Adjunct Law Professors

A couple of adjunct law professors (i.e., practicing lawyers who teach part-time at a law school, generally for a very modest amount of money) and I are writing a short piece on adjunct teaching, and we'd love to hear any thoughts our readers have on this. Have you taught as an adjunct, or considered doing it? What have been the pluses and minuses? What ideas do you have for how the adjunct system can be improved?

Alternatively, if you took classes from adjuncts as a student, what have you found to be the pluses and minuses of that? As you might gather, we have lots of views of our own on this, but we'd like to get some thoughts from others, to make sure we aren't missing some important points. Please feel free to post comments below, or e-mail me at volokh at law.ucla.edu. Thanks!

Comments

[Frank Drackman]

At least you get actual attorneys, in College and Med School we'd get the Graduate Students, seems Auburn got every Iranian Biochemistty/Physics student who wasn't keen on going back to fight in the Ear-Ron/Ear-Rock Wah,
Closest to an "Adjunct" in Med School was a Dermatologist who'd give a lecture once in a while, slide after slide of horrible disfiguring conditions, most of which were Syphilis related, (Yes, this was Alabama, go ahead Reverend))
Taught Gross Anatomy a few years back at an Osteopathic School, just for fun, and they made me an (Assistant) "Professor"
And Med Schools are about 2/3 XX now, most of them very attractive, as the admissions committees are still more than 2/3 XY

(Professor) Frank Drackman M.D.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

WDE!

[Frank Drackman]

I'm probably the only one who gets the reference, so here's an even more obscure one,

"Don't Poison my Trees, Bro!!!!!!!!!"

Frank

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Did you know the AU nursery sells saplings from those trees? I was thinking about buying an acre or two somewhere down there and planting a grove full amd them passing it down to my kids so when they are about my age now they would have some very special wood they could sell.

[Frank Drackman]

I did not know that !(HT J. Carson)
and I'll not take the opportunity for a "Wood" joke.
Truth is the trees were getting sickly before Harvey Up-Dick murdered them, School had been looking for a way to diplomatically chop them down, until Harvey did them a favor (one of the few good things to come of the Vid', HU passed away still owing Auburn money, typical Bama Fan)https://www.al.com/auburnfootball/2020/07/harvey-updykes-788588-toomers-oaks-bill-dies-with-him.html

If he'd been smart he'd have coached Auburn, then he could burn the whole program down, and we'd pay HIM money,

I now return control of the Convo back to all the Adjunct Poindexters,

Frank

[BravoCharlieDelta]

If he’d been smart he’d have coached Auburn, then he could burn the whole program down, and we’d pay HIM money,

lol, ain't that the truth

[Counselor--NYC-90-94]

Both as an undergrad, and a law student, I appreciated my adjuncts. They brought real work experience and understanding to courses. Whereas a career economics professor was not so great at communicating macroeconimics (despite his impressive ability to lecture for 2 hours with no notes and nothing more than a piece of chalk), an adjunct employed with the Treasury Department teaching upper level finance and monetary policy was 10 times more effective at communicating the same subject matter. The law school adjuncts presented a nice change of pace from the parade of former law review students who followed the clerkship/big firm/AUSA route to academia.

As much as I would enjoy teaching part time, however, wokism presents a potential headache that I just do not need after practicing for 30 years.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

As much as I would enjoy teaching part time, however, wokism presents a potential headache that I just do not need after practicing for 30 years.

Why not teach at a mired-in-the-past, nonsense-teaching, strenuously discriminating, roundly bigoted, conservative-controlled school? You sound like a natural fit for a fourth-tier (or worse), partisan, right-wing school.

[Frank Drackman]

Says the guy who coached Linebackers at Penn State

[M. Potter]

I couldn't have put it more succinctly. When the adjunct integrates his work experience into the doctrinal aspects of the class, it provides a refreshing perspective as to how the doctrine applies (or whether it's worth applying) in the field.

I took two Criminal Procedure classes with a First Assistant US Attorney out of Newark, New Jersey--William Fitzpatrick. From how he described his work, he took his responsibilities seriously and didn't seem the type to be churlish or argue loopholes with opposing counsel. When he taught a Giglio-Jencks-Fed. R. Crim. P. Rule 16 lecture (while we were expected to apply it for the final), he told us how, save for sensitive information (e.g., wanting to withhold certain witness details for their protection, IIRC), it tends to be best not to waste time trying to categorize evidence anyway. From his perspective, at best, you risk conveying a poor impression to the judge in terms of wanting to resolve the case and seek the truth. At worst, juggling several other preparations for trial, you accidentally withhold something, risk sanctions, or take away prep time from other aspects of your trial.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Students notice if you don't have the time to commit to teaching a class.

Once had an adjunct: young, very smart and at the beginning very enthusiastic and helpful. She was a senior associate at competitive and growing mid-size firm. Which has a lot benefits: someone who actually knows what practice is like but also was a student recently so they haven't completely forgot what being a student is like either.

As the semester went on it became clear however that the day job demands were impacting her availability and preparation for the class and she was getting overwhelmed.

So make sure you are at a place in your career where you can do it. The close of the partnership race might not be the best time to add a class too.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

When I was teaching it would take me 6-8hrs per hour of lecture to prep a new course. My peers shared similar tales.

Mid-semester was when she figured out the work of an adjunct wasn't worth the return.

[ragebot]

There is an old theory that going to college is more to make connections than the often outdated knowledge profs impart. I was in a joint degree program at FSU where the student gets a MS in Urban and Regional Planning and a JD from the law school. In terms of what I will call land use law ivory tower profs can teach theory but to really understand how things like zoning decisions, building permits, DRIs, and even seemingly simple stuff like how to get around the prohibition of cutting down a tree bigger than 12 inches in diameter you really need to get down and dirty with someone who has been in the wars. On the other hand I had one great land use prof who was full time tenured and he made the comment 'anything you turn in to me better have been revised and edited at least ten times'. So I think you need a combination of both; getting stuff out the door in a hurry and lots of edits and revisions.

[John F. Carr]

My neighbor wanted to put his addition slightly closer to our shared property line than the legal minimum setback. He thought if I wrote a letter in support he would get the permit as a matter of course. He learned that the responsible authority in our town takes the setback requirement seriously and will not grant a variance except in cases of hardship. But drive a couple hours and you are in a town where a totally new mansion, not meeting zoning rules, was permitted under the legal fiction that it was a renovation with no substantial change of a small shack on a different part of the lot. I think teaching land use law is a good opportunity to bring out war stories.

[Krayt]

The purpose of government is to get in the way, until paid to get back out of the way.

[Dr. Ed 2]

As to outdated knowledge, back in the 1990s, the UMass Computer Science Department was still teaching Pascal, an obsolete language from the 1970s which, by the late '80s, had been replaced by C for a variety of reasons that I'm sure EV can do a better job of explaining than me.

The professors insisted "academic freedom" permitted them to still teach Pascal, and they refused to offer any courses in C -- let alone have it be a universal course that all graduates took.

Seems that there were three very large employers in Massachusetts who were rather upset about this because they needed to hire young graduates who already knew C -- and they went to the Governor and said that they would leave Massachusetts if UMass Amherst didn't teach C -- and publicly state that was the reason they were leaving.

Needless to say, the professors were told that the department would teach C -- and it did. But look at what it took for that to happen....

[Krayt]

Pascal is friendlier to noobies. C has all kinds of gotchas that cause crashes if you are not careful, which noobs are not.

And one block structured language is similar to most others, so a single course dedicated to learning if-then-else in other languages is fine.

I never used Pascal after graduation omfg a quarter of a century ago.

[ragebot]

When I was a student Eculid against Ambler (Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co.) was the canonical case. Today Kelo is the canonical takings case.

[David Nieporent]

I believe this obviously true and verifiable anecdote.

[Nick Gillespie's Jacket]

Had an employment law adjunct for one semester; the only adjunct I knew of at the school. He was a leading lawyer in his field. Learned more in his class that I could immediately take and apply in practice than any other course (taught at 30,000 feet). So I think that’s a benefit of an adjunct: real-world law you can use in practice. (Not saying I’d want most classes to be like that though. I liked the more academic law school courses.)

Another plus: I earned the high grade in his class and got an offer from his firm upon graduation, based on that success, I’m sure. (I ended up taking a different job, but that would be another plus—possibility of a job after graduation, or at least a reference who actually knows the hiring partners in the local community, if you want to stay local.)

[Mr. Bumble]

Are adjuncts required to sign DEI statements? Apparently janitors are:
https://www.thecollegefix.com/applicants-for-universitys-janitor-job-openings-required-to-submit-dei-statement/

[Area Man]

To be honest, most of the adjuncts I had, while they obviously meant well, were not good teachers. Teaching is a skill, and you go to a classroom to be taught. All that "real-world experience" adjuncts supposedly bring isn't really relevant or necessary to the legal theories we're learning in class.

Real-world experience is relevant for internships and related courses. Thus, in my internship course-credit classes, adjunct professors were somewhat helpful. They were also good for "skills" courses, such as trial and appellate skills, because real-world experience is obviously needed there.

But when I needed to know the actual law and the theories underlying it, I found that fulltime faculty were invariably superior to adjuncts. The one possible exception to that was my International Criminal Law professor, who, in addition to being a day-to-day practitioner, was a expert in the field and had been adjunct teaching for years. But even he wasn't that great a professor compared to the fulltime staff.

The only people worse that practitioner adjuncts were current and former judges serving as adjuncts. They were *always* terrible professors. You'd think they'd make at least decent teachers, but, in my experience, they were not. (The judges I interned and clerked for were good "teachers" in their role as judges, but they too would probably not have been good classroom teachers outside skills courses.)

[David Nieporent]

To be honest, most of the adjuncts I had, while they obviously meant well, were not good teachers. Teaching is a skill, and you go to a classroom to be taught.

I mean, it's not like TT law professors are selected for their teaching ability.

[Dr. Ed 2]

0ne of my former undergrad students was attending a law school rated 147-192 by USNWR. He had an adjunct teaching Education law and while she may actually have been a licensed attorney who sued school districts on occasion, she really didn’t know the basics.

I had to explain what schools were supposed to do and I came to realize that she actually didn’t know that — all she knew was what to do when they hadn’t done any of that. And, IMHO, she wasn’t really all that good on that, either.

I know this is a larger thesis that I have stated here and elsewhere, but I believe that a retired Superintendent of Schools could have done a far better job teaching that course than *any* licensed lawyer. The Superintendent had to know the laws so as to *not* get sued, while all she had to know was what to do to sue him.

Furthermore, as most SPED issues are settled without suit, she really didn’t have to know *any* law beyond demanding the school do what the parents want (usually an uber expensive out of district placement).

[Dr. Ed 2]

The thing I noticed most about being an adjunct was that the tuition paid by the first two students more than covered my stipend, with that of the other twenty being pure profit to a university that wasn't spending any money to support me.

But for accreditation, another institution could have charged a whole lot less and still turned a profit -- and this was a non-profit university.

Second, being an adjunct is a lot like being a substitute teacher in K-12 -- you are teaching someone else's class and inevitably not the way that she would have taught it. And in both cases, you don't have a chance to sit down and ask her how she would have taught it.

Third, you don't get a living wage -- let alone the six figure faculty paycheck. It is, at best, a part time job and I know people who are adjuncts concurrently at multiple institutions, with true commutes from hell.

I think that the students are being cheated -- they pay for a real professor and only get someone like me, who is worth a small fraction of that. Yet the school gets to keep the difference....

[ragebot]

As an aside while I was a student I worked in the Office of Contracts and Grants doing automated accounting. Anytime a contract or grant is approved by a university the university gets a portion of the money to cover 'overhead'. The amount depends on multiple factors (and is suppose to cover things like the cost of the room/building where the research/whatever takes place, janitors to clean the rooms, computer services, and lots of other stuff) but in my case it was 40.4% of the money; which turns out to be on the lower middle side compared to all schools. What was interesting was that once a year after I reconciled the books I produced a tape and printed it out for the CPA who was my boss and headed the department. She then manually looked over the printout and made pen and ink reconciliations. Thing is places like NSF and HEW and other NGOs that offered the contracts and grants allowed a 1% increase in the overhead if they were simply provided the tape and not a manually reconciled printout.

Point is that while two students may have covered your salary there is more to it than that. Interestingly some big name schools have overhead rates at 85% +.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Research overhead became a major scandal with Stanford 30 years ago, and while various Presidents (including Obama) have tried to reign it in, none have....

[Sarcastr0]

The Single Audit Act was passed in 1984.

[Dr. Ed 2]

The Stanford scandal was in 1991.https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Professionalism/Stanford_Research_Scandal

NB: Other articles behind paywalls.

[shawn_dude]

Depending on whether you were teaching online or in a classroom, the facilities you used to teach the class had both fixed and variable costs. The systems used to organize, list, and provide registration for the course(s) you taught had fixed and variable costs as well. Further, in today's market it's not uncommon for every student in a class to have a different price for attending based on their mix of scholarships and other tuition adjustments. (see: discount rate.)

So, in the end, you couldn't know for sure if just those two students covered your fee or how many students paying average tuition levels it would take to cover all expenses before reaching "profit."

Serious question: if you felt that you weren't worth the money students were paying for your instruction, why did you continue to volunteer as an adjunct?

[Dr. Ed 2]

It was being conducted in a local high school and I did find out how much the university was paying, it wasn't much. And while there are registrar costs, they to aren't that much either.

There was no discount rate -- I asked when they told me to not let a specific student into my class as she hadn't fully paid her bill. To their credit, they did not order me to fail her for the work not done while she wasn't allowed in -- and I wouldn't have done it anyway.

And as to your second question, I didn't.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

[the questing vole]

The use and usefulness of adjuncts differs significantly depending upon what sort of institution under discussion. Law schools, med schools, and business schools are graduate vocational institutions, and, from what I understand, the type of adjunct used in such places is usually a professional who has some sort of specific expertise relevant to the school.

I teach at a large state university in its liberal arts college, and have also taught at a small liberal arts college. In the liberal arts colleges (both independent ones and those attached to larger universities), the adjuncts are usually either aspiring academics who can't find full-time jobs, or individuals with MA degrees who are hired to teach introductory courses. At universities with PhD programs, grad students are often used to teach introductory courses in addition to the adjuncts. I am not aware of any university that makes extensive use of adjuncts in its graduate programs (especially its PhD programs). (There aren't a lot of working philosophers outside the world of academia who could be brought in for a class or two in his area of expertise.)

The quality of adjunct teaching in liberal arts departments is often quite poor because many of the adjuncts are insanely overworked (e.g. for a single person to make a decent salary as an adjunct, he would have to teach six or seven classes per term and three or four in the summer; adjuncts don't get benefits, of course), and many are either not well-qualified or not particularly bright.

[Dr. Ed 2]

At least they speak understandable English, which many graduate students do not. I had a roommate from India who needed to teach two courses to pay for his computer science education -- every Monday and Wednesday night (he taught T&T) he'd wake up screaming in some Indian dialect.

It wasn't fair to him and it wasn't fair to his students -- and the department's attitude was that once the foreign graduate students learned English, then they'd have them doing research which was more important...

[Frank Drackman]

Guy who taught Hemato-patholoy in Med School was a genius, fled to Taiwan a few steps ahead of Mao's Death Squads, fluent Engrish, but a little trouble with his "L"'s. His research at the time was on "Howell–Jolly bodies" which he'd pronounce as "Horror Jorry Bodies" when he wasn't talking about Reukoctyes, Prate-rets, Hemogrobin, Sicker Cerr Anemia,

Frank
Howell-Jolly Bodies: a cytopathological finding of basophilic nuclear remnants (clusters of DNA) in circulating erythrocytes. During maturation in the bone marrow, late erythroblasts normally expel their nuclei; but, in some cases, a small portion of DNA remains. Its presence usually signifies a damaged or absent spleen, because a healthy spleen would normally filter this type of red blood cell.

The Howell–Jolly body is named after William Henry Howell[1] and Justin Marie Jolly

[Archibald Tuttle]

Very interesting collection of opinions in these comments. One could make a good article summarizing those views.

One thing I find missing is the format. Practitioners can also offer seminars, speeches, TED talks, Q&A sessions, or even email conversations. or tutoring with students in addition to teaching as a paid adjunct.

For example, in a design course, I would have thrilled hearing 1 hour from Steve Jobs, but I might want someone else to teach the whole course.

The other point that comes out in the comments is value to students as opposed to compensation for the teacher. It's hard to do justice to both in one article.

[Dr. Ed 2]

As graduate students increasingly become unionized, they wind up earning multiples of what Adjuncts do for teaching the same course.

It's like auto mechanics -- there is the shop hourly rate that customers are charged, and then the lesser amount that the mechanics are actually paid -- but the shop rate also pays for all the expensive equipment (and insurance) that the shop has to have, etc.

I understand that there are overhead costs which a university has, but they aren't (or ought not be) that much on a per-student basis.

And what happens with mechanics when the shop rate vastly exceeds their pay rate is that they go open their own shops and compete by offering a lower shop rate. The monopoly created by accreditation precludes that happening here today -- although a century ago, it is how a lot of colleges started. Amherst College may be the best-known example, a small group of Harvard Professors got fed up with Harvard and went out into the "wilderness" to start their own college.

What really bothered me was how much the students were paying for me and how little I actually received. I could have lived with half, I could have lived with a third, but less than a tenth?!?

[Not Unreasonable]

I was extremely fortunate to have two prominent trial lawyers team up and teach my Litigation Skills class. They emphasized actual trial techniques from opening to closing. And not just theory.

Pete Perlman — https://www.innercircle.org/LawyerSearch/Peter-Perlman

Bill Garmer — https://www.garmerprather.com/

Though I eventually ended up as an appellate attorney, the lessons I learned from them remain.

[Andy Hawks]

My experience was surely atypical. I only ever had one adjunct professor, but he was a genuine superstar in the one night course he was teaching at Georgetown University Law Center at the time (1983): Irving Younger for Evidence. He used a slim paperback textbook that he had written himself, and as far as I know, was used only by him. Every class was always an energetic performance and precisely paced so that all the subject matter for that particular class was covered just as time ran out. It was the most enjoyable class I ever had (college or law school) and could even be riveting at times when he talked about a famous trial like Alger Hiss or Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. The only criticism I recall is that he refused to let students see past exams because it was strong suspected (and perhaps even confirmed at some point) that he was using the same exam questions (typically multiple choice) year after year.

[shawn_dude]

I was considering a future as a college professor so I volunteered to teach as an adjunct to get a feel for the teaching part of the job. I had a fulltime professional career at that point, which is a good thing given how poorly I was paid for my time. I enjoyed the teaching, even though it was an introductory class, but learned a lot about the hours, support, and process that dissuaded me from giving up my day job. All of this was before the .com surge in the late 90s and the dramatic increase in wages I could earn as a developer.

[ScottB]

I suspect the classroom negatives that others have identified have a lot to do with teaching a class for the first time. Teaching is hard, and the learning curve is pretty steep. Any given law school adjunct from the practice world is a lot more likely to be teaching for the first time than any given full-time faculty member.

[ragebot]

RANT ALERT

I have always believed that teachers don't teach, rather students learn. Back in the 9th grade I had an Algebra teacher who was a real son of a bitch. His name was James E. Throton and he wore a tie clip with the letters JET on it. He was a retired engineer and really did not have the skills to teach Junior High School kids at his age. He was the classic grumpy old man with a 'get off my lawn' approach to life. On the other hand my 10th grade Algebra II teacher was a hot young female and all the boys in the class wanted to please her by working as hard as possible.

Thing is that neither of these teachers was able to stop my life long love for math and I was able to learn from both of them. I have also had some university level teachers who spanned that same range of abilities. One guy in particular was an East Indian who could barley speak English but still taught my Econometrics class. I was able to get by and impress him by using my computer skills and knowledge of SPSS to get the assignments done even if the instructions were not clear. As an aside I had to go to the dean of the department to get an A- changed to an A because the paper had the word dissuade circled in red pencil and a note 'not an English word'. One of my biggest gripes is how many profs have substandard English skills.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Try K-12 for poor English language skills...

[boroka]

With a Ph.D. in a low-demand field, I adjuncted for more than 30 years while free-lance translating, editing and consulting. What this paid me just barely enabled me to smoke and "drink their whiskey." No benefits, sabbaticals or retirement-$. Full-timers treated me at best shabbily: "here-today-gone-tomorrow" said one who since traded spouses twice and jobs three times. But classes were a joy and greatly appreciated by students. My subjects were never taught in the college's 150-year history and will never be taught again.

Useful? You tell me: Listening to my lectures enabled a few to see clearly such topics as Chinggis Khan's achievements, the Balkan quagmire or Ukraine vs. Russia.

[Dissojudge]

I've periodically taught family law and community property as a law school adjunct professor. I was on the Los Angeles Superior Court and now work as a private judge. I know more about these subjects than your average bear. And yet one reason I periodically--not every year, just from time to time--choose to teach these classes is because in preparing to teach I inevitably both learn and relearn more about the subjects than the students do. I don't think I'm a great teacher, but I'm not terrible and the students do learn stuff too. Just not as much as I do.

A comment about pay. Being an adjunct professor is better on an hourly basis than flipping hamburgers at McDonald's, but (counting preparation time, class time, talking with students outside of class, and grading exams) not by much.

I suspect that the money is a minor reason that most lawyers who work as adjunct law professors choose to do it. Contrast that with the adjuncts in so many other fields who are forced to scramble just to make a meager living while hoping to get a tenure-track job.

I went to UCLA School of Law and loved it. It was a great learning experience and great fun. Some of the tenured professors were terrific and inspiring instructors who helped me learn to think like a lawyer (I'll put Jesse Dukeminier at the top of that list), but some of the very best instructors I had were adjunct professors, including Carla Hills for antitrust, Ron Trost for bankruptcy and creditors' rights, and Max Greenberg for corporations law. To be sure, this was more than 50 years ago.

[River]

From my perspective having been a law student at a top law school, I think my ideal law school would have all teaching done by adjuncts, there just wouldn't be any tenure track faculty at all. Law isn't an academic field, there's no truth about the world it is trying to explore. Law is a profession, a practice, and I got a lot more out of the teachers who actually practiced it.

[Doktormoo]

I serve our local law school teaching Second Amendment and state firearms law. Students have the optional opportunity to go to a range and shoot firearms (a non-graded exercise).

After paying for range time, taxes, ammunition, lunch for some additional NRA instructors to help with safety (they would do it for free, but I like to thank them), and a parking pass, my wife says I likely lose money teaching the class. I do not disagree.

It is not about the money, but a way to help law students understand a topic that does not get much time in law school. Not surprisingly, many lawyers do not know the difference between a clip and a magazine or semi-automatic and automatic firearms. It is important to me that the students understand the terminology and the law when we finish.

When we went on-line only, I did not teach. When we went back to in person classes, I jumped back in. It appears that the students get a lot from the class; I sure do.

This is not related to my day job as a corporate attorney, but it is a passion. While the pay could be better, many of my expenses are at my own choosing. I'll likely continue to do this as long as the university will have me.

Many folks, including Professor Volokh, were kind enough to Zoom into (or come into the class room) to speak to the students. I know the students appreciate this as well.

Hope that helps.

[apedad]

Because Prof. Volokh is, ". . . writing a short piece on adjunct teaching. . . ," and that's how law professors enhance their prestige and pocketbooks.

[Bored Lawyer]

Just because he recommends something does not mean people will listen to him. Lots of lawyers will continue to act as adjunct professors. So examining how it works has value.

[apedad]

You mean having your own Wiki page isn't cachet (with a t) enough? 🙂

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Volokh

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Adjuncts are great for special topics courses aligned with their professional job.

At my last university we used Adjuncts to plug gaps when we had more students then teaching capacity.

It sucks for Adjuncts and the students in that situation because there they are just underpaid labor.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

I'm guessing they are close peers of his and he's contributing from his perspective.

[mse326]

Writing a piece on adjunct teaching doesn't say anything about the content of said piece. It's perfectly reasonable that the piece will contain both positives and negatives. It likely won't even be about recommending it or not, but presenting things about it and letting the reader decide.

[mse326]

No where does it indicate there is a change. He believes the negatives outweigh the positives, that doesn’t mean he can’t be part of a project that presents the positives and negatives and lets the reader decide

And a blog post on what is ultimately a pretty unknown blog to the vast majority of people isn't much reach. Writing something for a law journal or an op-ed or even if if to another small place on the internet but that is more connected to adjunct teaching gets his views to more people in general and to more that may be impacted by the argument

[BravoCharlieDelta]

I didn’t teach online but I’ve seen several different models and the level of effort varied greatly. Pre-recorded and polished material took time mostly from the pre & post-production of the video according to some of my peers. The nice thing, however, is you only do it once and you got a nice asset, until you watch it yourself then decide to rerecord it. Others would just record their regular lecture and post it, warts and all.

The format didn’t really jive with my teaching style. I usually enjoyed teaching and engaging with the students and didn’t see that sort of rapport in an online setting.

I left the profession before COVID made it necessary, so I guess I’m lucky there.

[Tallman]

I’d be interested in data on the prevelance of the “experienced practioneer filling a gap” type vs. “law schools exploiting ‘dreamers’ of a tenure track position” type.

Ditto for the data on the median pay differential between the two types of lecturers (pro tip inequality==publication in high impact journal)

[Heedless]

More like: I don’t like Johnny’s restaurant, but not everybody agrees with me, so I am collaborating with a few other restaurant critics to write a in-depth review.”