowicz @CBHessick @espinsegall @lee_kovarsky @ProfMarkovic They were copied on the tweet thread because we were having a discussion, along with others. They are not mentioned IN THE TWEET THREAD AT ALL until I copied them in!!!!!! I also copied in #Econtwitter, and @AdamSFeldman, @meeradeo, who were not part of the original discussion.