Reuters, ABA Eyes More Job Protection For Some Law School Faculty to Undercut 'Caste System':

An American Bar Association proposal to strengthen job protections for untenured law faculty has garnered widespread support, with proponents saying it will help eliminate longstanding hierarchies between different types of professors.

The change under consideration by the ABA’s Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admission to the Bar would require law schools to hire full-time legal writing instructors and other untenured full-time faculty on five-year “presumptively renewable long-term contracts.”

That change would bring legal writing, bar preparation and other typically untenured faculty roles under the same hiring rules and protections as clinical legal professors, though they would still have less job security than tenured and tenure-track professors, who can only be fired for “adequate cause” or extreme “financial exigency.” …

The ABA has received more than 30 public comments in support of the change, most from legal writing and clinical professors, with no opposition thus far. However, several supporters of the change warned that schools might view the proposal as reducing their flexibility in staffing. The public comment period ends Jan. 8.