Classroom Dynamics

Number 63 and Abandoned: A Rant From the Forgotten Eighty Percent

Submitted by SDevlin

I’m not in the top twenty of my class. I’m not even in the top twenty percent of my class. In fact, by definition, the majority of my law school class is not in the top twenty percent of my class. Yet, we keep being forgotten by our professors, our deans, and perhaps most noticeably, our career services offices.

Topic: Choosing a Career and Landing a Job
Optional tags: Classroom Dynamics, rankings, career counseling

The other women's career

Submitted by lenagraber

Reading many of these discussions about women dropping out of the legal profession, especially out of big firms, inspired me to look up statistics on women law professors, which as we know are only slightly easier to find than women Senators. If wanting to be a good mother is driving women out of legal practice, how does that explain the shameful dearth of female law professors, particularly tenured ones? An academic schedule seems much more conducive to having a family, and might, in theory, be more about intellectual achievement and less about the aggressiveness that we associate with large firms. With the high numbers of women graduating from law school, why don't the ranks of our own law faculties reflect the student bodies?

Topic: Legal Academia
Optional tags: Professor, Classroom Dynamics, law student

Enfranchising the Classroom

Submitted by Bernadette Meyler

“Why speak more than absolutely necessary in class?,” a law student might wonder with some justification. First-year exams are blind graded, and ill-phrased comments could result in embarrassment in class, or, worse, expose a student to subsequent derision among his or her peers. Women appear to take the potentially negative consequences of volunteering in class more seriously than men though. Several prominent studies have demonstrated that women speak less in law school classes, and word of mouth indicates that that tendency continues at least at some institutions. But why should this matter?