ABA panel considering bolstering job protections for non-tenure-track law professors
The National Law Journal
July 12, 2011
An ABA committee is leaning toward extending job protections for law school clinicians, writing instructors and other nontraditional faculty in a way that would stop short of traditional tenure.
The Standards Review Committee on July 10 voiced initial support for a proposal to require that schools at least provide full-time faculty members with a "program of presumptively renewable long-term contracts that are at least five years in duration after a probationary period reasonably similar to that for tenure-track faculty members."
The contracts would not provide the same job security as tenure, but would offer more protection than exists at present for many nontenured faculty, who often work under short-term contracts.
The idea is to eliminate inequality between different types of law professors, said vice chairwoman Margaret Barry, a professor at Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law. The committee has yet to decide whether faculty members on long-term contracts should have the same voting rights regarding faculty promotions that tenured faculty enjoy.
