My own crack pot theory is that peacocking (lonely, competitive) can be less prevalent in practice because practice can be much more of a meritocracy than academia. If as an individual you obtain good results for your clients, or do good work for the partner supervising you, your reputation improves. By contrast, in academia, one’s individual reputation remains tied to mostly institutional proxies (rankings, rankings, and more rankings). The net result is that academia strikes me as a less meritocratic place than practice (at least in my own experience), and could be one additional explanation of the angst that Michael Livingston has observed.

One final thought: maybe a desire for more “meritocracy” in academia could be fueling the popularity of the blogosphere and of SSRN downloads. Blogs and SSRN numbers do serve as external validation, but these two measures seem to more directly validate the individual than do the more traditional institutional measures (rankings, rankings, and more rankings).

Professors may or not get formal reviews yearly, but the feedback loop from students is probably more frequent than the feedback I get from customers.

I think the challenge of getting feedback in a job without meaures is prevalent in every proffession that people work with autonomy.

Maybe this is why law professors love to talk about the rankings or SSRN downloads. That’s our external validation.

David Hoffman: B-

(just kidding)

Law professors are a competitive lot, and many crave some sense of external validation and recognition of their work. But I strongly doubt that law professors are unhappy. In fact, I’ve hardly encountered an unhappy law professor. As far as tenure serving as a way to “alleviate suffering,” the idea strikes me as a bit ridiculous. In my experience, those professors driven to produce scholarship will keep on producing it as much after tenure as before. And I doubt that what drives them will change with tenure.