SAN FRANCISCO ― When Stephanie Sciullo learned that Duquesne University law school officials sought more courses based on actual practice, she drafted a proposal. Sciullo specified the target audience, why she was qualified to teach and why the timing of her proposed course supported institutional priorities.
Before long, Duquesne hired Sciullo, an associate general counsel at Mine Safety Appliances Co., as adjunct law faculty. Ironically, the University of Pittsburgh law school, where she is an alumna, initially passed but has since hired her as an adjunct instructor based on her success at Duquesne.
“I don’t handle rejection well,” Sciullo said with a smile, referring to her persistence with her alma mater.
Her remark came during the annual meeting last week of the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC), a 40,000-member organization that promotes common professional and business interests of in-house lawyers who work at corporations, associations and private-sector businesses in 85 countries. The annual conference not only draws corporate lawyers but also representatives from law firms and legal service providers.
Sciullo and others were panelists at a session titled “So You Want to Teach Law School.” The wide-ranging session offered tips on how to break into academia, how to juggle teaching part-time alongside practicing law full-time, advice about pitfalls to avoid and cautioned participants about some of the arcane ironies entwined with the ivory tower.
For instance, practicing lawyers shouldn’t get their hopes up about gaining tenure, the panelists said, because most of the law professoriate is made up of career theoreticians—and deliberately so.
“There are exceptions, but people who teach law usually don’t want to practice,” said Michael Roster, a law school lecturer at the University of Southern California and former general counsel and law firm partner. In response to the quizzical facial expressions of some session participants, Roster added, “Imagine if medical school was taught by people who never practiced medicine.”
