Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

Christo Lassiter and Sharlene Boltz have had a divorce more protracted than most. Their marriage commenced in 1986 and ended in 1996. Since then, they have each used the court system as their personal attack dog. The divorce case now exceeds 1400 docket entries, with two lawsuits remaining to be decided.

Our concern however, is with law school and its diminishing value to students and society. To that end, let's see whether they were able to keep their end of the bargain as law professors: producing "scholarship" and teaching. Both of these fine individuals became law professors in 1991.

Christo Lassiter:
His complete index of publications can be found here. Since 1991, Mr. Lassiter created 10 articles and gave 4 presentations. Make note, however, that after 2000, all he has done in the way of "scholarship" is publishing two articles in 2007.

Does he make it up with an increased teaching load? To some extent. He teaches the following courses:

• Antitrust
• Criminal Law
• Criminal Procedure I
• Criminal Procedure II
• White Collar Crime

Of these five, my experience indicates that the only courses that are taught with any regularity are Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure. Antitrust and White Collar Crime are likely seminar courses offered when Mr. Lassiter feels like it.

I'm using Brian Tamanaha's estimate that a single class takes 5 hours per week of a professor's time during the semester.

So, Mr. Lassiter is probably working 10 hours, maximum 20, per week regularly.

Sharlene Boltz:
Ms. Boltz's body of "scholarship" is short enough that I can list it as follows:

I HAVE A TESTIMONY, WinePress Publ'g (2002)
From Hoof To Hamburger: The fiction of a safe meat supply, 33 Willamette L. Rev. 411 (1997)
Hein   LexisNexis   Westlaw
What Is A Lawyer Really Worth? An examination into the true value of attorney labor, 25 Cumb. L. Rev. 23 (1994)
Hein   LexisNexis

Notice that she hasn't produced any scholarship since 2002, and only three articles since 1994.

Does her teaching load make up for it? She teaches the following courses.  

• Contracts I
• Contracts II
• Domestic Violence Prosecution & Trial
• Domestic Violence Seminar
• Introduction to Legal Studies
• UCC: Payment Systems
• UCC: Sales & Secured Transactions

Well, she's a little more of a hard worker in the classroom than her ex. I'm assuming that she teaches Contracts, the UCC classes, and Introduction to Legal Studies regularly. The Domestic Violence courses are probably seminars.

Again using Tamanaha's estimate, she's working 15 hours, maximum 20, in the semesters she teaches three courses. Otherwise, she's working as much as Mr. Lassiter.

Finally, here are the costs to attend each school for three years, courtesy of Law School Transparency:
University of Cincinnati: For non residents, $213,606; for residents: $150,797
Northern Kentucky: For non residents: $185,919; for residents: $118,379

So, these two role models for budding legal minds have spent parts of three decades attacking each other in court, while being paid handsomely to work part time. I have been an attorney on divorce cases, and know how time intensive they are. So, while their students take on astronomical amounts of debt at each of these mediocre schools, these two see fit to spend the majority of their time over the last seventeen years on a divorce proceeding that has now outlasted the original marriage by seven years. How much lower could tuition have been at their respective schools if these two wastes of space actually held up their end of the bargain instead of treating their law professor careers as a way to fund their personal animus against each other? Honestly, I'd be less angry if they had students drafting all the motions, because then at least a few of them would be somewhat practice ready.

At this point, reading about law schools is like reading about third world countries where all the money is pocketed by government officials while the citizens starve.

Note: I made some minor grammatical edits to this post after it went up.