Reflections on AALS 2015

There are few better ways to start the New Year than with a smooth, slow descent over the Potomac at night with the Capitol and the Washington Monument illuminated in the distance. It provides a few moments to reflect on the past year, and to try to envision what we need to do to ensure that our students, children, and grandchildren have the same professional, personal, and economic opportunities with which we ourselves have been blessed. Our world is changing. 

In 2014, the China overcame the United States as the world’s leading economy. But don’t worry. We still have a number of other distinctions. For example, we continue to lead the world in environmental pollution per capita (China leads when measured by total volume). We also remain the world’s largest military power. In fact, our military spending is more than the next ten highest military spending countries combined. We also are far ahead when it comes to the percentage of our population in prison (700 inmates per 100,000 people), and the U.S. population continues to experience the greatest inequality in the world among developed nations. We remain a world leader in some ways, unfortunately. 

So when I walked into the 2015 AALS Annual Meeting boasting the title, “Legal Education at the Crossroads,” I was hopeful that there would be discussions rich and lively focusing on the ways that we, as legal educators, can provide leadership—through scholarship, teaching, and service—to a nation in decline. The crisis that we are witnessing in legal education is not unique to us. But our opportunity is. Would we embrace it, I wondered?

A “Hot Topic/Bridge Program” focused on our nation’s racial issues kicked off the annual meeting on Saturday, but as I talked to colleagues from around the country in the hallways of the Wardman Park Hotel, I heard tales of lukewarm responses by many law schools to racial inequality issues, and at least one tenured colleague at a Midwestern law school told me of her experience being aggressively criticized by her law school administration for providing legal advice to students who were arrested during Ferguson-related protests.

As I sought panels and presentations focused on diversity, inclusivity, and justice, I was greeted with a variety of sessions focused on overcoming persistent discrimination in legal academia, strategies for nurturing diverse leaders in law schools, and the identification of higher education as a public good whose integrity must be protected from the widespread corporatization of America and transformation of our democracy (at least ideally) into a plutocracy. But, at times, even these disappointed as some panelists conveyed a deep entrenchment in a defensive position of academic entitlement that none of us can afford to embrace.

This is not 1973 and none of us is Professor Kingsfield. No longer can we stand at the podium and look down at our students, assured that both their futures and ours are assured. They are not. Law school teaching in the 21^st century requires us to stand next to our students, and to partner with them. Our success is tied to theirs, as is America’s. If we cannot effectively and efficiently train the next generation of attorneys to understand the rule of law without burying them in massive debt, they will be unable to promote and passionately defend that same rule of law, which underpins our entire civilization.

Instead of asking these big questions, many discussions focused on travel funding and course loads and the potential of externships to save us from our obligation to create “practice ready” law school graduates. Don’t get me wrong. I had a fabulous time hearing marriage advice from Justice Ginsburg and getting a hug from Anita Hill—two of my heroines. But when the excitement of legal celebrity sightings wears off, I couldn’t help but return to room number 4216, and wonder how many more smooth landings I will be able to enjoy over the Potomac. There seems to be rough weather ahead, at least to me.