The "Market" Does Not Drive Law Professor Salaries High

A few days ago, someone a level-headed, but misguided, anonymous comment on my post about the UNLV budget cuts:

(2) Law professors are indeed paid more than virtually any other professional/grad school instructors --- because the market provides that. Med School instructors earn a lot, too, for the same reason. They can go elsewhere or go into the profession itself (practice medicine, practice law) and be paid better than they are as professors. The world might well be a better place if the dedicated professor of whatever stripe were paid the same, be that person a teacher of philosophy, art, literature, or law --- and if all those professors were paid the same as someone who practices as an attorney --- but the market isn't that way.

First, this is a straw man - I never advocated that all professors be paid equally, nor would I.

Second, and more importantly, the "market" is not what dictates that law professor salaries are some of the highest in the business. If normal market forces were actually applied to legal education, professor salaries would drop immediately. Why? Well, the system has been producing an excess of 10k+ people each year who are qualified to teach the subject matter. In some cases, the excess actually being more qualified in the particular subject matter because they've recently passed a stringent bar exam that actual law professors have not.

Law is not brain surgery. There are thousands of people, many of whom are unemployed and have otherwise-great credentials, who are perfectly qualified to teach torts, property, legal research, and anything other than the most sophisticated courses. In normal supply-and-demand terms, there is a massive oversupply and fairly low demand. The nation only needs about 650-800 people who can teach contracts or torts or civil procedure each year, but there are literally thousands upon thousands of qualified people who would gladly take those jobs.

And it's not like people don't want the job. Tenure, even at a fourth-tier toilet, is a career landmark. Elite-graduate BigLaw associates regularly run back to academia after 3-5 years, sometimes because they aren't working out and other times because they'd just rather work a relatively easier schedule for a very handsome wage than work a mind-breaking schedule for a slightly handsomer wage. Assuming it's true that law professors could make more in private practice, many of them would regularly turn down the lucre for allegedly-lower salaries teaching law school. But that is NOT a valid reason to keep law professor salaries high. If anything, it provides a reason why law professor salaries should be lower, namely that, apparently, there are job perks that compensate the attorney for the lower salary.

But we don't even have to address that logical fallacy because there's a bigger one before it: most law professors would not make what they make as faculty members in private practice. Many of them became law professors solely because they couldn't make bank in private practice. It's not uncommon to have law teachers who aren't even members of the state bar. And the option to be an adjunct professor seems to cut out any possibility that tenured law professors are regularly leaving large sums of money on the table. Honestly, human nature being what it is, no one is going to leave 500k+ on the table to take a law professor job for "only" 200k, especially when the professor could make the 500k+ and teach a class or two in order to meet their desire to educate the next generation. A lot of good teachers do just that, and for the most part those not affiliated with BigLaw aren't making it rich.

Above all, the schools' only actual task is to teach its students how to be lawyers. Law professors generally have no requirements beyond having a J.D., and very few law schools require that their professors were actually successful in practice. Nor did they have to take - or do well - in the class they now teach. As the market for legal services shrinks and the number of bar members increases, it's simply absurd to continue paying professors $150k+ for a job that would have no shortage of qualified applicants if it listed for $65k and benefits.

But as we all know, there are forces that distort the market at play. First is the tenure system, whose place is secured by the ABA and the AALS and ensures that certain members of the old guard will be back next year. Second, there's this absurd emphasis on "prestige" driven mostly by things like the US News and World Report rankings. There's no natural need for law professors to have studied at a T-14 and yet, for the most part, those are the people who wind up on the faculty rolls. This focus unduly narrows the labor pool, which is a factor is having higher salaries. This is, of course, ridiculous. No real business operates this way. If you need a plumber, you don't care who went to the best trade school. You care only who can fix the damn pipes. Teaching torts should be no different.

And yet it is. The schools can get away by being thriftless and overpaying people who have relatively cushy, low-stress jobs because they themselves are exempt from normal market forces. Specifically, demand becomes artificially inflated because loans are more or less guaranteed. Meanwhile, the law schools have a monopoly that limits supply only to those who agree to their principles regarding things like professor tenure. This allows the schools to raise prices and force consumers to essentially subsidize their professors' unduly high salaries.

Thus, it is only because there are significant market distortions that law professors are paid what they are. The market is not dictating anything; on the contrary, the powers that be prevent the market from actually functioning properly.

Third, I'd like to reiterate the problem with UNLV's budget proposal. Whereas the dental school decided to cut faculty salaries - even though there is a much lower supply of dentists than there is lawyers - not one law professor was going to have his salary decrease as a result of the cuts. Not one, even though an analogous professional trade school with stricter entrance requirements willingly cut faculty salaries. That is blatant fiscal irresponsibility by the university. It's also a disregard for their moral duties as educators and a slap in the face to any notion of "social justice."

If the UNLV law professors can make more money in private practice, they should quit immediately. But I don't believe that, and neither should anyone else. And even if it were true, it would be best for everyone if they went to private practice and let the university hire others at lower salaries.

After all, like I said, it isn't like there's a shortage of people who can do this work; this isn't quantum physics. Throw a rock on the strip and you'll probably hit an attorney who can teach legal writing. The fact that current law professors have set up a white collar union that has suckered people into believing they're worth the cost doesn't change that fact.