TY - JOUR
T1 - Law School Climates
T2 - Job Satisfaction Among Tenured US Law Professors
AU - Barnes, Katherine Y.
AU - Mertz, Elizabeth
N1 - Funding Information: We thank Dr. Frances Tung for her invaluable oversight of both phases, managing everything with her usual grace and positive attitude; Frances, sine qua non. We owe a deep debt of gratitude to Wamucii Njogu for her contribution as a co-PI on the original survey, and Molly Heiler for her energetic work as project manager during earlier stages of the research. We are also very grateful to the American Bar Foundation, which has provided vital financial and institutional support throughout (Senior Status—Phases 1 & 2). Our thanks also are owed to the Law School Admission Council for a generous grant (GR 11-02) that helped to fund the project. The National Opinion Research Council (NORC) at the University of Chicago performed telephone follow-up calls during Phase 1, and conducted all the interviews in Phase 2. We thank Martha van Haitsma and Kelly Daley at NORC, as well as Susan Gooding, who served as project manager for Phase 2 interviewing at NORC. Sandy Longworth did extensive work on the transcripts during Phase 2, managing the critical job of de-identifying while also double-checking transcriptions. Publisher Copyright: © 2018 American Bar Foundation.
PY - 2018/3/1
Y1 - 2018/3/1
N2 - In this article, we combine quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate why post-tenure law professors of color and women professors within the US legal academy are differentially dissatisfied with their work lives. Previous social science research has indicated lingering difficulties for professionals from traditionally marginalized groups as they advance to higher levels. Post-tenure law professors have been understudied relative to similar senior-level professionals. Mixed methods allow us to isolate institutional structure and implicit cultural bias as key mediators of this dissatisfaction, converging on issues of respect, voice, and collegiality as crucial. We use the example of the legal academy to show how empirical research can shed important light on the realities of legal professionals—here, the faculty who are training the next generation of US attorneys. Following in the new legal realist tradition, we demonstrate the power of mixed empirical methodologies for grasping social realities pertinent to law.
AB - In this article, we combine quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate why post-tenure law professors of color and women professors within the US legal academy are differentially dissatisfied with their work lives. Previous social science research has indicated lingering difficulties for professionals from traditionally marginalized groups as they advance to higher levels. Post-tenure law professors have been understudied relative to similar senior-level professionals. Mixed methods allow us to isolate institutional structure and implicit cultural bias as key mediators of this dissatisfaction, converging on issues of respect, voice, and collegiality as crucial. We use the example of the legal academy to show how empirical research can shed important light on the realities of legal professionals—here, the faculty who are training the next generation of US attorneys. Following in the new legal realist tradition, we demonstrate the power of mixed empirical methodologies for grasping social realities pertinent to law.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85041194307&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - https://doi.org/10.1111/lsi.12350
DO - https://doi.org/10.1111/lsi.12350
M3 - Article
SN - 0897-6546
VL - 43
SP - 441
EP - 467
JO - Law and Social Inquiry
JF - Law and Social Inquiry
IS - 2
ER -