Thursday, August 15, 2013

Law Professors in Luxury: The SEALS Shindig at the Breakers in Palm Beach.


(Thank you, law students, for treating 800 of your most cherished law professors to a week of galas and fun-in-the-sun at one of America's poshest oceanfront resorts).

You may be one of those tender-hearted JDs who worries about injustice and inequality in our profession. Perhaps it troubles you that law professors are underpaid with their meager six-figure starting salaries. Or perhaps you can't stop fretting about how law professors are cruelly overworked with their burdensome six-to-nine hour per week teaching loads, plus the expectation that they publish an article every other year or so that nobody will ever read. Fortunately, I can offer you this bit of comfort-- these worthy educators do, sometimes, obtain tiny little perks and treats to compensate them for their immense sacrifices, such as routine five-figure summer research stipends, and such as free week-long summer vacations at the Breakers resort in Palm Beach, Florida. 
 
As described on its website, the Breakers is a "spectacular resort destination on Florida’s Atlantic coast." The site adds that "The Breakers Palm Beach, has lured generations of discerning travelers to its idyllic, Italian-Renaissance setting. Experience the irresistible charm and storied history of this legendary oceanfront resort, which seamlessly blends with an amazing range of modern amenities. Feel the allure of its glamorous yet classic ambiance, the warmth and care of its devoted staff...you will quickly discover why The Breakers is a peerless destination, well beyond what you would expect of the finest luxury hotels and beachfront resorts in North America."  According to the hotel review site Oysters.com, "the sprawling 140-acre resort feels more like a Renaissance palace than a hotel."
 
From August 4th through August 10th, approximately 800 law professors and law deans from all over the country assembled for the Southeastern Association of Law Schools (SEALS) Conference at the Breakers. According to the conference program, the professors held many fascinating panels, workshops, colloquia, and discussion groups. The overwhelming majority of these two to three hour sessions involved ten to twenty moderators and discussants, so it is unlikely that the participating law professors found their scholarly preparation to be too onerous.

There were numerous workshops on various aspects of constitutional law, including one on "Creationism in the Classroom," and another on "The Media and the Supreme Court." There was a "Pecha Kucha" on Professional Responsibility. There were "new scholars colloquia" galore. One "new scholar" gave a presentation on "Legal Ethics and Global Justice." Another gave a presentation called "Seditious Acts of Faith: Government and the Conscience of the Catholic Church." There was a panel  on "The Evolving World of Chinese Real Estate Law." There were two sessions, a panel and a discussion group, on the topic of "Self-Promotion in the Mode of Abraham Lincoln- not P.T. Barnum." A dozen or so imaginative educators held a discussion group entitled "Teaching the Wire: Fiction as a Pedagogical Tool."

Unaccredited Indiana Tech's associate dean, the white-as-dandruff apostle of hip hop and the law andre douglas pond cummings was there, gracing a panel about Business Associations with his (self-described) "dynamic" presence. However, I wonder whether this great fighter for global justice and scourge of all things capitalized found conferencing at a  domestic resort, however elegant, to be a let-down, given that not so long ago he went to Lugano, Switzerland to deliver a talk on his law review article: "Thug Life: Hip Hop's Curious Relationship with Criminal Justice" at a conference on "Intersections of Law and Culture."

The SEALS conference featured high-minded stuff too, such as a panel entitled "Legal Theory, Political Philosophy, and Ethics," in which, according to the conference program, several law professor discussants yapped about how to "engage explicitly and unapologetically in debates about what justice requires and [how] to connect our legal scholarship to larger normative arguments in political philosophy and ethics." And, because the world yearns for more law review articles, there was also big panel of fourteen research deans, led by moderator Jennifer Bard of Texas Tech Law School, who pooled their wisdom in a workshop entitled "Research Deans Talk About What Works (and What Doesn't) on Encouraging Faculty Research and Scholarship." Jennifer Bard, by the way, is the author of a priceless article, published in the "Journal of Legal Medicine," harshly criticizing Brian Tamanaha's book Failing Law Schools for its failure to appreciate how students benefit from law professors' legal scholarship. Maybe she will publish another article describing how students benefit from their professors' galas at the Breakers.
 
Yes, as stated, there were lots of panels, workshops, colloquia, and discussion groups. The good professors all surely attended a couple of these things, or spoke for a few minutes on a panel, but basically this assemblage was for shmoozing and boozing at daily galas and receptions, for golfing (the resort has two 18-hole courses), for sailing and other watersports, for  lazing by one of the resort's five heated oceanfront pools, or its private beach, for shopping in its boutiques, and for being pampered in its full-service spa-- all, of course, in an idyllic Italian Renaissance resort setting, by the beautiful Palm Beach seashore, travel expenses and lodging paid. (Thank you, law students-- or, rather, no thanks offered because the professors take such perks as their lordly due).

I wonder whether any these law professors or law deans had any dim sense of moral unease about throwing themselves such a lavish party on the dime, ultimately, of their students and the public?  I wonder if any of them regarded such luxury as unseemly at a time when so many of their recent graduates are drowning in debt, underemployment, and despair. And I wonder what message shindigs like this send to the practicing bar. If, for example, it were public defenders holding a conference, it would most likely be a local or, at most, a statewide event, held at a Holiday Inn or something. No private beach. And the public defenders would talk about serving clients, not "larger normative arguments in political philosophy" or, uh, self promotion in modes other than that of P.T. Barnum.  
 
Law professors. It isn't just they comport themselves like aristocracy that bugs me, it is that they do so while maintaining a self-image as the sans-culottes.
 
 

26 comments:

  1. At the same time, the American Bar Association pigs met in posh San Francisco.

    These bastards always hold their annual meetings and conferences in places such as Puerto Rico, Hawaii, San Diego, Miami, the Florida Keys, etc. Occasionally, the rats will resort to Chicago and Manhattan.

    There are DOZENS of ABA-accredited trash pits located in Detroit; Lincoln, NE; Little Rock; Des Moines, IA; Carbondale, IL; Newark; Buffalo; Missoula, MT; etc.

    For $ome rea$on, the bitches and hags at SEALS and the ABA do not hold their idiotic, pointless functions in any of those locations. It's not enough that these swine are grossly overcompensated for their minimal "work." Apparently, in their pinhead minds, they are too good for such areas - although they don't mind working at a TTTT in rural Pennsylvania, for a $180K salary.

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    1. SEALS?

      Perhaps CUNTS would be a more appropriate acronym. Don't know what it stands for. Probably just not even an acronym, but the word CUNTS in capital letters because that's what they are.

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    2. Miami hotels in the summer season are cheap. Have you ever been to a conference ski meeting?

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  2. it really is a great resort. first class.

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  3. Louis XIV's parasite nobles feasting while the peasants (students) starve.

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  4. how much should a professor me paid to teach a 3 credit class? I have a few respected individuals who were adjuncts professors at tier 2 and tier 3 schools who made about 10-20k for teaching one class. when they added all the hours it took to prepare the class materials and stuff, it came out to peanuts. one did it a second semester and the "hourly" rate got better, but it was still far lower then he was getting in private practice.

    what do you think a reasonable compensation should be?

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    1. "Full-time" law professors teach 3-6 credits a semester. No exaggeration. They should basically be paid about the same rate as your adjunct friends...or maybe even less, since the adjuncts have meaningful experience to bring to the classroom.

      The full-time professors justify their high salaries based on the amount of time and effort they spend writing "scholarship." They may or may not actually work hard producing this "scholarship," but it is wholly irrelevant, because that work isn't something students should have to pay for.

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    2. $10,000 - $20,000 to teach one class as an adjunct?

      That's extremely well paid. I taught a class once, not too long ago, and I was paid $2,000.

      Those adjuncts have been quiet about being in on the scam, it seems! $10-20K for a three credit evening class once a week. Outrageous.

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    3. My Civ Pro prof did not publish anything for years and taught the same classes year after year. Still screwed cases. Made a nice living for the deep south. I like how in legal academia you are considered a scholar after one year of law school and get to choose whats published. Does that happen in other disciplines?

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  5. Anyone else notice the "Teen Pizza Party" on the program schedule from 6:30 to 7:30 on August 4th? What's up with that? These profs get to bring along the kids for a free vacation as well? Or maybe its a pick-up opportunity for the old lechers.

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    1. The former. these leeches often bring the family along for a vacation.

      Not really a pickup opportunity. As you wesold ow, most law professors are socially handicapped and lack the social skills even to pick up teenagers.

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  6. Every penny would have been much better spent paying off non-dischargable law schools loans.

    In fact, that's what every law school should if it's not willing to disgorge its endowment - use every $ raised in donations to repay its students' non-dischargable loans.

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    1. Meant for the thread below - 8:54 AM

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  7. It is a silly point, so I did not put it in my post-- but how is it that the newest member of the Southeastern Association of Law Schools (SEALS) is the Seattle University School of Law?

    The consensus of geographers does not hold that Seattle is in the Southeast. Many have gone so far as to locate Seattle in the Pacific Northwest.

    Of course, Seattle is southeast of some places-- like Alaska. However, even here the issue is clouded by the fact that the University of Seattle is partnering with the University of Alaska-- so a priceless Seattle U. law degree can be yours without ever leaving Anchorage.

    http://www.law.seattleu.edu/news-and-features/news/2013-news-archives/alaskan-students-closer-to-earning-law-degrees-without-spending-three-years-outside-state

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  8. CUNTS = Council for Unlimited Non-dischargeable Traps for Students?

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  9. Brilliant work. You really ought to look at a few of the crazy summer study abroad programs law schools have come up with in the past decade.

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    1. Yes, it would be enlightening to see descriptions of several worthless "study abroad" summer programs, which basically amount to paid vacations for the profs and a student-loan-funded, month-long party for the students. Compare them with the average indebtedness and salary/employment outcomes for those schools. Should be interesting.

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  10. Law professors are the most useless, arrogant assholes in the world. When they give lectures, it's like listening to Ben Stein speaking in ancient biblical toungues. I would rather buy a Winchester rifle and shoot myself through the mouth than listen to them lean against a chair and drone. Law professors also do paid speaking tours like the one I attended when George W.'s torture master Brian Yoo from UC Berkley gave a garbled, horrendously boring lecture about homeland security to a group of students and law professors.

    Now, listen to me militant liberal law professors, just because I hate George W. Bush does not make me your brother's keeper. Obama is flushing America down the toilet too. And he's putting on rubber boots and using a plunger to get the job done faster. Do not expect Obama to save you, you poor Tom Cooley or Laverne & Shirley law school graduates, he was a law professor too!

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    1. I do not consider myself particularly liberal, but I certainly respect liberals who actually practice what they preach.

      Law professors do not fit in this category. They strongly criticize "greedy corporations" and "the wealthy 1%," but they are just as bad as those they criticize. They are a bunch of elitists who take advantage of idealistic but misguided students. At non-T14 schools (aka most law schools) the professors look down their noses with contempt at their non-elite students, despite the fact that these students are going deeply into debt to support the law professors' comfortable lifestyles.

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    2. Then there is the irony of Pres. Obama being a former constitutional law instructor, and as president being responsible for some of the most egregious violations of the constitution.

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    3. HillaryCare 2016.

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  11. I saw some of my former profs were there along with a classmate who is now a new law professor. I of course I am unemployed and my luxury conference time is searching for a job at my kitchen table. But the frig is close. I guess thats a luxury.

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  12. Maybe focusing on the professors is wrong when the real focus should be on the debtors.

    I mean, does it do any good to worry about how the scammers spend their money, when one is destroyed financially and drowning and seeking financial justice within an overriding governmental system that desires to keep a blind eye on an entire legal discipline known as bankruptcy law and all who practice within it, and moreover drag that discipline and its practitioners daily thru the mud and laugh?

    The pathetic field of US bankruptcy law (which had its balls cut off) and all of anyone involved in it needs some serious help and I am always ready to help the helpless in any field, but I don't have the expertise.






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  13. People should send this article to the law profs that attended the conference.

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  14. I went to the website and checked on room rates for this hotel.

    Got a quote of $880.00

    For one night.

    For one room.

    What's funny is that all these seekers of "social jutice" that rail against the "one percent" have no problem staying in the same luxurious beds where the "one percent" lay their heads.

    Of course, why would they? It's not like they're paying for it themselves.

    Despite their $200K salaries, they'll charge this to the school.

    So some poor kid who's trying to secure a middle-class lifestyle can pick up the check.

    Or some janitor will via taxes, later on down the line when the law school grad can't make the student loan payment because they didn't get a job.

    So what does this cost for a week long conference? $3K, $5K? And that's before their per diem steak and lobster dinners, I'm sure.

    Oh well, back to the grind now. Have to figure out a way to fit "social justice" into some case from the 1850's. Class is just around the corner, and they've only got 3 to 6 hours per week to inculcate these students with the proper values.

    Otherwise they might grow up to be the type of greedy people that stay at places like the Breakers resort, while so many others out there remain so poor.

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    1. Not anything close to $880/night.

      Conference rate was $159/night. Registration for the conference was $160. http://sealslawschools.org/conference-and-hotel-rates/

      But if you want to go to a fancy Public Defender retreat in Las Vegas on the taxpayer's dime:
      http://www.publicdefenderretreat.com/

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