The Professor Paradox

This is a general rant that has been building internally since I started law school. I’ve alluded to it often and maybe even given it a modicum of attention on the blog. I’m speaking, of course, of the hypocritical behavior possessed by nearly all law professors. With slight exception, I’ve found each of the following rules to be true:

1. You hold us to a strict attendance policy where you punish those of us who show up a moment or two late by Socrating our obviously flustered asses, but nobody screams at you and disparages your intelligence when you show up seven minutes late because you lost track of time sitting in your office fucking around on the internet.

2. You continue speaking long after the class period has ended and you know damn well what time it is. You say something like, “I’ll give you back the time next class” – but you that never happens. And because we are all now late to our next class, we will be Socraticly pillaged by our next professor. See Rule 1.

3. Heaven forbid our cell phone goes off in your class. You think it’s funny to harass the student who forgot to silence their phone, but nobody can discipline you when you rudely take a five minute phone call from your fat-ass wife. I’m sure she fucking loves Gargoyles but perhaps you two can discuss this later? At a time when I’m not paying $500 an hour?

4. You are routinely asked basic questions by us that you fail to answer or comprehend yet you lose your shit when we misinterpret your outrageously complex hypotheticals.

5. You didn’t cover the material in class but it’s still on the exam? Remember that first day in class when you told us that we needed you to decipher the oh so complicated cases? Truth is, the material is not difficult and you are extremely overpaid.

Law professors do not respect their students. They get their jollies off treating us like shit. Yet they demand us to show them a huge amount of admiration. I understand that they are the authority and the teacher, but I feel like I would learn much more if I could have a respectful dialog about the issues with my professors.

I’m not engaged in class, I’m assaulted in class. I don’t care about the law, I care about not looking stupid in class.

2 Responses to “The Professor Paradox”

  • Anonymous:

    how is this any different from undergrad?

  • Yo:

    That sucks man. I guess you’re in a bad section. I’ve yet to have a prof at HLS do any of those things.

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