Posted by Eugene Volokh:
Stop Law Porn:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_07_26-2009_08_01.shtml#1248905961
That's the advice from an [1]e-mail quoted by Prof. Glenn Reynolds
(InstaPundit):
As you can tell by my e-mail, I work for �- Law School. I am one of
the faculty assistants; we sort the incoming mail for the
professors. We get a LOT of mail from law schools looking to
advance in the U.S. News Rankings � and I�ve worked for both
faculty hiring committee chairs and new professors, so I know that
this is a lot of mail, everything from postcards and brochures to
law school alumni magazines.
If I could say just one thing to all law schools who do this, and
the deans who think it�s a good idea: STOP. It is a bad idea. It
has no effect on your rankings, and in all likelihood it�s hurting
them. The professors who receive this pile of extra junk mail call
it �law porn.� Every professor that I know of who gets these
instructs us assistants to put it all straight into the trash. They
call it a waste of paper � very expensive glossy paper. One told me
that it�s actually a negative � the more law porn a school sends
him, the more he marks it down on the rankings � and I�m not sure
he was kidding. Most of it is academic conference brochures for
schools on the other coast in subjects the professors receiving
them do not teach in. 50+ page alumni magazines are probably the
biggest wastes. But one law school went the extra mile and actually
sent separate postcards announcing each of its new faculty hires
for the last year, four or five in all, which particularly annoyed
the professors here. If these schools want to improve their US News
rankings, it�d probably be better to take the money spent on this
law porn, which nobody will read, and use it for something else
that does improve rankings � more library volumes, for instance. Or
better professors.
I can't say that "the more law porn a school sends [me], the more [I]
mark[] it down on the rankings"; I don't have the spare neurons to
keep such a hit list. But indeed, all those glossy publications go
straight into the recycling bin.
References
1. http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/82711/
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