Legal practitioners find the leap into academia difficult; scholars recommend non-academicians get assistance with the ‘nuanced’ application process.
University of California, Davis law professor Bill Hing is often approached by Asian lawyers wanting to channel their passion from the practice to the classroom. But the how-to’s that he shares about making that transition illustrate a complex, perhaps daunting process.
While some Asian Pacific Islanders do in fact decide the process is worth the time and effort, more than a few grow discouraged. The latter decide to remain practitioners — and sometimes never again entertain the idea of teaching.
This contributes heavily, educators say, to today’s dearth of a formal Asian Pacific Islander pipeline into the law professoriate.
In addition, it contributes to their underrepresentation among law faculty nationally. In 2007-2008, just 2.5 percent (264 total) of the country’s 10,780 full-time law school faculty were Asian Pacific Islanders, according to the Association of American Law Schools (AALS). Yet the pool from which to draw would-be teachers is deep; the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association touts on its Web site that it represents the interests of some 40,000 attorneys.
The dearth of Asian law professors is disturbing to some, considering the growth among Asians entering law school. As recently as last fall, Asian Pacific Islanders were the largest proportion of non-White, first-year law students at more than 8 percent nationally, according to the Law School Admission Council. And the 3,258 law degrees conferred on Asian Pacific Islanders in 2005 marked a 54 percent jump from a decade earlier, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
“I’m shocked to hear of such disparity in this day and age between Asian law students and faculty,” says Dr. Wallace Loh, University of Iowa executive vice president and provost who started teaching law in 1974.
