Until 1994, most law schools enforced mandatory retirement at age 70. When Congress made that illegal, here's what happened:
Is 70 the new 60? Or has a new gerontocracy taken over our law schools? And if it has, what effect do you think that's had?
17 thoughts on “Raw data: The age of law school faculty has skyrocketed”
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One more element leading to elite overproduction (and the consequent genteel viciousness of our times as the elite wannabe's look for any weakness whatsoever in those above them).
BTW it's remarkable in this context to read James Burnham's "The Machiavellians" (~1942). What seems to be insights into political life and sociology that were discovered in the internet age are seen to be have been noted and classified by a variety of thinkers during the 20s and 30s. But most of this was, let's say, not exactly suppressed but "chosen to be ignored" – the only name I recognize from the long list he gives is Pareto, and none of the Pareto material described is at all familiar to me.
Not just the big picture but even details are familiar, for example the existence of a delusion of the time, a fantasy that we all have to pretend we believe in spite of ample evidence to the contrary, only that fantasy was a set of ideas around peace, humanitarianism, and the future of violence-free politics.
I find it remarkable, as someone who has listened to more than a few "Intro to PoliSci" type courses from places like Yale or Berkeley, that none of these insights are part of that baseline curriculum. It's all obeisance to the platitudes of our time, but zero interest in actual correlation with experience. Very much U Paris 1300, with an Overton Window ranging from "Aquinas, isn't he the greatest?" all the way to "Is there anything Aquinas didn't include in Summa Theologica?"
I bring this all up in context because part of Pareto's ideas was the idea of Elite Circulation (which sounds to me like a version 1.0 of Turchin's Elite Overproduction); Pareto's point being that pretty much every society ossifies with its elites becoming a self-sustaining class whose only expertise lies in "getting to the top under the current conditions of my society", and, when this becomes too incompatible with reality, something (war, revolution, ...) re-rolls the dice.
I think the US has many elites who remain fairly competent (in science, in business, even in much of politics) but the non-STEM parts of universities seem an extreme version of Pareto's point. So how does one effect a revolution or war in just one small segment of society? I'm not sure.
Well, considering both our current and prior US presidents are over 70 (Biden one year away from 80), hard to really make a big deal out of it. Being a law professor is not really labor-intensive or physically-demanding work.
It does require being up to date in law, though.
Law doesn't actually change that fast, though, so it's relatively easy for the oldertons to keep abreast of it, and relatively harmless if they don't. There's a reason Learned Hand opinions from roughly a century ago are still taught in 1L torts classes.
The bigger issue with law schools, I think, is the sclerotic approach to instruction--using the foolish socratic method for no real other reason than because back in the 19th century Christopher Columbus Langdell made some dubious comparisons between "Natural Law" and actual laws of nature and by god everyone has had to do it since, so every new student WILL have to do it since.
The emergence and increasing use of clinical education in law school is one of the most positive things to come out of the legal academy in a long time.
What's affected the "legal" part of "legal education" more is the trend over the last 20 years of hiring faculty with little experience practicing law (indeed, significant practical experience, as I was once bluntly told by a prominent prof, is actually a negative), compounded by the trend to hire people with a Ph.D. in some other field they're supposed to integrate into their instruction. Those things together have resulted in legal education growing increasingly out of touch with the field of law. From a legal education perspective, it doesn't matter if it's old guys with little experience doing anything other than teaching or younger profs with little experience doing anything other than teaching (and going to graduate school). The only area in the "old guy" thing matters is that the old guys are going to create more discord and controversy as they fall further and further behind with developments in the cultural norms the newest crop of young law students expect to be respected.
Senior, but not emeritus, faculty, can be very active, or barely active. But it really is, for the most part, their choice to retire. Some just want to hang onto their office. The older faculty are the ones who will have alunni who are not in their prime money donating years--bringing in money from alumni is part of the game.
One of my favorite law professors was an ancient scholar not so old as to be slowing down mentally, but well-on old enough to not give a damn what people thought. He had a crackling, fiery wit, deeply liberal sensibilities, and no compunctions against turning lectures into tirades.
I started law school 33 years ago. There were a number of youngish professors who had started teaching there within the previous 5 years or so. It’s amazing how many of them are still there.
So the proportion of over 70 has increased from less than two percent to more than ten. Just how far beyond 70 does it go? How has the median or average actually changed?
I object to the characterization of this as "skyrocketing". From being practically held to near zero, it has been able to rise to 10 or 15 percent. But is that so large?
I suppose baby boomers reaching age 70 will help this rise for a few more years before it levels out,
This, above all else, is why the tenure system needs to be revisited. Here's the reason for the double digit inflation on tuition.
Older faculty move to administration and their pay increases from ~$125K to $200-$500K (or more). Rotations are typically 3-10 years in admin. They return to their department after some years of years of service at the new pay grade. If they are of good faith, they will try to maintain a program (students, teaching) representative of a faculty member receiving $500K per year. But most cannot do it and too often they become out-of-date teachers. Or they effectively refuse to teach (bad faith actors). It is a royal pain in the ass to fire a tenured faculty member and most administrators will just try to wait them out, or the most daring will try to make them uncomfortable enough to retire. So in the university system the most dynamic teachers, researchers, and thinkers are the poorest paid, untenured assistant professors who the universities try to suck every last ounce out of. While the older ranks are filled with massively overpaid underachievers (today, probably good in the past). All the while the students see tuition increases double that of inflation and buildings that are falling down.
Who gets to keep their job because they are old? It's a corrupt system.
I should add "Who would retire from a $500K/yr job that is nearly impossible to get fired from and has minimal accountability?"....Not many people. I always say that I admire faculty who retire early.
I've known a number of super-annuated faculty that have refused to retire.
Getting tenure doesn't mean you get a life of ease. Your chairman or dean can assign you to a huge teaching load. Reduce your salary. Athe the very least the chairman can ensure that you'll never get another raise in your lifetime. I knew a guy whose
office was moved to a former janitor's closet without a telephone or adequate ventilation. The administration can make your life hell unless you retire.
There are a huge number of tenured Associated Professors in non-STEM fields who won't retire. They prefer the convenient on-campus sem-retirement plan. Meanwhile, their PhD students who still have dreams of academic careers live in their cars and teach as "adjuncts". The system is corrupt!
I find this discussion is missing an important question. Does capability to do a white-collar job significantly diminish by the age of 70? Is there any current information on that subject that would pass a peer review of sociologists, psychologists, or other legitimate scientists in relevant fields?
Branch to anecdotal evidence in a sample of one--
I work fulltime in a construction company that specializes in demolition and hazmat abatement. No, I don't do those things. I work in the office, doing office-type things like writing manuals, doing accounting, developing analysis methods to improve efficiency, writing contracts and reviewing contracts from others, and doing QC of other paperwork before we let it out into the real world.
I do those things pretty well. Not as well as I did when I was sixty, but still pretty well. I work every weekday from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, and extra when it's needed. I just celebrated my 79th birthday. I told my boss I'd like to plan on cutting back to four-day weeks on my next birthday, because I figure it might take an 80-year-old longer to do his Honey-Do's at home.
I would be pretty pissed if somebody told me I have to retire because I'm too old!
On the one hand although this sucks for aspiring professors trying to break into the field, on the other hand, if the retiree/worker ratio continues to grow and if it is the case that non college-educated workers cannot realistically extent their working lives, we're in fact going to need some knowledge workers of all types to work longer and delay their retirements. The Social Security Administration thanks them!
I've seen lots of folks in my working life of office jobs try to hang on long after they should have, some because they needed the salary or health insurance and some because the job was all they had. It was a nightmare to have to clean up their messes or worse have to in effect do their jobs because they couldn't and they were expert kiss up/kick down types.
But on the other hand I do know many oldsters who had a lot to give in their sunset years including family members so I'm NOT on board with a blanket get outta here at a set age - instead we should set the stage to make it favorable for oldsters to retire but not prevent them from staying if they are still making valuable contributions.
Captain Underpants of Cambridge still lectures because even as he gets older, the students stay the same age.
Altright altright altright.