Confessions of a legal-writing teacher, part 6
Confessions of a legal-writing teacher, part 6 of a series.
6. I fret about status.
I have written elsewhere about my dual status as a legal-writing professional. Without repeating that essay here, I'll just say that in some circles I'm considered an important expert on legal writing and in other circles I'm just a writing lecturer.
Legal-writing jobs are not tenured at Texas, but even if they were, the tenure standards here are so demanding that I wouldn't want to attempt to try to make an effort to reach them. I am not exaggerating: the faculty at Texas is top-notch, highly credentialed, and driven. I'd hate to have to compete with them for tenure.
But no one likes to feel like a second-class citizen, and I feel that way sometimes because of my modest salary, my renewable contract, and my lack of opportunities for paid leave, research funding, and endowed chairs.
So I fret. I look at every tenure-track legal-writing job that gets advertised. I wonder if I would be happy at another law school as a "real" law professor. It's foolish really, and my colleagues tell me to brighten up and lighten up. They're right, and here's why.
I teach at a top-20 law school, and the premier law school in the state. I have a rolling 3-year contract that renews for another 3 years every year; short of tenure, that's about as good as it gets. And without the pressure of a tenure vote, I can write and publish on whatever I want whenever I want.
Oh, and I get to live in Austin.
So I may fret, but there's no reason to feel sorry for me.
Next: In the classroom, I mostly "dance with the one that brung ya" and rarely "think outside the box."
____________
Wayne Schiess
Director of Legal Writing | The University of Texas School of Law | Website | Seminars | Articles | Books: Preparing Legal Documents Nonlawyers Can Read and Understand
| Better Legal Writing
| Writing for the Legal Audience
| The Legal Memo: A Basic Guide
6. I fret about status.
I have written elsewhere about my dual status as a legal-writing professional. Without repeating that essay here, I'll just say that in some circles I'm considered an important expert on legal writing and in other circles I'm just a writing lecturer.
Legal-writing jobs are not tenured at Texas, but even if they were, the tenure standards here are so demanding that I wouldn't want to attempt to try to make an effort to reach them. I am not exaggerating: the faculty at Texas is top-notch, highly credentialed, and driven. I'd hate to have to compete with them for tenure.
But no one likes to feel like a second-class citizen, and I feel that way sometimes because of my modest salary, my renewable contract, and my lack of opportunities for paid leave, research funding, and endowed chairs.
So I fret. I look at every tenure-track legal-writing job that gets advertised. I wonder if I would be happy at another law school as a "real" law professor. It's foolish really, and my colleagues tell me to brighten up and lighten up. They're right, and here's why.
I teach at a top-20 law school, and the premier law school in the state. I have a rolling 3-year contract that renews for another 3 years every year; short of tenure, that's about as good as it gets. And without the pressure of a tenure vote, I can write and publish on whatever I want whenever I want.
Oh, and I get to live in Austin.
So I may fret, but there's no reason to feel sorry for me.
Next: In the classroom, I mostly "dance with the one that brung ya" and rarely "think outside the box."
____________
Wayne Schiess
Director of Legal Writing | The University of Texas School of Law | Website | Seminars | Articles | Books: Preparing Legal Documents Nonlawyers Can Read and Understand
| Better Legal Writing
| Writing for the Legal Audience
| The Legal Memo: A Basic Guide
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