I`ve always told them, “First, consider extra tuition a very expensive hobby.” A typical class of 2 units can pay between $5,000 and $10,000 approximately. In turn, the teacher will probably have to teach about 2 hours per week; say an average of about an hour in transit (remember when people had to drive to and from university?); and probably about 4-6 hours of preparation for the course (much more the first time, maybe a little less late, although there may be new developments every year that would require additional preparation), plus conversations with students after class and outside the classroom and the like. The teacher should also take the exam and then grade, and in many classes he grades students` work (in law school, professors make their own grading instead of delegating to teaching assistants). An extraordinary faculty position is not an entrepreneurial activity. It`s more of a passion project. It`s not something you can do for the money because there aren`t many. If you do, don`t charge your hourly rate. It`s better not to know. There are many rewards to being an appendage, but direct financial rewards are not one of them.
Over the years, many successful lawyers have asked me how they could get a part-time job – a part-time job teaching a specialized course in a subject they know well, usually on a 2-hour weekly block. (A few examples of such categories, but not necessarily the ones I was asked about: commercial crimes; family law mediation; Entertainment Guilds; and of course many others.) If you are taking on a supporting role, incorporate ultra-practical lessons for students. This included, for example, teaching students how to mark a document in red, something most had never done before. As you progress in your career, you may take on more responsibility or notice that you have taken on a leadership role. Based on our career map, an associate professor of law can determine their career goals through career development. For example, they could start with a partner role, rise to a title as owner, and finally finish with the Commissioner of Titles. If you`re thinking about becoming a law professor, you probably know that it`s hard to become a full-fledged professor for life. You need to go to the right school (cough, Yale, cough) and then spend the next few years writing articles and doing research. In any case, many prominent lawyers were willing to teach as adjuncts. This was generally good for students who get teachers with deep expertise and experience. This has been good for law schools that report on material that standard tenure faculty may not know much about, and can offer their students a good mix of courses taught by the research faculty (usually) more theory-oriented and the (usually) more practice-oriented adjunctures.
And presumably it was good for the auxiliaries themselves, in emotional gains, if not financially. Everything about being an associate professor of law took more time and work than I thought, from creating lesson plans to grading documents to meeting with students. I am not writing this to discourage you from pursuing an additional position, but to help you adjust your expectations appropriately. Adjunct law professors tend to earn slightly more than university assistants, but even full-time, none of them would exceed $20,000 per year. If you are a practitioner, this is not a likely sequence of events. But what you can do is become an adjunct – an inexperienced “visiting professor” teaching classes here and there (though increasingly just here and there). If you`ve been toying with the idea of looking for a job as an associate professor of law, I encourage you to really think about it. Law schools need more practising lawyers to integrate their practical knowledge into the curriculum. To meet the requirements of the American Bar Association, the law school eventually switched to the full-time faculty model for mandatory courses. But associate professors have continued to play an important role in achieving the mission of the School of Practical Legal Education by teaching graduate-level electives.
Today, UMM-Cooley`s faculty roster includes 59 full-time faculty and 150 adjuncts.
